Special day…

Gee!!! How time flies! In the blink of an eye, a week has gone past since my birthday.

Well, of course, first thing in the morning, we had the Foochow longevity noodles, the mee sua (thread/string noodles) served in chicken soup cooked with our traditional red wine…

…and after that, we had the birthday cake…

…that my girl stayed up till past midnight the night before just to make for me and yes, it was very nice…

– it was an orange cake and the texture of the cake and the fragrance of the orange were just right, with just the right amount of fresh orange zest and pulp added, not too strong like some that we get sometimes from the shops (probably that would be mostly essence)…and the colour was not as dark either (probably that would be mostly colouring).

Of course, after all those, we could not possibly have lunch anymore that day and at around noon, my good friend, Lim, and his kids dropped by to give me this cake…

– the Dark Bavarian or something from this bakery in town. Wasn’t that so very sweet of them to go through all that trouble? I have driven past this bakery a number of times but I never once stopped by to check it out. The cake was very very light, not sweet and very nice – I must make it a point to drop in at the shop one of these days to see what else they have in store.

That evening, my girl insisted on taking me out to dinner, a special one to celebrate my birthday, and we decided to drop by this place…

…that we had not had the opportunity to go to for a long long time now, not since that one time when it first opened. Good grief! Has it been THAT long? They are celebrating their 1st Anniversary now and everything is currently going at special discounted prices…

Now, that’s just great, isn’t it? Most places, or those around here, at least, would just let their anniversaries go by unnoticed…and carry on as usual, as long as the money keeps rolling in.

The seafood chowder (RM10.50)…

…was very nice – it could have been just a little thicker as it was a bit on the watery side but it was good and we did enjoy it very much.

Now, these buffalo chicken cheese balls (RM9.50)…

…sure took the cake, so to speak. They were very very nice – chicken meat balls with cheese inside…

…coated with bread crumbs and deep fried, and they were quite big too – a bit bigger than golf balls. We enjoyed them very much and immediately made plans to try and make our own one of these days.

My missus had this seafood ariabata (RM19.00)…

…the last time we were here – I guess she had forgotten all about it – but she wanted that again as she saw in the description that it would be served in some spicy tomato-based sauce. It was not spicy at all though but it was all right, not bad…and an improvement from the last time now that they garnished it with a sprig of parsley, not Chinese celery like before.

The Irish lamb stew (RM25.00)…

…was superb – their coleslaw was as good as ever and I liked the fact that the mashed potatoes were not so fine, exactly the way I would make mine, and nothing like the ones at some places where they probably used  a blender or those that came out of a box.

They did not have any choices when it came to dessert, just their bread pudding served with yam ice cream (RM6.50)…

…which was all right, nothing to shout about…but at least, it wasn’t pricey unlike what we would get at some other places around town.

Iced water was free but the prices of the drinks may be on the high side. My missus had their Blue Lagoon mint fizz (RM7.90) while my girl had the red berries smoothie (RM9.90) but of course, berries, cherries and all those cost a bomb, if at all we can get them here.

All in all, it was a delightful dinner at this lovely place with nice Christmas songs being played at just the right volume – not so loud as in some places…and the people were very nice and friendly, conversant in English and rightfully so, considering that this IS a western restaurant…plus the service was very good too. I would say it was a perfect closing to the just-in-the-family celebration of my 63rd birthday…