Start the day…

My friend, Mary, went off to Adelaide, Australia, to see her girl there and when she came home, my very old friend, Jasmine, there sent me these goodies…

…through her and these too…

…thank you so much to you, Jasmine – that was indeed so thoughtful and generous of you…and thanks also to Mary for bringing them all the way!

I was very sure there were two packets of the Tim Tams when I started taking out everything for the “photography session” but when I was arranging the stuff, there was only one and I just assumed that I must have been mistaken earlier. When it was all over, I started putting the things back into the bag and there it was! On the bench where I was sitting, right beside the bag. Sighhhh!!!! A sign of old age, I guess – very typical of elderly folks like me.

I had gone to the market early that morning and after getting all that I wanted, I dropped by the restaurant to pick up the things and since I was up and about early in the morning, I decided to take the opportunity to have breakfast there.

Yes, they do open for breakfast, 7.00 a.m. onwards and they are open 7 days a week because they have the special arrangement with the hotel where the restaurant is located to serve breakfast to the room guests every morning.

I’ve tried the “kampua” before, the Thai-style kampua by Jos (RM5.90)…

…Jos being the name of the Thai chef there. The only thing kampua about it is the noodles used, our locally-produced kampua mee but other than that, it would not be anything like our local version of the noodles in any coffee shop round town…and of course, being located in a hotel, you would not find any lard nor pork in it. However, that does not mean in any way that it is not nice – just that it is something completely different. Otherwise, why would I want to have that again since I had tried it before?

As a matter of fact, there are some very nice pork and lard-free kampua noodles at the Malay coffee shops and stalls like here for instance and also at this one and when I cook my own at home, I just fry sliced shallots in cooking oil and use that and needless to say, it tastes great too. I sure enjoyed the slices of fish cake…

…a lot more than the usual red-coloured boiled char siew wannabe. I was wondering about those brown bits used for garnishing – they tasted great so I asked Mary and she said they were fried garlic. Of course, in our regular plate of kampua mee, there is usually no garlic so that would give one a fair idea as to how different this is from the real thing but yes, it is a nice change from the usual – just don’t come here and order this and expect it to be the same as what one is accustomed to.

Mary gave me this chicken rice chili dip…

…to go with it but I only used a little of that. It was nice enough on its own.

I also ordered the kampung eggs with toast (RM5.90)…

…as I have seen people sharing photographs of those on Facebook and I was kind of attracted by the orange colour…

…of the yolk. I’ve tried those supposedly healthier organic eggs before and no, I did not like them. They do not have that chow chor egg smell or taste that I enjoy. I wonder if they also serve this using regular eggs but anyway, I did  not think that was butter on the toast so I did not get very excited about it too. It might as well have been plain, plain toast to dip in the egg and eat.

Now you would not believe this! Mary said that the eggs were very fresh, just delivered fro the farm, and insisted that I took a tray home. That was so nice of her, thank you so so much! My girl likes these kampung eggs so of course, I would let her take some to her jungle school to enjoy. Normally, she would buy those at the shops and supermarkets or the Omega-3 ones…but of course, those, if truly organic, would not be as fresh as these from Mary.

There are other things on their breakfast menu, one being porridge which I did not try, but I don’t think I will be back here for breakfast again all that soon because normally, I would not be out and about jalan jalan cari makan (looking for things to eat) that early – usually way after 10, by which time they would be about to close, and they will reopen for lunch every day (except Wednesdays) at 12 noon till 2.00 p.m. and dinner will be from 6.00/6.30 onwards (also except Wednesdays).