A Halloween List

1. Sometimes, the better pictures are taken on your cell phone.  The kids just happen to all look and smile at once.  This is just the luck of the draw. 

2. My oldest does a great Tim Tebow.  I think he's praying for Three Musketeers bars.

3.  "Old Guys" need canes, quirky personalities and funny faces to be effective.  LLG is the perfect "Mr. Jenkins."

Don't ask.

4.  I love nothing more than to stop my kids in the middle of something exciting and fun, such as the start of trick-or-treating, and ask them for a picture.  Only cool moms do this, because we carry our giant cameras everywhere.

5.  After about five houses, toddlers inevitably start to fall behind the big kids.  To put it lightly, this pissed Strawberry off.  

6.  Beer and candy go very well with trick-or-treating.

7.  Dad's drinking beer get the job of walking tired, pissed off toddlers up and down hills for candy.

8.  My two middle munchkins are still best friends.  There had to be twenty kids in our group and they still walked together, waited for eachother and decided when to call it a day.

9.  #8 makes me cry.  It also makes me wish I convinced my daughter to be an "Old Lady."  They would have been the perfect, gray haired pair.

10.  Every year, I give the munchkins a sandwich bag and tell them to fill it with their favorite candies.  They are allowed to keep this bag in their room, and have a piece or two whenever they wish.

The rest is either tossed, brought to work or baked into desserts.  This year we are donating the rest to a dentist who will be shipping the candy overseas to our troops.  Isn't that the most fabulous idea?

Hope you all had a stellar Halloween.  I know we did.  If you'll excuse me, I need to squeeze in a few more candies before November.

Cheers!

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Homemade Chocolate Cakes at Chocolicious House in Johor Baru, Malaysia

Chocolicious House was started by an enterprising young couple Yan and Aida early this year.

Word about Chocolicious House's delicious chocolate cakes spread quickly through word of mouth and on the Internet.

 

The lusciously delicious chocolate cakes were spongy soft, moist and not overly sweet. (I am eating them as I wrote this :) ) They are definitely addictive and people have found them very hard to put down, once they've started.

 

The little cakes are made using Yan's mum's own recipe. Yan has been watching and helping his mum make cakes at home since he was a child. So, it is little wonder then that Yan is so passionate about his cakes.

 

Aida too has learnt the fine art from Yan and his mum.

 

The freshly steamed chocolate cakes.

Customers order Chocolicious House's chocolate cakes to enjoy at home, and the large orders are for functions like weddings and corporate events. For functions, Yan put these bite size chocolate cakes in pretty little boxes that make attractive door gifts and souvenirs. Yan has an artistic flair and he painstakingly hand decorates each pretty little box. (I must remember to take a picture of these boxes, next time.)

Yan and Aida are getting more catering orders for functions now as word got around about their delicious cakes in pretty little gift boxes.

 

Yan and Aida are very enterprising and accommodating to customer requirements. For example, they can set up dessert tables for functions according to customer specifications. Yan and Aida already has plans underway to expand their range of cakes to include baked items. Chocolicious House will also be launching special goodies for the coming Chinese New Year. They plan that far ahead :)

Chocolicious House has orders from JB (of course) and also from as far away as Malacca and KL. Orders have even come from Singapore.

As no preservatives were used in Chocolicious House's cakes, it is best to eat the cakes within 3 days of purchase. Yan and Aida have never heard of any problems with that as Chocolicious cakes are so irresistible, they won't be around for that long anyway.

Restaurant name: Chocolicious House
Contact: Yan on 0127100886 or Aida on 0172211231.
Halal

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Pumpkin Bread

We always have company for dinner on Halloween.

I always make soups, usually at least 3 of them!

I love, love. love pumpkin, and decided to try a new recipe for Pumpkin Bread to go along with the soups!

steamy out of the oven

i got on the internet and started surfing around a bit and came across this recipe that was posted on a 

blog called Sweet Pea's Kitchen

Pumpkin Bread

For the bread:

1- 15oz can of pumpkin puree

4 eggs

1/2 c vegetable oil

1/2 cup butter melted

2/3 cup water

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

For the glaze:

1 cup + 3 Tbls powdered sugar

2 Tbls milk

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour 2-9x5 loaf pans. 

In a large bowl with a whisk, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, butter, water, sugars and spices.  

In another bowl combine flour and soda, and add to wet mixture, stir until blended.

Pour into loaf pans.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool bread and mix up the glaze.

Drizzle glaze on the warm bread, slice and enjoy!! 

Our Boxer sure did!!

The Boxer's NOSE, KNOWS!!

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It's a Hurricane Halloween

Tomorrow is Halloween.  After the past few days, it's tough to believe it's trick-or-treat time already.  My kids have had no school since last Friday, and tomorrow will be another day off.

Kind of difficult to have school when there is no electricity.

Hurricane Sandy blew in Monday afternoon at about 4pm, with wind picking up and rain blowing sideways.  Our power went out at 4:30 pm, immediately after a large gust of tropical storm wind.  My Facebook post said something to the effect of, That's all she wrote...power out....because we were certain that once power went out, that was it.

For days.

With our generator running, we played an intense game of "Headbandz" with the kids.  I realized three things while playing Headbandz:

1.  It's an awesome game.

2.  I'm really, really bad at it. 

3.  My kids are smart enough to look at themselves in the window reflection and see what is on their Headband.  Little cheaters.

Here, is Moopa wearing her Headband.  When my middle two munchkins weren't cheating, Moopa was walking around telling us what was on our "headbandz."  It made for a very entertaining game.

After a few games of getting my butt kicked because I didn't realize I was playing with miniature cheaters, we cleaned up for a family movie.  I was just about to suffer through selecting a movie we all would enjoy when, with a flicker of light, our power returned.  It was just before 8pm.

We danced the jig and sprinted to shower before the power went back out.

It never did.

Tomorrow, I have costumes ready to roll and we will trick-or-treat as usual.  This year, instead of stepping over snow mounds we'll carry an umbrella and dodge tree limbs.  It's a fair trade.

Wishing everyone a Happy Halloween!  I hope everyone is fasting in preparation for your Halloween sugar highs. 

Save me the Mounds bars.

Cheers to all the men and women working on power lines, cable lines and everything else in need of repair.  Stay safe!

xo

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Johor Seafood - Star Chef Seafood Restaurant 星名廚 in Gelang Patah (near Legoland), Johor

I have been wanting to visit Restaurant Star Chef 星名廚 ever since they moved (on 12 Oct) to their new address in Gelang Patah (from Skudai). This afternoon, we were at Restaurant Star Chef at the gracious invitation of Alex, the boss.

Unlike the air conditioned premises at Skudai, here at Gelang Patah, Star Chef is an open concept restaurant, airy and more spacious. The ambiance is informal, relaxed and comfortable - the perfect setting for easy, casual dining with buddies and family.

Locating Restaurant Star Chef was a breeze as it is along the same stretch of road with many seafood restaurants. Restaurant Star Chef is highly accessible from Singapore via the Second Link at Tuas/ Gelang Patah. As good foodies, once we arrived, we quickly got down to the serious business of eating without much ado :)

When at Restaurant Star Chef, I always have their braised duck and roast duck as Star Chef is one of the few places that still uses live ducks for cooking. And, as always, Star Chef's ducks always pleases. The braised duck was tender, savoury and naturally sweet. The roasted duck had that herbal taste and flavour, was tender and the skin was nicely crispy.

 

Plate of braised duck, roast duck and char siew RM15

Today, Alex also wanted us to try his char siew. I purposely indulged in a couple of slices of the fatty pieces and they were well worth the cholesterol. Soft and luscious with BBQ pork flavour.

When ordering crabs, we decided to be adventurous - rather than the usual safe choices of chili crab, black pepper crab, and crab cooked with salted egg yolks we tried two styles that we never had before. These were Restaurant Star Chef's signature crabs.

 

This was on the menu as the King of Crab - well, with a delicious name like this, we just got to put it to the (taste) test :P The crab arrived in a puffy bag made with aluminium foil.

 

The staff carefully slit the bag open with a pair of scissors and tah... dah.... there was.... another bag. This time made with a large dried lotus leaf.

 

Alex then personally cut open the lotus leaf bag, and inside was the large crab baked with a spicy, tangy sauce and lots of pepper corns, onions and a bit of chili. Most of us liked the spicy, tangy taste with the juicy crab meat though one of us felt it might be an acquired taste.

 

This was the Butter Cream Crab with Coconut Milk. The taste and flavour was similar to butter crabs and with the twist of fragrant touches of fresh coconut milk and shredded coconut flesh. The butter and coconut based gravy was creamy, tacky and sweet. We all liked this as it went very well with the thick and juicy crab meat.

Crab prices are, of course, seasonal. For today, it's RM68/ kg for the medium sized ones.

 

Tong Po Pork RM13

One of us had a craving for classic Tong Po pork and ordered it immediately on seeing it on the menu. When the Tong Po pork arrived, I was thrilled by the glazed and giggly tender look of the braised pork. We were all mouth watering but everyone had to indulge me as I took my usual amount of time to get my best pictures. Sorry guys, I know, I am slow :P

 

When we finally got the chance to sink our teeth into the Tong Po pork, we were all well rewarded by the savoury soft meat.

 

Alex offered us this Seafood in Pumpkin soup which was an off menu item at RM36 (for 4 to 5 persons). It's savoury creamy pumpkin soup with chunky pieces of button mushrooms, grouper fish meat, scallops and fish maw. It's like seafood chowder with cream of pumpkin soup.

 

Fried Yee Mee RM12

To round up our meal, we had an obligatory carbo dish - a simple Fried Yee Mee cooked with seafood broth. I liked this el dente noodles so much that I unknowingly ate more than what was necessary and polite :P

Our meal came with this complimentary herbal broth. I was not crazy about this, though the ladies were full of praise for it. They loved the  dang gui 當歸 flavour in the soup.

 



Gelang Patah is a very crowded field with more than a dozen seafood restaurants established in the area. Now, lucky foodies from Johor and Singapore are further spoilt with another attractive choice with the entrance of Restaurant Star Chef.

 

Click on the pictures to view my earlier posts on Star Chef Restaurant (when they were located in Skudai).

Click on the map to see my earlier posts when Star Chef Restaurant was in Skudai

Restaurant name: Restaurant Star Chef 星名廚
Address: 51, Jalan Gelang Emas 1, Taman Gelang Emas, Gelang Patah, Johor Bahru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/qTJV6
GPS: 1.450726,103.585367
Hours: 09:30am to 10:30pm (Closed on alternate Thursdays)
Non Halal

Date visited: 28 Oct 2012

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Hurricane Sandy Pictures

Since I'm still online, and I'm just about OVER this storm that hasn't even hit yet since the hype started Friday, I figured I'd post some pictures. 

These are courtesy of my dad, who is hunkering down at our beach house at the Jersey Shore.  He cruised up to Ocean Avenue to sneak a peak at Mother Ocean, and we are most certainly hearing her call.

Any other Buffett fans out there?

This is Mack's Snacks, the snack stand we pass every time we walk to the beach.  My kids occasionally read the sign and beg for a milkshake, an ice cream or a hot dog.

I tell them I'm not paying for a $5.00 milkshake and we'll eat at the beach house.

Mack's will not be serving up any snacks today.

This is 13th Ave Beach, where we normally camp out right near the lifeguard chair.

Here is Matisse, an overpriced restaurant on the end of 13th Ave that I've eaten at once.  I'm not a seafood fan, and I don't remember what I ordered.   I'm sure it was something off the kid's menu since I prefer burgers and fries.  Or grilled cheese and fries.  Or anything with fries.

Lastly, here is one of our beach house neighbors.  This one is my favorite.

Wishing everyone in Sandy's path a safe few days.  My dad is now snug as a bug in the beach house, probably drinking wine and waiting for the ocean to knock on his door.

I'll be sure to share any pictures of the aftermath, here in NY state and in the center of the madness at the Jersey Shore.

Stay safe!  Eat Halloween candy!

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Sandy, Oh Sandy

I've got chills,

They're multiplying.

This storm's out of con-trol...

'Cause the power,

Hurricane Sandy's supply-ing....

It's lose-my-electricfy-ing!

Hurricane Sandy is on her way.  It's official.  Stores are packed to the hills with shoppers, lines are wrapping around the aisles and there is no bottled water anywhere.

Or generators.

I'm rather displeased since once again Halloween will most likely be a bust.  Two years in a row we will be hunkered down at home weathering out a storm.  This is my Moopa, on our deck, last Halloween weekend.

We did get trick-or-treating in, but it was rather uneventful since many neighborhoods had no power.  The kids collected what they could, from families in winter hats handing out candy from their porches.

This year may be the same story.

The upside to this storm is we were forced to clean out the garage to make room for our patio furniture and other items in the yard.  We were tempted to leave everything and watch it fly around, but we decided on alternate forms of entertainment.  And against having our windows shattered by flying patio chairs.

Our generator is now prepped and ready, and our fridge is full of the necessities.  I can safely say I will still be enjoying my ice cream.  Thank heavens.

To sum up, Sandy, you stink. 

If I'm not online for the next few days...you'll know where I am.  Wishing everyone a safe week ahead! 

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Spinach Mee Hoon Kueh @ Spinach Noodle House 菠菜面专卖店 in Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

I always like lots of greens with my meals and so when I heard about Spinach Noodle House 菠菜面专卖店 which blends spinach into their noodles, I immediately decided that I must try this.

We were expecting a buzzing restaurant as Spinach Noodle House is, after all, located in Taman Johor Jaya - one of Johor Bahru's eating hot spots. So we were pretty surprised to see a rather quiet restaurant at about 9:00am on a Wednesday. Spinach Noodle House seemed to have had its heydays and business looked decidedly slow.

Nevertheless, we did not let that dampen our enthusiasm and decided to still give Spinach Noodle House a try.

 

I requested for a spinach mee hoon kueh. These were roughly hand torn pieces of flat sheets of flour dough with real spinach blended into the flour. Spinach mee hoon kueh had that pretty slight greenish tone, which looked invitingly delicious to me.

 

The broth was clear and loaded with fish balls, pork balls, fish cake slices, fried ikan bilis and shallot crackles.

The spinach mee hoon kueh was good. It was floppy yet el dente. The clear broth was not oily and it was savoury, being helped along by the fried ikan bilis and shallot crackles. 

Spinach Noodle House also serves yong tau foo to complement the mee hoon kueh or noodles. We, however, opted for a bowl of spinach in soup.

 

The spinach soup turned out to the highlight for me. I loved the taste of fresh spinach, plain simple, nice and healthy.

 

The light broth and shallot crackles brought out the spinach's fresh flavours really well.

The food at Spinach Noodle House was pretty tasty but somehow, it was not pulling in the crowds. I could only speculate that perhaps, spinach noodles and spinach mee hoon kueh are not as appealing nowadays, and are pretty much niche items.

Well, I'll continue to support Spinach Noodle House as I like the food here and spinach is good for me :)

 

Click on the photo to view the video feature on Spinach Noodle House by Fatbook Production.

 

Restaurant name: Spinach Noodle House 菠菜面专卖店
Address: 51, Jalan Dedap 7, Taman Johor Jaya, Johor bahru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/ayDBg
GPS: 1.541205,103.804793
Hours: 07:00am to 6:30pm (Closed on Monday)
Non Halal

Date visited: 26 Sep 2012

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Hong Kong Porridge 粥 (Congee) at Kaka Lok Restaurant 家家樂 in Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Hong Kong styled porridge 粥 or congee is one of my favourite comfort foods but I didn't see many stalls selling this classic Cantonese dish in Johor Bahru. Kaka Lok restaurant in Taman Johor Jaya is one of the few and fortunately their Hong Kong porridge or congee is good and popular :)

If the name Kaka Lok sounded familiar, it probably reminded you of the chain of bitter gourd soup restaurants known as Kah Kah Loke. Actually, more than 10 years ago, the bitter gourd soup stall and Hong Kong porridge stall shared this same premises in Kaka Lok restaurant. Later, the bitter gourd soup stall expanded and moved out, and the Hong Kong porridge stall remained.

 

I liked the texture of Kaka Lok's Hong Kong porridge. It was thick, globbly, heavy yet smooth. It's texture was somewhere precisely at the mid point between steamed rice and watery Teochew styled porridge (which I also liked).

To make Cantonese styled porridge, rice is boiled for many hours with fresh lean pork together with dried scallops and cuttlefish, to extract their distinctive savoury flavours.

Additional ingredients such as fresh lean pork, minced pork, century eggs, pulled chicken meat, cuttlefish, fresh fish slices, frog legs and so on are added into the piping hot porridge on customers' orders before serving.

 

We just had fresh minced pork added which was tender and delicious. The porridge was garnished with spring onions, shallot crackles and yaw char kwai.

 

 

Crispy yaw char kwai is a popular add on to go with the congee.

 

We also had a glass of Kaka Lok's famous home made soya bean drink. Kaka Lok's old school soya bean drink was creamy rich and robust with fresh soya bean taste and flavour. I had drank at countless soya bean stalls and Kaka Lok's was one of the very best. Definitely a Must Try.

Kaka Lok also has a chee cheong fun station making fresh chee cheong fun. We were too full, so we just took these photographs and save the food tasting for later.

 

 

Kaka Lok's chee cheong fun station was receiving a constant stream of orders and the chee cheong fun did looked enticingly delicious.

 

I am surely coming back for these.

Restaurant name: Kaka Lok Restaurant 家家樂香港粥
Address: 71, Jalan Dedap 4, Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/c1hlP
GPS: 1.541239,103.803610
Hours: 6:30am to 8:00pm (Closed on Monday)
Non Halal

Date visited: 25 Sep 2012

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