His first concert

Like any kindergarden goers, they have to go through and experience the year end graduation concert.

Jamie is not schooling today as the kindergarden declared a day off since last Saturday was its graduation concert.

It was held in Islamic Information Centre (near Swimburne University).

Jamie and his class performed one Chinese song that evening. He has been practising for weeks and how proud we were, seeing him up the stage and sang and danced away with his classmates.

While watching all the children's performances and graduation in the auditorium, they made me proud and in awe. Everyone is special in their own way. And they do grow up so fast.

Weekend Menu #88: Kicap chicken

I learnt this recipe from The Malaysian Women's Weekly. The recipe was Black Soy Chicken (Ayam masak kicap).

I found the taste was good and in my 2nd attempt, I did make a slight adjustment to the recipe to suit my taste.

The original recipe called for sliced chicken breast but I have tried few times using chicken thighs. 

Ingredients:
400g sliced chicken breast
Black soy sauce
Salt
Sugar
Cooking oil
1 big onion sliced
3 minced garlic
Tomato sauce
Water
Parsley

Methods:

1. Marinate the chicken with 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp salt.

2. Heat up about 4 tbsp cooking oil in a wok. Toss in garlic and onion and saute till fragrant.

3. Add in the chicken and stir fry for 5 minutes.

4. Add in 2 tbsp tomato sauce, salt and sugar to taste. Add in about 50ml water and let it simmer.

5. Dish out and garnish with parsley.

A short stop

On my way to Jamie's kindergarden, there is this makeshift stall by the roadside (in front of Choice Marketplace, Batu Kawa). 

I have wanted to make a short stop to check out this Malay stall for quite sometime but some days the stall was packed with people stopping to buy breakfast and hardly any parking at this busy road. 

However one morning last week, there was not any customer and a Malay lady was mending the stall. Usually it was a man, I believe it is the lady's husband. So I made a quick stop with Jamie in the car. He would lock the front driver's door as I taught him to all the times. 

I bought a pack of nasi lemak wrapped in brown paper for RM2 and 3 pieces of curry puff for RM1.

So after dropped Jamie off in the kindergarden, I couldn't wait to head home and have my breakfast. It has been a while since I had nasi lemak so you could imagine how tempted I were. 

Ok, my wrapped nasi lemak was in huge portion. For RM2, I couldn't complain of its portion. The rice has a light "lemak" to it. Very fluffy. There was a quarter of hard-boiled egg, and 2 small salted fishes.

I enjoyed the nasi lemak. The sambal was just good. 

As for the curry puff, the crust was nice and crispy. The filling of potatoes was good too but I thought the puff was very small size. My eldest boy did not complained though. He seemed to enjoy the remaining 2 pieces.

After filling up my tummy with the nasi lemak and a curry puff, I sat by the window and drank my black tea in this mug. 

I like this mug from Kai Joo Cafe. I have few of them in the display cabinet. Seldom bought them out but that morning I felt like using it. 

One side of the mug shown the photo of the old central police station and another side is the logo of Kai Joo Cafe.

So that was my satisfying breakfast.

In the stadium

Call me silly, but for the first time in my life, I have stepped into Perpaduan stadium in Petra Jaya last Sunday. Not for some badminton games or other sports, but for our church mass gathering. A big Methodists gathering for over 10 Methodist churches in Kuching.

It wasn't hard to find the stadium. Just  turn to your left after passing the Dewan Pustaka and go straight. You will see the 3 stadiums in front of you. No, not the Stadium Negeri (above).

And not the Aquatic Centre (above) but here, the Indoor Stadium (below).

We parked our car at the designated car parks opposite Stadium Negeri and from there, we crossed the road to the Indoor Stadium.

The same indoor stadium where the Celcom Axiata Malaysia Open 2017 was held early this year.

Such mass was the first ever and everyone from different Methodist churches came in forces wearing blue for the occasion. This special Sunday was from 9am to 12noon; praises, prayers and sermons in 3 languages were held. Lunch also provided and handed out when we were at the exit point on our way out.

The kids were thrilled to be in an indoor stadium for the first time. But knowing them, they did not get that excited for too long. Lol.

A very special Sunday for the churches.  Praise the Lord.

They said

I don't know why I missed and forgot to post this earlier. It happened in September or maybe in August. Either way, it happened after I came back from my Europe trip.

It was one weekend when we felt like not having any noodle for breakfast. Asked the kids what they wanted to eat and they said "roti canai".

There is this Indian coffee shop near our place that we have been to few times. Actually there are few Indian or mamak shops in our area but so far, we have only been to this shop. Probably because it is the nearest. Curry House (opposite Courtyard Santuary apartment, Batu Kawah), 2 shops behind Choo Choo Cafe.

Was it any good? Yes, we liked it. The roti was crispy and thin. Very airy. Vegetable dhal was good as well.

And just last weekend, we had our craving for roti telur (again). So, we tried out a new place because we planned to do our grocery shopping afterward. This round, a Malay coffee shop near Emart Batu Kawa. Four Nour Cafe, next to The Eye Optometrist.

We were very early, reached there before 8am so no customer around.

Only the roti canai stall was operating but the cafe do have fried stall at the back. Hubby ordered its fried mee which I did not take photo of. He loved it. He said, it had that kampung Malay taste. I tasted one spoon of the noodle; it was sweet and spicy.

Back to my roti telur, it was good. Very thick and you could see the whole dough topped witj egg. They served curry dipping with it, which was nice. Tasted like fish curry to me but had few potato chunks in it.

Of course when I take roti canai, I must have my dose of teh tarik. Roti canai and teh tarik go well together. ^^

Miscellaneous Picture #72: while we walked

On one morning where we had our weekend's family walk.

Love the morning air; cool and good for our body

We actually walked from our place to a food court which took us about 20 minutes. We had breakfast and then we walked home.

While we walked back, I could not helped but took out my phone and snapped along the way.

Beautiful purple petals scattered on the grass

Feel like fall

I were way, way behind because need to wait for the youngest one who is a slow walker

Looking up and we saw this beauty

Beautiful petals

Morning to you, purple bells

We also spotted few snails crawling up the wall

And a scary-looking cat eyeing us

Smurf everywhere

We attended a birthday party with a smurf theme last Saturday evening. Birthday party cum buffet dinner in Hap Chen Hian Satay House, Rubber road.

We were actually at the wrong venue in first place. As it turned out, there are 2 Satay House in Rubber road. We went to the one opposite Old Rex Cafe but a couple told us the actual venue was the other side of the road. That Satay House (which was same row with Curry House) also had birthday party that evening.

So we drove to the other Satay House. And yes, this was where our invitation was. On the 1st floor of Hap Chen Hian Satay House. Lol.

As the theme of the birthday was smurf and smurf is blue, we followed the theme by wearing something blue. We were 99% blue! ^^

It was fun to follow the theme but of course not every guests followed it.

The stage decoration was awesome. Smurf everywhere. It was blue everywhere. The guests especially the children were stranded at the stage area for the sweet goodies.

Sorry, no food photo. Too many guests were taking food at the buffet table so I did not want to anmoy anyone by blocking the queue and taking photos. ^^ So, let's enjoy the centrepiece.

And as we were leaving, we saw few guests ordered satay from below. So we also want to order and take away some satays. 10 sticks of pork satay and another 10 sticks of chicken satay for RM16.

And ours were piping hot when we reached home as they were grilled on the spot. The satays were nice but the peanut gravy was not to our liking. Too smooth as they blended everything. We prefer some crushed peanuts in the gravy for that texture, bite and crunchiness. ^^