Not perfect mum

I have to admit that most of the time, I am not a perfect mum to my 3 children. Sometimes I were not there for them.

Maybe because of tiredness or I just want some me-space away from them. Some day I were mean to them; raising my voice and scolding for no apparent reason.  It was my fault.

I am as guilty as charged!  Not been there for them, comfort them, teach them, listen and talk to them as much as I want. But I know that to my children, I am a perfect mum. They know my flaws, accept me for who I am and love me unconditionally. Because I am their mum no matter what.  I love them too.

Today is Mother's Day.  The day where it is not much any different from other normal days.  I still care, cook and do stuff for them.  But then again, the feeling of joy is doubled inside of me when I wake up on Mother's Day and my kids come over to wish me "Happy Mother's Day!" and give me kisses on the cheek. To me, that is the best present I ever wanted! I love them with my whole heart.

Happy Mother's Day to all awesome moms out there.  You are the best, and perfect in your children' hearts.

What we want

I almost forgot about this post till I were browsing through my camera album and saw the photos.

It was the last Sunday of April. Hubby asked me not to cook that evening so we went out for our dinner. At that point, we did not know what we want for dinner. We did not know where and what to eat but it would be in the city centre since hubby needed to do transaction in a bank.

So after done with the banking, we were almost in the old part of the city. The thought of having dinner in Open Market opposite Electra House sounds appealing to us. A nostalgic place to have dinner with my family. Used to come here a lot for dinner as a child. The place is still the same; crowded and busy.

I used to eat in one of the stalls called Chai Heng but hubby wanted to try the middle stall, Chai Shen Ye.

It was fine with me. We seated under the night sky overlooking the road. We placed our order with a native guy and waited for about 20 minutes for our food to come. While waiting, we were looking at the buzzing road and old buidlings that were right in front of us. 

First to come was this chai poh omelette (salted radish omelette). Huge! We did not specify the portion but it was for 3 to 4 pax.

Then this delicious and crispy salted fish pork belly arrived. I enjoyed this dish the most.

Then we had the Japanese soft beancurd with minced meat. Milder in taste but we did not mind at all.

We had belacan kangkung to tantalize our tastebuds. Such a huge plate but we finished up the vegetable and leave no stalk behind!

We also ordered soup, which was fish maw soup. So many thick slices of chewy fish maw in the soup.

Overall our dinner costs RM82 which I thought was rather steep although the dishes were medium portion. Oh well, Chai Shen Ye (God of Prosperity) for the owner indeed. Lol.

Seemed to be

On my recent visit with my family here for lunch on one Sunday, I were adamant that I would eat fish meat mee hoon soup again. I had it in my previous 2 visits. I liked the appetizing sourish and heaty soup, delicious fried fish fillets and fresh fish balls.

However after I walked around to check the stalls inside and out (I did not do that in my previous visits), I found some stalls were seemed to be hidden from eye views from shop front. One would need to walk into the shop to check out the stalls. I found an interesting stall selling "curry rice banjir". If only I were fully recovered, I would be tempted to give the curry rice a try. But I ended up ordering pak lo (braised meat) rice from the same stall for RM6.

I found my pak lo rice pretty interesting in the sense it was pork belly pak lo served with some blanched long beans, half portion of hard-boiled egg and boiled potato cubes. Yes, I do not remember having soft potatoes in a pak lo rice. 

Taste-wise it was alright.  Not overly sweet and the braised pork belly was soft. But somehow it did not tasted like pak lo to me. Maybe I expected a thicker and fragrant pak lo like how the Hakka lo ark would be. It wasn't what I thought it would be. This did not seemed like it, it was more like braised char siew pork belly to me.

They did served a small bowl of curry gravy and small saucer of chilli dipping. I tasted the curry gravy which I think was nice. Maybe I will give its curry rice banjir a try next time. Or I may just settle for the fish meat mee hoon soup again. Lol.

Weekend Menu #85: Chinese grilled chickens

It is cooking time!! What better than to cook and eat at home when the weather could be so unpredictable nowadays. 

One of the frequent dish on my table is grilled chicken. 

I love grilled chicken. I cook it a lot at home with my flip pan. So convenient and easy to make.

Most of the time, I use Mc Cormick mixed herbs as my marinade base but on my last attempt on a weekend, I used different base for my chickens. 

I had 2 boneless chicken chops in the freezer so I decided to cook a more Chinese style of grilled chicken.

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken chops

1 tsp Chinese 5 spices powder

1 tsp white pepper

2 tbsp Cooking Wine (Shao Xing)

1/4 tsp salt

Parsley for garnish

Methods:

1. Marinate the chicken chops with all the ingredients except the parsley. Let it marinate for few hours or overnight.

2. Heat up the flip pan; totally no oil used.

3. Add in the chicken chops with the skin down. Close the flip pan and cook for 5 minutes on each side.

4. The chicken is cooked when clear juice came out when you poke through the meat.

5. Cut into biteable size and garnish with parsley.

Same street the next day

When it is a long weekend, we get to go out for food hunting around the city. 

That was what we did few Mondays ago when we were in the Carpenter Street. Yes, again. We went back to the same street the next day when the day before we were in Lau Ya Keng for lunch. This time, we went to the other side of the street for pork leg rice in Juat Siang Cafe (next to the Kuching Hainan Association building). Another well known food joint along the street.

I have been there before but many years ago with my side of family when dad recommended the original and authentic pork leg rice. They serves all the innards beside the pork leg unlike other places where they have duck and chicken meats as choices.

I believed the owner left the operation to his staff now. Very young native staff to handle the pork leg rice cum kueh chap stall that you will see at the side of the shop. There were some tables and seats in between the walkway of this shop and Kuching Hainan Association building.

They served you the soup, white rice and dipping sauce first. Then soon enough, the plate of assortment of meats, innards, hard-boiled egg and beancurds is served.

My personal opinion? It was alright. Milder in taste but I prefer other places that serve nicer pork leg rice in Kuching.

If you are wondering, we had this at around 9am that morning. Yes, very early for such hearty meal but it did last us till late in the afternoon. 

Old place, same taste

The feeling was nostalgic when one has  to dine in one of the famous Chinese eating spots in Kuching, Lau Ya Keng. This place did not change much over the years.

I used to come here frequently as a child. I vividly remember we loved to come here on Saturday night for its fish or chicken porridge or lunch of tang hoon soup (glass noodle soup), laksa or kueh chap on Sunday.

It could be pretty stuffy and warm when the place was packed but somehow the crowds did not mind the heat. They still enjoyed their food and chit-chatting.

Few Sundays ago, for the very first time, me and my family came here for lunch. My kids' very first lunch in Lau Ya Keng, Carpenter Street. Let them taste the authentic and old taste of some Kuching's famous specialties in one of the oldest eating spots.

We were lucky to find a vacant table as the place was packed to the brim. One has to wait patiently at the side of the table, waiting for the patrons to finish their food and leave.

So, we seated and ordered what we wanted for lunch. Thankfully we did not waited too long. And it so happened we bumped into my brother who tapaued tang hoon soup for lunch there while we were eating!!

Since we seated next to the pork satay stall, we ordered 10 pieces of pork satay (RM8) as starter. They have ketupat too but we did not order that.

I loved the satay. Tender and juicy but the best part was its warm peanut gravy. So, so good.

Hubby and I initially wanted the pork leg rice but they did not serve rice that Sunday so we had kueh chap instead from the same stall.

I remember we did enjoyed our kueh chap on our visit last year. However this round, the kueh chap soup was way too salty to my liking!! An overdose of salt, I thought! 

The kids went for Kuching kolo mee. They would never bored of kolo mee. If I were not mistaken, this bowl of kolo mee was RM4. So much "liew" in it.

Gone

April is over and how glad I am that it has gone. It was a bad month for me. 

Terribly ill for most of the month, down with cough, flu and fever after the Kapit trip. Some sort of virus. And my Jamie has been sick for over 2 weeks now (but he has recovered tremendeously now).

Last Friday

Started with just common cold but it got worse after 2 weeks and doctor prescribed antibiotic for him. He suddenly had fever before I decided to bring him to see doctor again last week and doctor gave him antibiotic this 2nd round. And that night he had diarrhea. I understand it happens to some children who develop antibiotic -caused diarrhea. Very watery stool type since Friday night. It got worse on Sunday. Luckily he has few disposable diapers left from a year ago so I got him to use last night. Lost count of how many time I need to clean after him yesterday! Reminded me very much of baby stool!

I stopped his antibiotic yesterday and thank god, his diarrhea has getting lesser too. As of today, he eat and drink more. Diarrhea? 3 small businesses. Hope it gone by now. Fever did subsided  and cough and flu has got better yesterday.

Jamie is still pretty active and eat well irregardless of his condition. He hardly took antibiotic in the past so we are concerned about his diarrhea for few days. He has not gone to school for few days last week and coupled with the long weekend, he rested well.

Yesterday

We did not go anywhere; just stayed at home during the long weekend. Kids' exam is coming up next week so we did some early revision over the weekend. And I were glad I've recovered in time to do revision with the kids. Imagine how tiring and frustrating I were when I weren't 100% well, struggling with daily demands and stresses, hubby wasn't around and me with a sick kid. I thought at one point I were almost having a nervous breakdown!!

Definitely, F-U-N is not the word to describe how I felt.