Last Friday we had a family dinner in Kuala Belait to celebrate a birthday and a "birthday".

These two birthdays were actually my mother in law's birthday and my father in law's anniversary since he retired. While at first my mother in law surprised me by suggesting that we have Japanese, she then changed her mind and decided on Jolene Restaurant.

The only Chinese restaurant in Kuala Belait which they approved of - and where we had my father in law's birthday dinner last year.

I am beginning to think that we are the only family who always dine out early as everywhere we went - especially in Bandar Seri Begawan - the restaurant is always empty when we arrived. And when I commented on this, my husband will always replied, "What time is it now..." - and true enough, an hour later there would be more people.

But is 6.30 - 7.00 pm really that early for dining out?

Anyway, this time I requested that we pre-order some herbal chicken soup. And later at the restaurant, the two birthday couple ordered sizzling deer meat, winter melon shoots and bean curd.


The vegetable was not popular though because I thought they were a bit old and tough. Also it's more sayur kampung than typical Chinese dish so the others were not very keen on it. The bean curd was good.

And I am still amazed that we can get deer meat so easily here in Brunei as this is one of my favorite dish.

But these days, I have extra cravings for noodles and maybe that was why although the customary noodle dish for birthday very delicious, my portion was seriously pathetic and I could have eaten much more.

As for the highly anticipated herbal chicken soup. Total letdown. There was no herb smell and no herbal taste - basically it was not brewed long enough. Did not deserve a picture at all.

Well, it had better not disappoint because this was the most expensive dish - for those two slices of steamed cod fish!

Our total bill this time was below $150 (after some birthday voucher of 7% off) and was actually cheaper than last time - which was a whopping $200.

Because my two girls were so ready to sing the birthday song - I was told that while I was in the loo with Eu - Qi had been warming up with her songs a few times as soon as the cake was on the table.

So it was no surprise that their voices were the loudest when we finally had the sing song - and do you need to ask who helped to blow the candles? My nephew did not stand a chance - and luckily it was not his birthday!

We would like to think that the staffs were "entertained" by the girls antic - especially Qi who was tired and was extra boisterous...

It was another good birthday dinner outing.

We made an overnight trip to my father's hometown in Tambunan when we were in Sabah last month.

One of the highlight on this drive for me is taking a break at one of the simple cafe on the highest point on this Kota Kinabalu-Tambunan road.

I was told that Gunung Emas, the first and oldest cafe which has been operating on this area for more than 15 years (I believe) is still popular - although I think they no longer serve "exotic" dishes like they used to in their early days.

But some folks prefer the relatively newer (about 10 years old I think) Gunung Alab Resort, which is a few km drive from Gunung Emas Cafe, as it is somewhat better in terms of cleanliness.

We made a lunch stop here on our way to and from Tambunan and I am happy to say that I found one dish I enjoyed here.

SOTO!


I tried both their Soto Ayam (Chicken noodle soup - Malay style) and Soto Daging (Beef noodle soup) and I liked them both. With big portion and plenty of meat - at only RM4, it's definitely worth the try if you are around this area.

I developed a love for herbal soup when I worked in Keningau and there was one restaurant which always serves bowls of ready-to-eat "tun tang".

This was where I learn of ginseng soup, peanut soup and watercress soup.

Back in Sabah, as far as I know, watercress seems to be considered a low rank vegetable, not the kind you'd find at supermarkets. My mother used to get ours from those roadside stalls in Tambunan or sometimes Kundasang and I've grown up eating this vegetable cooked in soup and stir fried - the Kadazandusun way.

The funny thing is, my Kadazan family calls this "Sayur Hong Kong" or "Tan Choi", names which my Chinese family found strange. In fact, my mother in law refers to it, to me, as "watercress" and until today, I don't know its actual Chinese name!

But names aside, I get my stock from Supa Save which offers imported watercress, definitely not like those found on the Tambunan roadside.

And from my mother in law, I learn the proper way to cook this soup to get maximum taste and nutrients.

The taste actually comes from stalks so this is the part to slow cook with meat (either pork ribs or chicken) and dried red dates or Chinese wolfberries (salt to taste) for a few hours.

When its ready to be eaten, remove the stalks and put the watercress leaves for only few minutes (to retain its nutrients) and serve the soup!

This is a "cooling" soup so it's perfect after a hot day.

If you have never eaten this vegetable, read its nutritional values or try this detox recipe and keep a look out for restaurants or food stalls which offers this soup.

I'm sure you'll love it too.

One of my closest friend, who shared that phase of my life where delicious-but-additives-ridden food were our daily staples, must be settling down fine in England right now.

After 8 years in stress-inducing Kuala Lumpur, I bet she'd find that southern English town extremely peaceful. However, I'm also sure that she is starting to miss one of the "perks" of living in KL - all kinds of food, at all corners of the city, at whatever price and at any time of the day!

Because if this town where she is at, is anything like the one English city I used to be familiar with - food adventures would be minimal.

In fact, I'm not surprised if she has to travel far and wide to find the kind of food that she really enjoys.

And I hope she's will not be using the "We have no car yet!" as an excuse as she knows that finding a Car Hire company that can search for the best rates is not a problem with Car Rental UK. Not only is it an award winning site for the best car hire website, it also searches up to 50 sites for both suppliers and brokers! So it's pretty much guarantee that you will get the best deal.

So go hire a car and find some worth-writing-home-about kind of English fare, now!

One of the benefit of having native Iban family as one of our neighbour is that we get items that are not common for typical Chinese family.

Such as the homemade loofah - which was actually a new discovery for me too.

The most interesting "gift" was perhaps the wild boar meat which are commonly found in this part of Brunei and was given to us by our neighbour a few weeks ago.

Being exotic (read : not something my Chinese family would voluntarily buy from the market) my mother in law had quite a challenge figuring out how to cook it. She fried some with soy sauce, bean paste and garlic which turned out popular - until she announced its origin and even I felt a little squemish (for no reason!).

Then just the other day, she cooked a curry out of it.

If you're someone who have used the line "I don't have the recipe for that dish!" must know that it's outdated.

Having online access means you CAN get recipes of all kinds of dishes from all over the world, from conventional recipe websites to personal blog sites where the authors share their knowledge, tips and experiences in anything related to food and dinings i.e food blogs!

There are a lot of really helpful blogs that feature home-cook recipes complete with the list of ingredients and full preparation and cooking instructions.

The best thing about food blogs are of course - the pictures! Some outstanding foodblogs could be featuring a simple dish but their beautiful photographs would have you running to the kitchen to try out the recipe.

That is why, even stay-at-home mom must be tech-savvy and should know that such invaluable information are so easily available at any time of the day!

And don't even think about "Book is fine. Computers get spoil!".

Don't you know that nowadays there are plenty of home computer repair service such as the Fasttrek? Basically their highly trained staffs will come to your house to service your computer with affordable rates!

Spend no time unplugging all those cables and lugging heavy PC to the computer store but spend those time finding and trying out great recipes!

So far, we have only been to the Kaizen in Seria with our whole family last February and since then, we have never taken just the kids for meals here.

We did that a few weekends ago for lunch and I'm planning to avoid taking them here for a while - just until I think the staffs have forgotten us.

It's not that anything happened. It's just that Eu and especially Qi as usual managed to distract/attract the attention of perhaps the whole floor staffs.

The whole night. It doesn't help as there were few tables occuppied.

This time, my husband and I decided to take beef and while I had the beef rice set, he had the beef noodle. By the time my rice set came, I was quite full from my vegetable tempura and salmon sashimi that I hardly touched the rice sprinkled with sesame seeds (?).


My black pepper beef was okay and the noodle was good too. My husband also ordered and took from the train a couple of plates of sushi but I can't remember if I had any of them...

One of the difference between this place and the other popular Japanese eatery in Brunei is the wasabi. Diehard Japanese food folks told me that the wasabi here and at Excapade is different not only in terms of taste but also where you get it from.

The silver canister on the train is where you get the wasabi in this restaurant.

As usual, we're happy with the food here although this time, with our beef order, it was a bit more expensive - a total of $50+ for just the two of us.

And as usual, the voices of Eu and especially Qi's took over the whole place once in a while - and that was only because there was a lot of sussing and threatening from us.

It helped that Eu was distracted by my camera and there were a lot of self-idolatry pictures of her puckered mouth, nose, eyes and everyone else.

But there were also exceptional shots - considering she's only 4 years old - such as this one.


In fact, come to think of it, judging from the picture, even the shot of the wasabi canister was probably taken by her. Time will tell whether it was the camera or she really has an eye for photography.

As for Qi, if we could eat free for the times when she charmed restaurant staffs - we would be eating free ALL THE TIME.

One of the thing that we like about Singapore (as tourist) is getting basic stuffs and food is not a problem at all.

As you know, we went to Singapore a few weeks ago. On the first night after we arrived and as soon as we checked into our room, my husband went for a walk to find the nearest 7-11 convenience shop.

At 10 p.m.

In less than 30 mins, he came back with some magazines and packets of food.

In 30 mins!

Apparently, our hotel was connected to another hotel called Allson Hotel on Victoria Street via the second floor and outside this other hotel was a 7-11 store on one side and a food court on the other side.

Because this food court was so close by, we regularly bought food from here for tea time snacks and the one Indian food stall there served dishes that suits my taste bud - even Eu loved their Garlic Naan bread (even though she hates garlic). My husband also bought me Bak Kut Teh from one of the stall here but it was terrible - all I could taste was white pepper.

This place seemed to be packed every night and I like the Four Faced Buddha altar that is in front of the food court - which on this trip we saw two.

The only time when we actually went there to eat was on Easter Sunday after Church. The place was empty and some of the stalls were closed as this is a 24 hours joint and I supposed, those are the night time operators.

The stall that we picked specialises in "Specialty Noodle" which my husband ordered. But we didn't see what was so special about it except that it came with huge fish balls. I ordered the "Laksa" and I thought it was good but my husband thought the coconut milk overpowered the rest of the taste.


This place also have dim sum stall and one stall looks like it serves the full range of a typical Chinese restaurant. I don't know if I overlooked it, but I didn't see any stall that sell chicken rice or herbal soup here.

I have a very Asian palate when it comes to tea time.

Although I do enjoy the idea of scones, brownies and such pastries to go with hot coffee, I would take banana fritters or goreng pisang any time over them.

Back in Sabah, we have our dinner late at usually after 7 pm. That is why, we would always have some heavy tea and my mother would sometimes fry local cakes and everyone would usually be munching on these snacks as we chat or watch whatever is on TV around 4 pm.

But the thing about being in a Chinese family is that our dinner time is early. So in Brunei, we very rarely have heavy tea except perhaps some biscuits or fruits.

So one afternoon, as we made our way to the beach, we dropped by a local store for some ice creams. When I noticed that the next door snack stalls were frying some goreng pisang, I immediately bought some. But the girls have taken their father's taste and I ended up eating this bag all by myself.

By the way, after I read some forwarded emails about hawkers who allegedly coated their goreng pisang with melted plastics, I'm not sure about buying anymore soon.