Dining With Jewelle

*Non Halal Post*

Last Saturday we went to the Hua Ho Department Store at Yayasan to get Eu a bigger car seat. I was pleased to see that Hua Ho now carries the Nicole brand in the ladies clothing sections and had it not been for hubby (being around), I’d surely be stuck there!

We found a car seat for her and then we headed for lunch at the only Chinese non-halal eatery around this around (I think) called Hau Hua.

This is the one along Pizza Hut block and a few stores down from Brunei famous 24 hours cafe and also Coffee Bean.

The place was quite empty when we went in - which is a blessing because I’m still not that thick-faced when taking pictures in a crowded place!

We had the usual Chinese fares - after Eu asked her standard question of “Do they have any salmon?” and her standard indignant response “No salmon?! I think I’m NOT hungry“.

I think their noodles dishes must be better than their rice dishes because that’s what I see most of the patrons ordered. The noodle bowls where large too so that must be their speciality. As for what we ordered, I thought they were ordinary.

But the one saving grace for this place for me is that, they offer herbal or tonic soup!

Now this is something that is hard to get here in Brunei (as I know it). For your information, I love tonic soups and it’s only in recent years (since I have a slow cooker) that I have really began to enjoy eating and cooking this type of Chinese dishes. This was one of the reason I like Singapore - you could get tonic soups everywhere!

So any shops which offers soups like this is always a plus point for me.

Hau Hua’s soup of the day was the herbal chicken which although tasted nice, had a tad too much seasoning - I prefer my food and soups sans AjiNoMoto.

This place seems to have good breakfast selections too. Qi is at a stage right now where she only takes egg and Weetabix/Oats for breakfast so sometimes finding a place for breakfast can be a problem.

Although the decor of the place is nice, I find it a bit dark with the wooden decorations and the atmosphere insides made me feel like I’m in one of those seedy places where those kind of men go to hang out and flirt with the waitresses. Not a place I would go and have meals by myself, if you know what I mean.

Since all the young men in my household go offshores once in a while for work, work shoes or boots are aplenty at home. In fact, there is a pair in my car since sometimes hubby uses my car when he drives to the heliport and I know one of my brother in law has a pair of boots permanently in his car too.

It’s such a far cry from my house in KK where nobody has boots. In fact, I have no idea where one could get work boots in KK!

Here, especially in our district, I think most household would have at least a pair of boots with the oil and gas industry being the major employer. In fact, you don’t have to work offshore to own a boots. Those who are based at workyards or warehouses are already required to use a coverall and boots. So I’m not surprised if the shoe shops around here makes most of their income from selling work boots.

But of the few times that I ventured inside our Seria shoe shops, the boots on offers were not that varied. Perhaps there is a common brand that most people here prefers.

But then again, if more variety is needed, there are always online sites such as the MetBoots which sells more than 25 brands of boots from Caterpillar to Terra Footwear. If you’re more particular about the type, then you could easily find your type from their style type that includes Electrical Hazard Boots and Shoes, Heat Resisting Boots or Waterproof Boots.

It’s not all for men too as you could also get Women Work Boots and Shoes.

This site offers free shipping for orders above $100. So if you have to wear boots for work, why be dependent on what the local shop carries?

Go online and find quality and competitively priced boots!

For the first time last Sunday, hubby brought home some take-away Excapade food.

Eu is turning just as bad as her papa and everytime we eat out, she’d ask if the restaurant has any salmon and salmon roe - nevermind if its a Chinese restaurant or a Western restaurant!

So, using her as his excuse, hubby bought some on his way home from a short stint at the office and how Eu welcome them!

For your information, Excapade is hubby’s and Eu’s favourite Japanese restaurant here in Brunei and Eu is simply crazy about their salmon roe sushi.

Someone in hubby’s work circle used to be posted in Aberdeen (Scotland) for a few months and I think he didn’t quite enjoy it there because he declined an extension and asked to be back to the home office as soon as his tenure was over!

Perhaps Aberdeen was a bit too cold for him.

Given a choice, I think I’d prefer Edinburgh as I visited this city a few times and it’s a charming city. J.K Rowlings obviously found Edinburgh very inspirational too because she wrote her first book in an Edinburgh cafe, did you know that?

Maybe I should nudge hubby to find a job in Edinburgh if only for a few years. Who knows, there is a JK Rowling-esque quality in me that simply needed the Edinburgh air to come out!

But realistically, there really are a LOT of Edinburgh jobs right now according to sites like the GumTree Classified. In fact, there are more than 30 vacancies for engineers in Edinburgh from June until now.

That’s plenty of jobs. Economy sure looks good there.

So a charming city with plenty jobs to choose from and potential bestsellers inspirations….not bad reasons to consider looking for jobs in Edinburgh, don’t you think?

One trick that I learn from hubby and his family is how tasty those instant noodle seasoning can be when cooked with other food.

My salmon-mad hubby sometimes feasts on homecooked salmon fish, bought frozen from the supermarket, seasoned only with salt or some Maggi Mee seasoning and then put to the grill or oven.

He then soak the oil that dripped from the fish at the bottom of the oven with his rice to complement his dish. It may not look fantastic but it is yummy. You know if that comes from a non-fish lover like me, it’s must be true!

But the clincher is that, as he never fails to remind me, his meal costs less than B$3! Over here, a pack of 3 slices of salmon costs about $7+.

Excapade, eat your heart out!

There was a time when a friend and I plotted to convince our car mad other halves for a trip to Europe using the Geneva Motor Show as a bait. Unfortunately for us, hubby is not a fan of Continental cars while things didn’t work out between my friend and her then partner.

Nevertheless, Vienna, Berlin and Geneva are still a few of the destinations on my list of must-visit places around the world (after Prince Edward Island and Christchurch, that is!).

Perhaps when the Air Asia X is fully operational, I could argue on the point that “it’s so cheap to fly there now!”. After all, I know there are some really good deal when it comes to hotels in Vienna or hotels in Berlin when you use sites such as the Cheaper Than Hotel.

In fact, to prove this point, these are the current hotel rates (plus its approximate equivalent in Brunei Dollars) that one could get :

As for travelling within Europe, there are a few airlines such as Air Berlin, GermanWings, Sky Europe as well as the more well known Lufthansa which has various good deals, one being their special web only deals as well as their biddable “happy hour” seats.

But if we have the time, I would love to travel by train!

So really, since accommodations are not that expensive, the only stumbling block right now is just how to get to Europe without going broke!

Maybe with the recent 20% stakes purchase in Air Asia by the Virgin Group, the Air Asia X cheap flights to Europe (Berlin being one of the city considered) will really materialize soon. I read that the rates for this route will start from US$80 (B$122) to US$450 (B$690) and don’t they sound tempting!

You can find out more about Hotels in Berlin and Hotels in Vienna in the German language too.

*non Halal post*

I used to think that I know all types of noodle, from the thin mee hoon to the thick yellow mee to flat kueh tiaw.

But in Brunei, I was introduced to another type of mee which I have really never seen before called the Lau Su Fun (something that sounds like that). I’m sure are common among the Chinese in KK too but I have never seen it being sold anywhere, yet.

Mother in law family recipe for this is very simple, just mix the boiled lau su fun with some fried minced pork meat and that’s it. It’s so simply and yet, it is fabulous.

Both my dad and hubby are avid photographers. They each owned some kind of a Nikon SLR but since the advent of affordable digital cameras, both their cameras had been relegated to gathering thick dusts in the cabinets somewhere, sadly forgotten.

Nowadays however, hubby makes it a “hobby” to collect digital cameras, no DSLR yet, although I am the one who used them more! I love the sharpness of images when I used the FujiFilm S5000 but I like the fast response of the FujiFilm Finepix too. You guessed it, I usually carry both!

One of these days, I will get another digital cameras that fulfil my need as the super-amateur-but-no-interest-to-learn photographer : take night shots using auto mode (none of this nonsense about setting shutter/aperture/etc!) without the use of flash!

Hubby said no camera can give me that. I hope he’s not right.

Besides I think we need to start looking at other brands since all our digital cameras are FujiFilms! I’m not sure why hubby is so loyal to FujiFilm! They are good but perhaps there are other brands which can serve my (special) need without me having to crack my brain trying to learn the techniques.

Maybe I should convince hubby to look into one of the Nikon’s compact camera. This looks very nice, don’t you think?

In Seria there are only a few family run coffee shops and most of them have been around for decades.

They may seem very ordinary, no funky decor or fancy dishes here, but maybe because of their homelike and no-nonsense appeal, they remained the firm favorite for the folks here. They are also air-conditioned, a fact which differentiate our coffee shops in Brunei and those in Malaysia.

Soi Hing is one of these Seria coffee shops and we often come here for their noodle and “pau“. I find it interesting that despite being very simple (in looks and in taste), the Seria styled noodle, such as those served at Soi Hing, are so distinctive that I was told, you could even get Seria Mee in some parts of Canada where many migrants from Brunei Seria are based!

I mean, have you ever heard of Luyang Ko Lo Mee in Perth (since there are a lot of Sabahans there)?!

To be honest, I find nothing special with these mee BUT after having them all these time that I’m in Brunei, I do feel like no other mee anywhere else can quite give that bland-but-satisfying feel after a plateful.

Soi Hing also offers some local kueh and here are just some of them that we had recently :