Dining With Jewelle

This weekend, my husband was kind enough to take over the dinner preparation. This time, the reason for this special event was a pack of prawns which he cooked ala drunken prawns - just to make use of a bottle of brandy whose ownership is a mystery yet has been in the household longer than Eu.

It might lack the professional presentation look but we are the no-frills eater and this suits us just fine.

He made a batch for the two of us with the special ingredient and another batch for the kids - which Eu polished within minutes. Qi refused to even try a single bite of prawn but absolutely loved the green vegetables fried with garlic and oyster sauce.

Their father might not spend much time in the kitchen but when he does, it is a guarantee sell-out. And how I wish that he can do this more often (as I absolutely enjoy having someone who cooks for me…)

So there are times when I would add some potatoes to Eu and Qi’s rice porridge although usually, I prefer putting other ingredients as rice and potatoes are both carb so it seemed unnecessary to cook both at the same time.

Nowadays, whenever I do cook potatoes, it’s in addition to a meat dish such as this minced pork with sliced potatoes which is a variation of my mother in law’s minced pork recipe that goes with the “lau su fun“.

Both Eu and Qi love this dish and although it looks very dark (from the soy sauce), it is actually just nice as long as you don’t put anymore salt.

Besides, this way of cooking potatoes surely beat one advice my friend was given by a Brunei government nurse when her daughter was not putting on enough weight :

“Why don’t you feed her french fries?”

If this is what government nurses advise parents, is it any wonder that some of our children are having this problem?

Although I’ve made pancakes before, I never really got them to look as fluffy as these and now I realized it’s because of the missing ingredients :

• baking powder
• bicarbonate soda (which I had to omit as I don’t have it in my kitchen) and
• oil in the batter (which I forgot as I only read the recipe last night and didn’t bother to print it out).

And the crucial preparation steps - let the batter stand at least until some bubbles formed.

The result was just as promised - beautiful and fluffy pancakes and even now, my dining room still has the lovely pancake smell.
 

This is one of those places which suit our taste buds when it comes to Chinese dishes and especially dimsum. The only reason why we are seldom here is because we rarely come to Kiulap.

Besides there is the attraction of the Escapade just a few blocks away.

I knew that Hua Hua is one of the old restaurant in Brunei as it is one of those chicken rice place frequented by my family in law in the olden days when making shopping trips to Bandar Seri Begawan (from Belait) - besides another restaurant called Thien Thien which according to my husband, still at the exact same spot since 20 years ago.

But I never expected that Hua Hua restaurant has actually been around since 1953 - as printed on their blind!

This Kiulap branch is of course only several years old and despite their basic Chinese non-fancy decor, the food is good and weekends is proof of its popularity.

These last few months, I am especially partial towards fried noodle and I adored theirs. Even the look of it could already make me salivate.

The carrot cake which we ordered was delicious but it was spicy. Eu loved the “siew mai” dimsum and I don’t remember what Qi-the-picky-eater enjoyed - if any.

I do however remember her, as usual, monopolizing the waitresses attention without doing nothing more than smiling at them and saying “hello” once in a while.

If only she eats as much as she flirts, I know that she will surely be one bouncy fat little girl.