Dining With Jewelle

One of the best thing that a husband can do is cook.

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…)

When Eu was still a baby, I was told that feeding her potatoes (in addition of rice) would make her gain weight faster.

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?

Last night I happened to read a simple recipe for pancake and I thought I’ll give it a try this morning.

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.
 

A few weeks ago, we decided to have lunch at the Hua Hua Restaurant in Kiulap.

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.

On a typical school day, I have about 30 mins and once in a while close to an hour to prepare lunch before I need to leave the house and pick my daughter from school.

And most of the times, I usually would cook a type of soup and at least one other dish for the three of us.

We’d usually have white rice but once in a while, when I have some extra ingredient, I’ll fry left over rice with some left over dish and we’d get a soup, 2 dishes and one special rice!

Like a few days ago, I cooked pork and mixed vegetables stir-fry. The next day, I fried the leftover with some white rice and egg, seasoned only with a dash of fish sauce to get an extra new dish that is delicious that takes no time to prepare and so quick to cook.

So the next time you have a little bit of extra dish left over, “recycle” them.

Once when we stayed at four star hotel in Singapore, I was pleasantly surprised when the hotel sent me a a cake on my birthday.

This was quite different from a five star resort in Sabah which I had to arrange for a complimentary cake as we stayed there to celebrate my parents’ birthdays. Of course, their presentation was more special as a group of restaurant staff came out to serenade my parents’ as they presented the cake.

Recently, my husband stayed at the Crowne Plaza Mutiara, another five star hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and received a funny surprise. Sent to his room was a cake with a “Happy Honeymoon” plaque!

Of course he informed the reception of the mistake but wasn’t it nice to receive surprise gifts like that when you check in a hotel?

Whenever I’m asked where to dine, my family knows that my first choice would usually be Indian food.

What more when I’m back in Sabah.

So when I was home for a short trip last weekend, I finally dined at the Spice Garden with my sister and her fiance as she’s been there before and thought I should try it.

When we arrived for lunch, we were the only patrons - and I’ve noticed that this is also the case for most of the Indian restaurants that I’ve visited in Kota Kinabalu. So unlike most Japanese restaurants - at the same building was the Umai Restaurant and that was packed then.

I was craving for chicken biryani so I ordered their version.

My verdict : Either their biryani is the authentic version or it’s simply is not that good because I definitely preferred the biryani at Choice Restaurant. For one thing, at Choice, you can see the chicken leg straight away while you had to fish your meat out from the depth of the pot in this.

Anyway at the Spice Garden, we were recommended this plate of tandoori of all sorts - from seafood to meat. While it’s reasonably good, I did not fancy it much because generally I don’t really fancy tandooris.

Of course, whenever I had Indian food, the one must have thing is the Aloo Gobi. And again, this must be the authentic Northern Indian taste because the kind that I fancy - as in the type cooked by my friend’s Southern Indian mother - is different. And those gingers seemed out of place in this dish…

My sister ordered some soup and ordered other biryanis - which I’m sure she will blogged about herself soon.

The place itself was beautiful with lovely paintings of Indian ladies adorning its walls. The service was good and the prices were reasonable - for 3 biryanis, 2 extra dishes and 1 soup plus drinks costs RM100.

Needless to say, we were extremely full. I’m still on the quest for the perfect Aloo Gobi and so far, I liked the Anjappar’s version. There is another popular “fine dining” Indian restaurant which I’ve yet to check out because it has to be at the right time of the day - since it’s without air-conditioners.

Still, Spice Garden is a nice place to dine at and although I was not thrilled with this first try, I think I will come again.

Reading some of Brunei’s prominent bloggers raving about the latest restaurant in the country is nothing unusual. What piqued my interest about this latest Italian place in the country was when another blogger chose to be harder to please - perhaps because he claimed to have real Italian experiences and definitely because the others were singing too many happy praises about it.

My sister informed me that she had visited Villa Mauri’s sister restaurant at the Jesselton Hotel in Kota Kinabalu called Bella Italia- which as per Rano’s interview with the owner, was opened 2 years ago.

She was not too thrilled with her main dish then but she adored the celebrated Fantasia Di Maria which was incidently the chocolate pudding I wanted to try.

So last weekend when I was back in town, my sister, her fiance and I met for dessert at Bella Italia and indulged in one Fantasia Di Maria….

And one Tiramisu…

Each of these slices now cost RM12 each - an increase of RM3 from when my sister first had it. The Fantasia Di Maria was delicious but as I quote them “Not as soft and high as before”.

But the chocolate that oozed out from it’s centre, the garnished ice cream and the extra cherry which I noted was missing from both the Villa Mauri’s and my sister’s previous visit to Bella Italia quite made up for it - although to be honest it smelt and tasted quite like the kind of chocolate cake I used to make, minus the gooey centre of course, and I am not even a baker…

The Tiramisu however was what a cake should be - I can’t say if it’s a great Tiramisu though. Soft, light, not too sweet, beautiful to look at but missing the coffee smell - and isn’t that what makes Tiramisu special?

Perhaps it was not the baker’s good day or my expectation was too high or I forgot that I actually don’t really like cake all that much but I quite honestly don’t see why the Fantasia Di Maria is supposedly very famous.

But of course, I will try it again one day just to see if I will change my mind…

So our first dining experience in KK during this trip was at the Wagamama at Komplex Asia City where it was not crowded (plus point) and spacious (plus point). The food selections were typical although I think their sushi range were not as much as Excapade (?).

I thought their food and the service was good.

And if that is what it takes to live in a city where you can get everything, I think rather stay put in my small town.

I may not get much things and may have quiet nights, at least I get more value out of my dollar for most of the things that I do get.