Yummy seafood dinner in Penang

That evening, our friend, Karen picked us up from our hotel, Sheraton and brought us to have our seafood dinner @ this place called Ocean Green. We had stuffed crab, curry prawns, steamed pomfret, spring rolls, sambal kangkong, broccoli. After a satisfying dinner, Karen drove us around to see the popular sights of Penang - Gurney Drive, old colonial buildings before we headed back to the hotel to rest.

Stray dogs in Penang

I didn't see any stray cats in Penang on my first day but there were stray dogs. I saw this dog lying outside an art gallery at China Street.

A few stray dogs were also at the beach of the seafood place (Ocean Green if I remember correctly) where we had our dinner that evening.

Simple food in Penang

On the first day in Penang (9 Feb) after walking around Georgetown, we felt hot and hungry. We settled for this fishball kway teow soup in a little coffeeshop at Jalan Armenian. At 2 ringgit, it was satisfying.

Pinang Peranakan Mansion

The first place we explored in Penang, Georgetown. I have visited the exhibition on Peranakan culture in Singapore's Asian Civilisation Museum but somehow seeing it in a house is a different experience. Perhaps it's the natural air and lighting. I snapped photos of the numerous plates and bowls , framed up silk embroidery , furniture, colourful bed, the clothes and shoes, jewelry , camera and beautiful stuff. The panels are also very pretty.

The kitchen has full of old stuff.

The admission fee is 10 Ringgit. Some of the items brought back childhood memories. For example, this chair looks like the one I sat in when I was a baby :)

Penang holiday from 9 to 11 Feb 2007

I will be posting photos of my short holiday in Penang soon. Now I need to hit my bed as I still have to work tomorrow.

2nd visit to Sun with Moon within the week

A few of my friends said I seem to be eating @ Sun with Moon Japanese Restaurant rather frequently. I was there last Sun with kuro.shiro.neko and 2 friends for lunch. On Thurs, I ate there again with Mum and Sis who was on leave.

I had the handroll sushi and seaweed noodle lunch set while mum ordered some beef sirloin set and sis had broiled salmon and torikarage set.

Food I can't resist

Perhaps I have not been having dinners @ home nowadays. When I started working, I only have programmes in the evenings a few times a week. Now it's the other way round. I have more friends and activities. That's why it makes dinner at home a special affair sometimes. The dishes always taste good.
Tonight we had minced pork with mushroom and mui choy, doumiao soup with meat balls and crab sticks and some frozen fish. I felt satisfied after dinner and happily went down to the park with mum to feed the cats.

The Kite Runner

I finished reading this book Joan gave me early last year.Written by Khaled Hosseini, it explores friendship, war, courage, family, love, cruelty, hatred, forgiveness, etc. It is a very good story and once again, I couldn't help but feel fortunate that I am born in Singapore surrounded by my family and friends.

Failed cookies that turned out right

I tried this recipe for Joan's christmas dinner and I could manage to cut out shapes of cats, dogs, little men. However on Thurs night, somehow the cookie dough just cling onto the cutters and I couldn't get the shapes I wanted. I put the dough in the freezer for more than an hour but after several tries, I gave up using the cutters and decided to just use 2 spoons to shape the dough. Luckily, the cookies turned out right after baking in the oven. I was happy that my friends and mum like the taste of them :)

Another fabulous home-cooked dinner

I couldn't resist snapping a photo of the yummy dishes prepared by my parents on Thurs evening.
They would be amused or say I'm crazy every time I do that but I think they are happy that I enjoy the food :)

My packed lunch - udon

Today I woke up at usual time of 6.30am - quickly ate my breakfast, read the Straits Times before starting to prepare the food and stir frying udon with egg, sausages and green leafy veggies. It took me 30 minutes The experiment turned out to be quite successful. Mum was very nice to help me wash up the utensils, so that I won't reach office later than 9am.
I had as lunch after my yoga class @ work. Hopefully, with more practice, I can churn out more yummy food.

Peanut on me and the sofa

I will normally start Peanut's exploration by letting him walk on my hands, then my stomach, legs before putting him on the sofa. He would be sticking his head behind the cushion. After a few minutes, I will put him back into his house as he will get a bit wild :)

My Sunday lunch

When Mum told me she bought portobello mushrooms the day before, my heart was already quite set to have them for lunch on Sunday. I just put pieces of cheddar cheese on top of the mushrooms and baked them. They looked a bit disgusting but with juices oozing out of them, they tasted quite good like mushroom soup.

Chocolate coffee walnut cake

Since I am spending the whole day @ home, I thought I should try a new recipe and bake a cake. I came across the recipe from the baker's blog and the cake looks yummy.

I used 100g of walnuts instead of hazelnut, 200g instead of 250g of brown and white sugar, 250g of dark and milk chocolate and hershey's choc chips. The rest I followed what were required by the recipe and I had to bake for about 1.5 hr.

This is what the cake looks like before baking. And I also sprinkled some cranberries on one side of the cake.

The cake turned out to be quite rich, loose and nutty as described by the baker. It tastes something like brownie but more moist. It's quite nice but it's not something that I'm looking for. I want something lighter. This cake feels so rich that it can give me a heart attack :) I will bring some for my friends @ work to try. I'm also looking forward to my food tasters - my family's review!

Eyesore :(

I don't understand why people can't keep their surroundings and the park clean. If they can walk from their house to this pavilion in the park, why can't they walk the short distance to the rubbish bin, instead of just dumping the unwanted stuff on the ground?

*Shake head* This morning, I found rubbish where I was feeding the cats. Everytime we feed the cats, we will see rubbish (empty beer bottles, plastic bags, sweet wrappers, etc). Mum and I always remove the uneaten food from the ground. It's really disheartening to see how some people treat their environment.

Our beautiful community cats

I feel happy that our community cats are healthy and safe. The encounter with the poor cat yesterday kind of makes me feel a bit sad but I think it was for the best that I called SPCA to pick it up.

They say eyes are like the windows to our souls. I always like to look at the cats in their eyes. Look at Bush. He is the youngest of the lot and is still very playful and wild at times. Bush likes to jump on the stone chair to check out the cat food bag. Here it seems like he was growling at the bag :)

In the past, Fat Cat would be freaked out when I started taking photos of him. This morning, I was surprised that he didn't flee from my camera . Fat Cat looking up at me while eating his breakfast.

White Neck likes to rub his head against our legs and he likes me to give him head and neck messages too. He's very affectionate. Like Bush, after sterilisation and with time, he seems to mellow a bit. Another reason could be that he sees us everyday and knows that we don't harm him and always feed and sayang him. There are some of his napping poses:


Shadow can be quite elusive. She would appear to eat a few times and retreat to somewhere where we can see her but not like the other cats who would eat and hang around the shelter with us and let us pat them. However, whenever we leave the park, she would try to follow us for a short distance.

Some group photos of the cats:

Bush and White Neck just lying around

Fat Cat resting in the bush and Bush staring up Fat Cat's favorite scratching post.

Whenever we left the shelter of the park, Fat Cat would also make his leave and hang around a block near the park and go hiding in the bushes or under a car in the carpark behind the block .

Noisy who lives around the carpark near our block as usual will meow very loudly when he sees or hears us approaching. After eating her food, she would sometimes linger for a short while or go hiding under a car.