JustKay

But Pan ... the Popeye's here was Halal certified by JAKIM (the Malaysian governmet arm that does the certification). I'm sure they tweaked the ingredients. LOL! They're not that good. But they have excellent marketing strategy. I'd rather go to Burger King instead. We go there coz the kids are wanting the toys .

McSambal? They had McRendang once too. A long time ago, Samurai Burger - beef patty dipped in teriyaki sauce. For several years now, when it's Chinese New Year time, they'll offer Prosperity Burger - beef patty dipped in black pepper sauce. We also get Pineapple Pie in addition to the Apple Pie (or do you get this over there too?). Oh, and there's Bubur Ayam (chicken porridge). Now I remember another one, Maharajah Burger (or was it Maharani Burger?) Burger King's specials have always been more of international flavors like the Medditeranean Burger, Kofta Burger, Italian Chick 'n Crisp, Black Pepper ... which has since been incorprated into the menu,just like the Double Swiss Mushroom Burger. I think I might have seen a Rendang Burger during the Eid season but I didn't try it so can't remember. the Kofta Burger was delish - they used a different kind of bread (the name eludes me at this point. ) And there was a BBQ burger of some sort one time too, a Texas kinda burger, with onion rings in it too. Rodeo Burger, I think it was. And another special... a French kinda burger, uses a croissant instead of burger bun and French salami. Now all this talk is making me miss White Castle, Carls. Jr, Grandy's, Popeyes Chicken & Biscuit ........ They were all here once before. I would kill for a Carl's Jr's Roast Beef Sandwhich (they make great onion rings too compared to all other fast food chains here) or Popeye's Dirty Rice and their mash taters and Cajun gravy and the cajun battered fries..... **someone bring them all back here!!**

Just so you guys know I can eat healthy too .... this morning's breakfast was Nestum. And 4 slices of honeydew. I love this stuff.

English has always been Malaysia's second language. Do come visit us.

The kids wanted to eat at Nando's. And so, we had an early dinner. A whole Lemon & Herb Roasted Chicken - we added the peri-peri (pili-pili) sauce later because my little girl can't stand the heat, hence the flavoring choice. Otherwise, they have mild peri-peri, hot peri-peri and flaming peri-peri chicken. Along with the chicken we had Mediterranean Rice, Fries, Corn-on-the-cob, Greek salad and coleslaw. Yumm! After dinner, we bought a loaf of bread for the fish. To the right is the Putrajaya Cruise The new Selangor Palace on the opposite side of the lake.

After the park, we went to Dataran Putrajaya Putrajaya Square. The building you see is our Prime Minister's office complex. To the left of me (when taking that picture) is the Putrajaya Mosque. Adjoing the mosque is The Souq. The following are pictures of the various food stalls at the lower court of The Souq. And an ice-cream booth and a fruit stall.

jimmies = sprinkles. Sprinkles or Jimmies? Too many! I'll have to list, and post later.

I brought the kids to the Taman Putra Perdana Perdana Park in Putrajaya. There's an interesting section at this park, aptly named Laman Haruman = Fragrant Garden. Lots of fragrant flower plants like the Jasmine (many different species) and the Kenange ... Canangium odoratum (?) and these plants : Serai Wangi = Citronella, Cymbopogon nardus (L.), fragrant lemongrass - not to be confused with lemongrass used for cooking. This is more pungent and it's most useful as a mosquito/insect repellent. Halia = Ginger (the plant to the fore) Limau Purut = Kaffir Lime, Citrus Hystrix There were also calamansi plants and probably others that I missed. This public park is right opposite the Putrajaya Shangri-La Hotel (the image in the link is of the entrance/lobby)

My kids had no extra classes today so I had to make a real lunch. We had white rice with Daging Masak Merah , Ikan Bilis Goreng Bawang and microwaved broccoli. My kids are picky about the vegetables but they love broccoli. For dessert, it was mangoes (the one I picked this morning!) and ice-cream.

Actually, it's wrongly translated. Udang galah (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) = freshwater king prawns. Lobster = udang karang which is closely related to udang ketak = crayfish. Oh yes! Curries without the curry leaves is like ...errr .... **thinking hard for an anology here** .... spaghetti sauce without oregano? Perhaps, in the East Coast they are known as something else. In Penang and Kedah, it is known by it's Tamil name "karappulai" (Karuveppilei). It's botanical name is Murraya koenigii Sprengel Rutaceae We went to Swensen's Restaurant for dinner last Saturday. I ordered "Spaghetti with Chilli Fish". No description was provided. When it arrived, I was to see daun kesum (polygonum) and bunga kantan (torchginger flower). It was really just spaghetti tossed with thick asam pedas gravy. And topped with deep fried battered fish fillet. Talk about fusion food! Many of the newer restaurants features such fusion dishes. Even Pizza Hut has Satay and Rendang Pizza. Not to be outdone, Domino's Pizza offers Spicy Sambal and Spicy Tuna which uses sambal tumis as the sauce instead of the traditional tomato-based pizza sauce. During the late 70s and up until the late 80s, our Malaysian government sponsored a really huge number of students (mostly Bumiputeras - loosely defined as a Malay Muslim, including other indigenous minority groups but excluding the ethnic Chinese and Indian origin Malaysians) to pursue their tertiary education abroad. Ask any of the people in this age group who holds a respectable position, chances are s/he was a recipient of this scholarship. I think this is one of the exerting factors too. And then there are the inter-racial marriages. Malaysians have become more acceptable about this. It's very common nowadays to see an Indian guy with a Chinese girl, for instance. And then there are the inter-national unions. Influx of foreign workers have resulted in the mushrooming of restaurants specializing in cuisines from Pakistan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, even Nepal, and Indonesia to a greater extent. The booming and ever expanding tourism sector brings forth 'westernized' Malaysian food. Dishes that are tinkered to be less hot, less spicy, for example. The dynamics of the Malaysian cuisine are ever evolving. I think it's all very exciting. Even the more traditional dishes aren't spared. For example, it's common now to see mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower in kuah lodeh along with it's customary ingredients of tempeh, cabbage, greenbeans and tofu (a chinese influence, I'm sure). Ais kacang comes topped with a scoop or two of ice-cream and sprinkled with jimmies - something that wasn't done when I was little. I'm sure there are loads more of examples. There you go, another example. As best as I can recall, people started using spaghetti more and more instead of the rice laksa noodles ... maybe from the mid 70s. I remember my Grandma and Mom thought spaghetti was so cool compared to the clumsy rice laksa noodles. Plus, it was more readily available (at home) since spaghetti is dried 'noodles'. The rice laksa noodles had to be bought fresh from the wet market. But now I see dried rice laksa noodles too. I would say it's personal.

Hmph .... this morning we had butter-kaya toasts. Here's a recipe for kaya (literally means rich in Malay) : Seri Kaya They are a PITA to make, so I just buy them. For my mid-morning snack, I had a bar of 3 Musketeers (courtesy of my US friend). And half a honeydew melon I'll post pics of my lunch later. I think I've had enough picture posting for now.

Here's a young rambutan tree. Still a long way to produce any fruits. And a promegranate tree - but no fruits. We have several of this yellow coconut trees around the pool area. This specie is grown more as a decorative plant but the coconut water is quite sweet. The flesh however, cannot be used to make coconut milk - they're too thin and not 'milky' enough. Loads of coconuts we have. And here's the 'curry leaf' plant and the pandan. Poor curry tree is often subjected to the gardeners' sculpting skill. Even the pandans aren't spared. Helenjp, this pic is for you - pandan are the ones in the foreground. I'll add more info on pandan later.

A funny-looking kedondong tree. I'm sure the gardeners considers this avant-garde. We have about 6 kedondong trees. And the fruit : Maybe I'll go pick one fruit later so you can see what it's like inside. Aaaccckkk!!!! This calamansi tree was laden with fruits just last week. Sometimes, I'll pick the fruits to make ice-cold calamansi juice. And now it has been reduced to this shrub I found a lone young banana tree :

Looking forward to seeing a picture too!

We have 1 carambola/starfruit tree and one is enough to produce tons of fruits. The tree can grow quite big but the gardeners here likes to keep everything like so Not sure if you can see them, but the tree is full of flowers. Net is a jackfruit tree. And a lone jackfruit. The sukun tree. And the sukun fruit: You can see lovely pictures of the fruits upclose in this thread.

It's yummier if you make the bubur at home. Do you have the foot-long tube-like plastic that we have to make AisKrim Malaysia? Maaan... maybe I'll have to do this soon. Hehehe .... are you talking about the disc-shaped kinda crumbly 'pancakes' with a coconut-palm sugar filling? That would be Putu Piring here. And Putu Bambu if using molds cut from bamboo segments. Putu mayang or putu mayong is 'stringhopper' which are made from a hot-water rice flour dough and pressed out vermicelli-like from a mould on to wicker mats and then steamed.

LOL! Everywhere's the same then coz my friend is in Germany. I make my own burger patties now. I'll eat Burger King though once in a while. But no more sausages and the likes.

So ... I went on a walkabout this morning and took pictures of the fruit trees in my compound. First, the little papaya tree my son planted by my girls' bedroom. And my neighbor's big papaya tree. Next is the mango tree. I found out today that we have 9 mango trees within our compound. And the mangoes: And whaddayaknow .... I found 2 almost ripe ones well-hidden between the leaves

That was in Sleepy Hollow Dengkil, about 10km from my place. They start at 5:30 and starts packing up by 9:30pm. I would say the foodstalls are the popular ones; all of them - equally popular. Malaysians just love to eat. I remember in the 70s there was only one pasar malam in the whole town and it was only once a week. It wasn't as big as they are now too. I didn't get to go to the produce and fish/meat stalls last nite. It was just too crowded. Beef, mutton, chicken, shrimp, sardine murtabaks. But the banana 'murtabak' etc, are really filled roti canais. They don't mix these with the egg and onion mixture like they do murtabak. Now they also have roti bomb (just plain sugar filling) and roti tisu (tissue-thin rotis).

**smacking head** That's right! I was cracking my head trying to think of a 'sandwich'. I miss Angus Burger stalls. Remember them? From way back in the late 70s/early80s? Ramly burgers are so bleh nowadays, I won't touch them with a foot long-pole. And since an acquaintance who used to work as a food inspector told me all about how sausages are made, I have not touched them again. I have no idea. LOL! But the Malays call the apam balik in the picture, apam balik. Thanks Shiewie for helping out with further info. I am a Malay Muslim. So, unlike Shiewie and Tepee who can eat almost anything , I have to comform to the Halal guidelines. And unlike the both of them, who are trilingual, I am only bilingual.

Thanks. I wish I could take lovely pictures like you do. But the apam balik batter and roti canai/murtabak dough is not at all the same. Or is it in Indonesia? We have something like these too but they are more of the Dorayaki kind, which is very similar to apam balik. And then there's The Crepe Express. Crispy crepes with either sweet or savoury fillings. Very good. Too bad the mall that has an outlet is too far from my home. Maybe next time I go I'll remember to take pics.

Lobster flavored crackers. Yumm!

Crisp delicate wafer with creamy and smooth milk-hazelnut filling, and enrobed in thin milk chocolate. There's also the Kinder Bueno Bars which is Bueno without the wafer. And then there's Kinder Duplo. Same wafer, but with Nutella-like filling and a whole hazelnut in each 'hump' . Another Kinder favorite is the Tronky, although I find this to be a tad too 'dry'. A finger wafer with a drier Nutella-like filling with bits of hazelnuts. These are all chocolates by Fererro who also makes Rocher, Raffaello, and Mon Cheri and the yummy chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella. We don't get the eggs here.

Dang! I thot nobody'd be interested in those so I took only a couple pics. That's only a portion of the aisle - lots more Cadbury stuff. Yet still lots more not available here like the Flakes, Twirl, Curly Wurly, Frogs, etc .... We could trade chocolates. The boys got Snickers Almond & Snickers regular and Mars bars, the girls got the Cadbury Caramello and Crunchie bar, and I bought my favorites, Kinder Bueno and Duplo. And a couple packets of the chips and 1 packet of Lobster flavored keropok. And a bottle each of Frost root beer and Coke vanilla. I took pictures of the fruit trees this morning and will put them up soon.

Umm ... maybe Shiewie or Tepee can help out here. I have no idea. Yup, cucumber is a must ingredient. Usually, yes. Oh, they put just a few dollops of the corn. The big apam balik aren't crispy - they are more like a super thick pancake. The little ones which are made thinner are the crispy ones - these you have to eat them right away or they will become as chewy as rubberbands. Apam Malaysia Ingredients: 10 eggs 600gm sugar 600gm flour, sift 140ml ice-cream soda 1/2 coconut, grated pandanus leaves food colouring Method: Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add in flour and ice-cream soda. Color the batter as you wish and spoon into molds. Add the pandanus leaves to the boiling water and steam theapam batter for 20-30mins until cooked. Serve with grated coconut. I actually bought a dozen of them but by the time the picture was taken, only 2 were left.