Getting to Know Them

Sports Day ended rather early ... so 2 of my colleagues and I went to Sushi King for lunch, and in the process I got to know them better. One of them was teaching in the afternoon, and I swore I had never noticed or seen her before! Lol. I was not observant at all!

Among the food that we had were ....

Edamame

Ikura Gunkan

Salmon Roll

Ebi Fry

Chuka Iidako

An hour and three bloated stomachs later ....

Our mini tower

That was all we could muster .... not so many plates, eh? Lols. And I made 2 new friends. Happy.

Steamed Groundnuts

Aah .... I loved steamed groundnuts! I hadn't had these for a while at home. For it took a bit of effort to scrub the peanuts clean of the earth that coated the shells. Then, they had to be pressure-cooked so that they would soften quickly.

That Sunday, I saw some fresh groundnuts on sale at the market, and I could not resist. I begged Mom to cook some for me ..... and she obliged.

Oooh .... yummy ....

And these made a really wonderful snack .... couldn't stop munching them!

Instant Kampua

I bought this from Ta Kiong Kuching.

It was instant kampua noodles, 5 packets in a bag.

An individually packed kampua

I tore open the sachets of lard and soy mixture on a plate .. 

And then I blanched the noodles in boiling water and tossed it in the lard and soy mixture. Mom happened to have some air-fried pork ready ... and I served my noodles with that!

Yummy .... 

The noodles were springy and were really aromatic with the lard and seasonings, and well, this was almost as good as those one could get at the shop! I loved it!

Seafood Cheese Baked Rice

I have been wanting to make cheese baked rice for so long! It wasn't difficult .... just that I did not have the opportunity ....

Till today! And I was really happy with the result ...

Seafood cheese baked rice

Yummy .... even Mom said it was delicious! I was really happy. 

***

And it's all so easy to make. 

 First, I stir-fried the rice with butter, garlic, some seafood, chives and pepper. I merely seasoned the rice with some black pepper. 

 Then I dished the rice into a baking dish ... 

I spooned some Campbell mushroom soup over the rice before covering it with Mozarella cheese. Then I popped it into the Philips Airfryer and air-fried it for 8 minutes on 180 degrees.

The result was really great! And the taste was of course, yummy. I was happy. :)) 

Wikitea

I finally had time to chill ..... after a long, long day.

Cranberry green tea, and pomelo green tea. Both RM5.90

D took a sip ... and said that it was "astringent". Not sweet and a bit bitter. I thought the tea tasted alright, with a light citrusy flavour. 

I quite like this place to hang out (when it's not crowded) as there was free wi-fi, and the chairs were plush and comfy.

I sat back, relaxed while sipping my drink ......... 

* * * 

What happened that day was that I spent a lot of time at the salon's. I checked in at 11 a.m. .... and my hair was only done at 3.40 p.m. That was a good 4.40 hours. 

When I got home, D asked me to accompany him to his regular salon too .... and well, I did. His hair cut and wash took about an hour ..... and there I was sitting down and waiting for him too. 

My butt really ached after that. Lols. So it was really a relief to get away from the salons and chill at Wikitea.

Bun Hock Kitchen

D and I had agreed to meet up at Fu Cafe for lunch. He had wanted to eat curry rice. On that day, D arrived at the location first .... and found out that Fu Cafe's curry rice would only be available on weekends now. Too bad! So he decided to patronise the eatery opposite Fu Cafe, namely Bun Hock Kitchen.

The menu was rather limited with only a few rice and noodle items. I stared at it for a long time ...... and finally ....

Iced lemon tea and iced kopi ...

I ordered the iced kopi, and I loved the thick and sweet kopi as it gave the utmost satisfaction .... only that the ice melted too fast on a hot day like this. I could do with more ice! 

Butter chicken rice 

D ordered this .... I did not try it, I only felt that the portion was quite little

Salted fish fried rice

The fried rice was unexpectedly yummy. The rice was fluffy and fragrant with eggs and bits of salted fish, and most importantly, it wasn't too greasy.  The portion was huge as well! D too liked the fried rice a lot. He ate half the plate .... and as a result, had to abandon his plain rice. Lol.

I think the signature dish at this shop here was the wanton noodles ... perhaps I would give that a try next time.

Courtyard @ Jalan Petanak

Courtyard ... new or refurbished, I'm not sure, but it is located at Wisma Nation Horizon. D and I had intended to eat there for lunch since its opening sometime in May .... but it had always seemed to be so crowded. And typical D hated waiting .....

Now that it has been opened for a while, the crowd too has eased. I arrived at 12.30 p.m., and I got a table inside the shop. Now what was there to eat? Hmn ..... there was ... pastries like egg tarts and shao bao, kolo mee, bakuteh and pork leg rice, laksa, and what we both found interesting was the laksa fried noodles. We could have it plain, with an egg, or with a chicken drumstick.

We ordered a Laksa Fried Kueh Tiaw and a Laksa Mee Mamak.

 Laksa Fried Kueh Tiaw, RM4.80

Laksa Mee Mamak, RM4.80

D felt that the portion was too little .... but I thought it was quite a lot! What a diverse opinion. Well, I did like the noodles a lot, both moist and tasted faintly of curry laksa paste. The egg noodles were slightly sweetened compared to the savoury flat rice noodles. Of the two, I preferred the Mee Mamak.

I liked the noodles. Recommended. :)) 

Imperial Bak Kut Teh

D and I met up for lunch at Imperial Bak Kut Teh at Stutong. It was near 1.00 p.m., and the busy lunch crowd had dispersed. Hence, it was easier to talk over the food as it was less noisy. D and I had plenty to catch up over the week's happenings.

Loved this drink of snow fungus, dried longan among other things ... sweet and cool and refreshing.

The savoury rice looked and tasted a bit wet ... I would prefer it to be drier and fluffier.

Deep-fried fritters to go with the bak kut teh

An individual serving 

Quite generous with ingredients, huh? The herbal soup was not too mild nor too thick, and with a nice herbal taste.

And blanched beansprouts to share

Thanks to D for the treat!

Exploring KLIA 2

Since lunch pretty much disappointed me, and I hardly ate anything, I was really, really hungry. Food choices were aplenty here .... Dome's, Nando's, Texas Chicken, Burger King, Nyonya Colours, Marrybrown, KFC, just to name a few .... but I ended up at the food court called Quizinn.

Here, there were plenty of stalls serving Chinese mixed rice, claypot and sizzling rice and noodles, Nasi Kandar, Arabian fare, and so on. I was tempted by a banner adversiting Char Kueh Tiaw .... and that was exactly what I ordered.

Char Kueh Tiaw, RM10.50 after tax

Well .... portion was reasonably large, and besides the flat rice noodles and the beansprouts, there were egg, fishcake slices, and teeny cockles. Taste wise, this Char Kueh Tiaw wasn't great .... because I needed to add condiments like chilli sauce and soy sauce to it ..... 

My Tray

From the drinks stall, I ordered a barley, for RM2.10; it was supposed to cost RM2.50 ... but there was a discount somehow ....

At Gateway, I bought .... 

Auntie Anne's pretzels!

It was so great that I no longer had to travel all the way to KL to enjoy these pretzels! 

Inside the departure hall, I bought a bottle of water and got chocolates for free! Yippie.

Bottled water comes with free chocolates

Cookies and cream @ Baskin Robbins

Glad that I could even enjoy gourmet ice-cream at KLIA2

Though the flight was slightly delayed, I was happy to linger around .... as KLIA 2 was definitely more happening compared to LCCT before. :P

Day 5 : Good Bye Bandung

I woke up fresh and early on that morning, as that was the day I would travel home. After our morning ablutions, we quickly packed up the rest of our things and went up to the 5th floor of the hotel. That's where the pool was ....

The pool was small, but it was inviting nonetheless ... 

Love this pavillion surrounded by greens

Here, we could catch some views of Bandung ..... 

 A train station there .... 

 A bus depot right behind us 

 Yonder the city of Bandung, West Java

We headed to Swiss Cafe on the ground floor for our breakfast .... and here are some of the items I enjoyed that morning ....

On the left were ham, a hash potato ball, and some cashews; On the right were cheese slices, assorted vegetables with salad dressing, fruits 

 Siomay and Bakso Tahu 

Siomay is of course shao mai dumplings and bakso tahu is beancurd stuffed with minced meat mixture, both served with a spicy peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce. I loved these. 

Spaghetti was really yum, with a hint of olive oil and black pepper; Stir-fried glass noodles were nicely flavoured and very textural with lots of vegetables used 

 Assorted muffins, cakes and pastries 

I climbed into the bus for the journey to the airport. Just outside the window, there was this guy with his ukulele ....

And he and his friend climbed into the bus and introduced themselves .... and started singing in exchange for some donations .... 

As usual, I felt apprehensive with them intruding the safe cocoon of the bus ...

Before long, we reached the airport, the Husein Sastranegara International Airport, Bandung.

 It was a tiny little airport, very warm and cramped inside 

 There was a long, long queue .... we stood in line for 40 minutes just to check in! We had to pay IDR75,000 per pax for the airport tax upon our checking in. 

The waiting lounge was just as cramped with hardly any places to sit .... 

 Waiting lounge

There was not much to do and swee there, just a Polo clothing outlet, a drinks cum souvenir kiosk, a cafe, and a mini bakery cum keropok store .... so we sat and whiled away the time. Our flight QZ 0137 was about 20 minutes late at that! 

 The Husein Sastranegara International Airport, as seen from the plane

Lunch was served on the plane shortly after take off .... our pre-booked meal was Uncle Chin's chicken rice .... 

 Lunch 

Chicken Rice

And I found it to be totally unpalatable .... the rice and the chicken were both dry, though the rice did taste a wee bit like chicken rice. Yuck. I left the meal uneaten ..... 

Two hours and five minutes later, we landed at KLIA 2. 

Oooh ... modern and swanky KLIA 2

We docked at Q7, and it was a long, long walk to the main terminal to collect our bags. By the time I exited the arrival hall, it was nearly 50 minutes later. And I was in transit for another 4 hours and 10 minutes ..... Let's go explore KLIA 2!