Dinner @ Sanga Japanese Restaurant

"Where shall we go for dinner?" W** asked.

"Erm," I replied.

But then we ended up at Sanga Japanese Restaurant at Pelita Commercial Centre. Hmn. It's my second time here, and it really confirms the fact that the food here is ordinary yet VERY expensive. The four of us ate more than RM100 worth of food and yet, it did not make us feel full.

Dinner included ...

Hiyashi Wakame, RM6.00

Salmon Sashimi, RM20.00

This is the only thing I enjoyed .... 

Edamame, RM5.00

Gunkan Set, RM22.00

The rice in the Gunkan was not nice ....  pretty tasteless if you asked me

Kimchi Fried Rice, RM15.00 per set

Gosh ... it's a pretty small plate and for RM15.00, I think it's daylight robbery ....  it did not help that it was served with a bowl of miso soup and 2 slices of watermelon ... it was still darn expensive

Ika Karaage, RM8.00

Deep-fried squids ... My friend did not like the batter, but I thought it was overall quite yum.

Kimchi Soup, RM10.00

Not spicy, not tangy, no taste of Kimchi at all ...  

Salmon Head, RM12.00

Nice, but no meat ... skinny head this was ... lols ...

 We got a shock when we received the bill ... and it made us scrutinize the docket. It turned out that the first four items were not ours, and we were refunded RM33.00.

"I'm still hungry," D**** said. Lols. Poor thingy .... so we went to get desserts at our favourite shop, Dessert Master @ Boulevard Commercial Centre.

Okie. I don't think I'd like to come back here anymore. At least not that soon.

Yummy Bakes @ Seed Pastry House

There is a bakery at Boulevard Commercial Centre which sells very yummy breads. Its name? Seed Bakery. It is located next to Maybank. Its name is Seed Pastry House.  W** likes to come here. M*** says the bread is yum. L*** would drive all the way from Riam, just to buy the bread from here. It opened some time last year, and have since then, constantly come up with new varieties of buns and bread.

Today, I bought ....

Hokkaido Puffs ....

6 pieces for RM5.00

The puffs were tastier than I thought! The pastry was plain and light and unsweetened. It is filled with sweet vanilla cream. I liked to eat the puffs cold as the cream tasted really refreshing when cold - somewhat like ice-cream. ;p

Chocolate & Banana bun, RM1.80

I thought the shape was rather interesting, and since I liked both of the ingredients used - chocolate and banana, I bought this bread. Well, inside was a spiral cavity, which had bits of mashed sweet and sourish banana and a thin layer of chocolate. I enjoyed this sweet treat.

Cheesy Mushroom, RM3.80

This is crusty, cheesy, with lots of shiitake mushrooms embedded in there. It was slightly spicy and lightly flavoured with Italian herbs. This would go great with a hot bowl of thick mushroom soup.

Well, well. This is a great place to buy yummy bread, baked fresh daily. The cashiers are always friendly and polite and ready to serve customers. And best of all, it gives the other bakeries a run for their money!

Missing Home ....

I suddenly recalled this dish that Mom always cooked for Grandma at home, and since I had all the ready ingredients in the fridge, I decided to cook it for dinner.

Stir-fry baby corn with egg tofu, minced pork and mushrooms

 

First, pan-fry the egg tofu till browned, then stir-fry minced pork and chopped Shiitake mushrooms with garlic and shallot, add in the baby corn, a bit of water and the seasoning. The seasoning is made up of oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, Shao Tsing wine and malt vinegar. When cooked, thicken with a bit of starch. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Eating this dish reminded very much of home .... counting days till I can go home ...

Musang King Pancake

Musang King is the name of a revered variety of durian, known for its mustard yellow coloured flesh, and its rich, creamy taste that lingers in one's mouth long after the durian is savoured. Musang King is thus gourmet durian. Just last week, L*** told me that she'd bought a small fruit for herself - at a whopping price of RM45.00. Expensive, she said. But well worth it.

Today, S**** and I dropped by for afternoon tea at Dessert Master @ Boulevard Commercial Centre. And we saw this Musang King Pancake. We knew we had to try it.

Musang King Pancake @ RM6.90

What it looks like inside ... 

 A thin layer of soft pastry, filled with whipped cream and a thin layer of Musang King durian. As soon as I sliced the pancake, however, I caught a whiff of the very strong scent of good quality durian.  

 

 Cut up and ready to be eaten

"To die for," S**** said as soon as she tasted a piece. Well, it was really tasty indeed, but I mean only if you are a durian lover. ;p It was to me, a sweet, rich, creamy caramel-banana-onion-buttery concoction. Yummmmm ....

Together with the pancake, we had ... 

Deep-fried chicken wings, RM5.90

Hmn ... the wings were really puny, but they were well-marinated and deep-fried to a crispy perfection. Nice to nibble on.

 Deep-fried Yam Cake, RM0.70

A bit oily, but it tasted nice when dunked into chilli sauce. S**** reckoned it'd taste even better if it was heated up. 

 

 Mango Sago, RM5.90

It's my first time eating this, and I quite liked the mango cubes, and the ice-cream. 

Hmn. I wasn't supposed to eat in the afternoon .... there goes the diet. Again. ;p

When I Do Not Know What To Cook ...

I was at the wet market at 6.00 a.m. I was early and there wasn't a crowd, and I walked up and down and up and down, not really knowing what to buy. Finally, I bought a small thigh of fresh chicken from for RM4.40, and some fresh vegetables too.

But I had no idea how to cook the chicken. So I dumped it in my pot with some ginger, wolfberries, wine and water and let it boil away for an hour over small fire. Easy peasy.

An hour later, I served my soup with wheat vermicelli and a hard-boiled egg. There I had an easy, home-cooked lunch.

Dinner @ Eastwood Valley

Hmn, this year's divisional Teachers' Day celebration was held at Eastwood Valley Golf and Country Club. To accommodate us, there was no venue big enough at the Club and we had to settle for the Musical Corridor. There was no air-con and in the warm and humid weather, it could get quite uncomfortable.

Next, I found the programme to be long and draggy. It was supposed to start at 7.00 p.m., but it did not till much, much later. As usual. It was near 11.00 p.m. when it ended. I was totally bored. So to amuse myself, I took photographs of the food. ;p

We had ... 

Seasonal Fruit Platter

Fruits were served first. So while waiting, we finished all of the fruits.

Triple hot & cold combination

The dish was made up of a spicy jelly fish salad, which was crunchy and chewy and coated in a chilli and garlic sauce. It was not bad. I liked the shao mai too, which tasted of a mixture of fish and meat paste in the filling. The deep-fried dumpling, on the other hand, was soggy. So it was kind of off-puting.

Braised Sea Cucumber and Mixed Seafood Soup

The soup tasted funny. It was also way too starchy. Not nice.

Butter Garlic Rice

Hmn. It looked like a huge mess, didn' it? But it tasted surprisingly better than it looked. Though I could not taste any butter nor garlic, the rice was savoury enough to be eaten on its own.

Roasted Crispy Chicken With Prawn Crackers

I liked the chicken, especially after dipping in the Szechuan salt and lime mixture. The prawn crackers had softened. So they were soggy too.

Steamed tilapia in traditional sauce

There were bits of preserved radish and diced spring onions garnishing the fish and the soy gravy was alright. So, the fish was nice when eaten hot.

Braised Chinese Cabbage and Shredded Black Mushroom in Abalone Sauce
This dish was alright too, with the soft vegetables and chewy rich mushrooms complementing each other.

Well, I guess the food here is rather standard. Though some of the dishes were nice, really, there was nothing to be excited about. Perhaps that was also why I was bored. I already knew what to expect.

Something We Did Not Do

I was in shock two times today. It is certainly not a pleasant experience, and I swear I have added a few more grey hairs to the head because of this.

Whose fault is it? I sat down seriously thought about it, and I nailed it down to 3 individuals, namely 
a) The ignorant
b) The unwilling
c) The irresponsible

At 10.00 a.m., I found out that my students were due to sit for an exam the next day. What?? Where was the letter? There were none in my file that said so. "You sure?" I asked the invigilator in charge. Affirmative, she said. Heck, I was not prepared. More importantly, my students were not prepared.

"How come no one comes to check the room," I asked.

The room is ready, I was told. The examiners had called up to enquire but were not going to check the room.

At once, I turned on my action mode, securing the exam slips from the acting exams sec. The supposed exams sec was on maternity leave. We flipped through the file, in which I retrieved a few sheets of paper with the students' names on them. Students needed to have the exam slips to grant them entrance to into the exam hall.

Then, I proceeded to type up a document with those papers. Funny, I thought. Where were the index numbers? How come they were not indicated? Hmn ... but I never suspected .................................

At 2.00 p.m. after classes, I handed the documents over to the invigilator. She went through them and commented that those were NOT the exam slips. The exam slips were A4 sized sheets of paper with names, index numbers, and name of the exam papers and of course the dates and time on them.

What? Only NOW did she bother to tell me.

But those were the only documents in the file. It only meant that the exams sec did not complete her task. She did not print out the exam slips before going on leave. She had not also informed me or anyone else of this. It was very irresponsible of her indeed.

By hook or by crook, we needed to get the exam slips printed. How? The three of us - the invigilator, the acting exams sec and myself - had to figure it out by ourselves.  We tried to log into the exams website to print out the slips. But no matter how many times we tried, we could not get in. We were all THAT ignorant.

By this time, I was already imagining the worst. Was the system down? Could it be up and running before the next morning? What should I do if I could not get the exam slips printed? Should I inform the exams office? What would they think of our school? We would be the laugh of the whole division as we were SO inefficient! And most of all, the students would not be able to sit for their exams!! They paid RM101 each for this exam. And I was going to tell them that they could not sit for it because the system was down and I could not get their exam slips printed? I was in a state of panic.

As the last resort, I called the exams office in Kuching. A clerk picked up the phone and directed me to 2 websites which did not exist even! I called her back, and she finally passed me to someone who knew how to do it. And with his instructions, we managed to print the exam slips for all students. Phew!

I blame myself for failing to monitor the exams sec for the task she did not complete. I blame myself for my ignorance, that I did not even realise that the exam date is in the exams slip.

I blame my teachers for being unwilling. Earlier on, I needed someone to take over the position of the exams sec temporarily, and one pushed the responsibility to the other. Who wanted extra work, right? As a result, no one really took the responsibility to check, to ensure that everything was done as it was supposed to be.

At the end of the day, this is a good lesson learnt. Anything to do with exams SHOULD be entrusted to someone who is not only alert, but also responsible. Had it been so, no one needed to panic today.