Ah Chai Laksa @ Yong Kwang Cafe, Kenyalang Park Kuching

I wanted to try Ah Chai's Laksa. He has a stall inside Yong Kwang Cafe at Kenyalang Park.

Laksa, RM5.00 

Overall, the laksa was decent - not impressive, but edible. The portion of the noodles was quite reasonable, so were the beansprouts, egg and chicken. I had 3 prawns on my laksa. The gravy was alright - spicy, reasonably rich .... but too little. I'd have half another ladle. :))

Kuching Festival Fair 2015 : My First Visit

Seriously, this is not a good time to be sick. I am still having a very bad flu, with the nose stuffed so bad that I could not breathe well for days. Together with that was a chesty cough ..... how fun. It's been over a week .... and I think I'm slowly recovering.

Now that I'm feeling better, it's time to visit the Kuching Festival Fair. There were a mix of all and new stalls - hundreds of them ..... and I was looking forward to the food and the atmosphere .... :))

We were there about 5.00 p.m., and already there were so many people! Here are some random shots.

Teochew braised meats from Li Garden

A colourful pizza stall named Pezzo

These very popular giant lamb skewers from Mongolian Master 

2 ice-cream stalls

This year's festival had many ice-cream stalls - and the ThaiCool stall on the right is a hot favourite among visitors. It sold stir-fried ice-cream ...... and when it opened, it attracted a really, really long queue. I'd come and queue in my next visit. 

What we ate .... actually, we did not eat much but were so stuffed anyway .... 

Roasted meats noodles, RM6.00

The folks enjoyed the fragrant and aromatic noodles, but complaint at the meagre serving of meats. Lol. :)) 

Thai-style kueh tiaw, RM4.50

This one I bought from Mango Tree, and I did not quite like the taste. It was slightly sweet, not aromatic at all. I liked the texture of the noodles, the crunchy vegetables and black fungus though. There were also chicken slices in there.  

Chicken and beef satay from Junaidi Satay

Not so nice, but the satay sauce was good.

Taiwanese sausages, RM2.50 each from Sausage Corner

I liked the original flavour better than the spicy one 

 Pork chop with cheese, RM8.00

This was good! This was the best item we bought so far. 

The meat was so tender, and the cheese inside the meat cutlet was really tasty.

We also bought some sio bee to eat .... and I did not take a photograph of that. Of course, we also had some sweets .... not in the picture was Dad's favourite custard bao from Xin Kung Fu ..... 

 Filled churros, RM4.00 each

I had the chocolate-filled churros.

My churros was served in a brown paper .... and after a while, all the chocolate sauce leaked out from the pastry and created a terrible mess. Sigh ...... 

 Sesame and matcha soft serve, RM2.50 each

I had the matcha one, Dad had the sesame one. 

The taste of matcha was there .... but the ice-cream melted too fast! It was too soft! Why? Too much water? Hmn .... 

Well, that summed up my first visit this year .... hoping for more to come :)) 

Manhattan Fish Market @ The Spring Kuching

My first time eating here, and for about RM24.00 per person, these were what we got ....

Cala Cala & Gummy Bear 

Cala Cala is calamansi and lemon fizzle, while Gummy Bear is Curacao Bleu and tropical fruit mix; I had the Gummy Bear and it tasted prominently of passion fruit to me. 

Fried country mushrooms, served with Honey Cajun Mustard Sauce

The battered button mushrooms were quite enjoyable to nibble, the sauce was too sweet for me.

Mediterranean Baked Dish

I liked the fish, which was served in a foil. I loved the blend of spices and herbs used to flavour the fish. Dory is used .... but I think if the same spices and herbs were used for freshly caught fish, the taste would be heavenly. The garlic rice was also tasty. 

Fishy Chicky Bang Bang

This was a chicken fillet and a fish fillet sandwiched together with cheddar cheese and then deep-fried; it was served with fries, a sunny side up and a deep-fried spaghetti cup. 

The food was so-so, I guess .... not really anything to shout about.  

Myojo Ramen Char Mee 100 With Roasted Duck

So the next day, I made myself some Myojo Ramen Char Mee 100 - one of my favourite instant noodles - and served it with slices of of roasted duck which I took home from last night's dinner at Boulevard Restaurant Kuching.

The roasted duck was heated up in the air-fryer just for a few minutes and it was ready to eat. Even on the next day, the meat was still tasty. And it went very well with my instant noodles.

So delicious 

And I hardly get many likes on my posts on Instagram ... but this picture garnered 98 likes so far. Hehe ... so happy :))

Boulevard Restaurant Kuching

And so it was Mom's birthday. Dad asked me to pick a restaurant for the celebratory dinner. So I picked the Boulevard Restaurant.

 Nice ambience inside the restaurant. It was spacious, and not cramped together like the older restaurants in town, namely Lok Thian, or Hai Tian Lou, and so on. 

 Braised peanuts, and colourful condiments

It was Mom's birthday, but she picked only 1 dish that she wanted - the hot and sour soup with seafood.

Hot & Sour Soup With Seafood, RM22.00 (small)

Strips of chicken, tofu, shredded Szechuan pickles, hmn .... and seafood? Not too sure about the seafood part .... the soup was tasty to me though; Dad said too salty, Mom said too sour .... but I liked it just as it was. :)) 

Deep-fried Homemade Spinach Beancurd with Anchovies, RM19.00 (small)

Yums .... this tofu was our favourite; not sure about the anchovies and if there were used, the flavour was to subtle to be detected; I loved the soft and silky tofu .... flavoured with chopped spinach and ganished with lots more crispy deep-fried spinach and some meat floss. Superb. 

Deep-fried prawns with butter cheese, RM39.00 (small)

The prawns were large and served in their shells, and coated in a creamy sauce; The sauce was saltier, compared to the sweeter version we get elsewhere. Not bad, though I couldn't really get the flavour of cheese .... 

Roasted duck, RM29.00 (medium)

The duck was well-roasted, the skin crispy and the meat very tender; it tasted good with the sweet sauce and the pickles. Some parts of the skin were very, very, very salty though. 

Stir-fried assorted vegetables with bean paste, RM15.00 (small) 

The taste of the bean paste was also quite subtle ... and it stood out more when the dish got cold. The vegetables were crunchy and not overcooked. 

Rice was RM2.00 per bowl, and we had a pot of Chrysanthemum tea for RM10.00. We paid about RM140 for our meal including GST. Dad had a great time, but Happy Birthday, Mommy. :)) 

La Cremeria Stick Ice-Cream Range

And so there was this Maggi Roadshow at The Spring .... so there were counters set up for other Nestle products like Milo, Nescafe, Kit Kat and so on. So I picked up a complimentary cup of iced Milo from the counter and was enjoyed my thick chocolate-y drink when I caught sight of someone waving at me. It was a former student of mine.

While waiting for her entry to the uni, this hardworking girl was working part-time whenever she could! And this weekend, it was she was promoting the Nestle La Cremeria ice-cream. She scooped up some ice-cream for me enthusiastically, and I teased her so that she would give me more. Lol. Yeah, I've always liked the La Cremeria ice-cream. My favourite had always been the Vanilla Cashew Delight.

So I decided to help her out by buying its new stick range ice-cream. There were 3 flavours to choose from - Delightfully Pecan, Heavenly Chocolate, and Absolutely Almond. Each were priced at RM3.50. I bought 5 sticks and got a cooler bag and a bowl for free.

 La Cremeria stick ice-cream 

Yummy 

Of the three varieties, my favourite is Absolutely Almond - as it's vanilla ice-cream coated with chocolate and almond. Delightfully pecan tasted of caramel. Its chocolate coating had almonds in it too. Heavenly chocolate was chocolate ice-cream, coated with chocolate and crunchy cone crumbs. The ice-cream wasn't too sweet by itself, and it was the chocolate coating that was sweet. They made great after meal desserts, though. :))

My Very First Soufeel Charm Bracelet

The fun thing about charm bracelets is that you can personalise it and make it uniquely yours. I love charm bracelets. In 2010, I bought a Thomas Sabo. The charms, though, were expensive. So I procrastinated at buying them .... I have 3 charms on my Thomas Sabo to date. Lol. It's somewhat incomplete.

Then Pandora came to our shores. Pandora was somewhat different than Thomas Sabo, whereby the beaded charms are strung together in a bracelet. It was interesting, but I hesitated about buying one. Though marketed as "affordable luxury", it is a far cry from it. The plainest is RM69 now, and prices go up to RM3799. So, Pandora, like Thomas Sabo, was just not affordable unless I had plenty of money to dispense with.

So I chanced upon Soufeel ... which was a more economical version of Pandora. It was a company based in the UK, and after reading a couple of reviews about it, I decided to go ahead and buy it online. I sat in front of my laptop, and picked and chose the charms I wanted.

The first piece I picked was a very pretty August birthstone Swarovski charm in Olivine. It was a very pretty shade of light green .... and hence, I decided that my bracelet should be green in colour. I picked a green iced crystal faceted Murano glass bead and another green shinning crystal charm. Another favourite piece of mine is the cubic zirconia christian cross charm. Then there was the four leaf flower with blue crystal - which I chose because it was cheap. Then, I chose a Starry Sky charm but it was out of stock - so it had to be replaced with a Bunch of Grapes Charm .... and this was my least favourite piece.

A heart shaped Live Love Laugh silver charm was given free, together with the bracelet. I could choose the size of the bracelet - so I had mine at 19.5 cm. Oh ya ... I also got a silver ring free.

My pretty bling

The shopping experience at the website was pleasant, and I received regular emails notifying me the status of my purchase .... and 2 weeks later, my parcel arrived. I was invariably happy with the quality of the charms, and was glad that the colours matched their pictures on the website. I stringed all the charms on the bracelet and was ready to wear it. :))

My colleague J said that the colour suited me .... and my kiddies noticed the bracelet as soon as I walked into the classroom. Your Pandora is pretty, they said. Lol. I'm glad I bought it .... and am looking forward to collect more charms in the future. :))