Pre CNY - the closing office meal

As you can see, I am already in a CNY mood! My cubicle has the air and flavor of an impending festival!!.

Traditionally, in Chinese societies, there is a designated period where the office shuts down for Chinese New Year (CNY). The management will treat all it's employees and some key guests to an office closure lunch or dinner. In our case, the Sales Manager decided to have this today - Thursday 22nd Jan. Oriental Pearl in Mont Kiara Equestrian club was chosen because it served halal food. We had to reserve 2 tables in order to seat everyone.

First up is the Yee Sang (or live - as in uncooked) fish. This dish used to be served on the 7th day of CNY but over the years, due to commercialization, it is now served even before CNY starts. The significance of this dish is that it is used to wish for a new year of hope, wealth, health and anything else that you fancy. We wished for quota performance, pay increment, promotion and maybe someone secretly wished to get a boyfriend or girlfriend! It is a dish of grated vegetables, like carrots, mixed with fried fritters, honey, oil, fresh fish (like salmon). The diners then toss this up to get them all mixed up. The higher the better while making known your wish for the year. We sure did justice to this dish.

This was followed by shark fin soup, smoked chicken, steamed pomfret, broccoli with mushrooms, abalone, fish maw. Then there was steamed prawns, lotus fried rice and sweets to top it all off.

And that's only lunch. I still have a dinner along similar lines tonight.

Burp!

7 days to CNY - a look at some shopping malls

I would think that Sunway Pyramid was probably the first off the block. A week into the new year, they still had Xmas decor up in one side and CNY decor up on the other. The CNY decor was at the main entrance of Sunway Pyramid.
Gardens also had a pinkish decor all over. During my trip there, they had a group playing contemporary music on harmonicas. And there was one really huge double harmonica at play that day.

Over at Mid Valley, they had a paper cut design all over the complex. During this trip, they had a troupe of drummers in action. This is the first time that
I tried using the video recording function of my camera and I definitely need a tripod to get better results.

Over at 1 Utama, they had a red mansion looking facade in the new wing. The old wing was sporting a rather bland red/pink stage.

Tried uploading the videos and am running into gremlins.

Oh well, maybe next time.
Update: tried uploading the Harmonica Trio again (playing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Seems to work. Dare not try moving it's location on this blog.

One more week to Chinese New Year and I am just over gastric pains

With a week more to the year of the Ox, all the shopping Malls in town have been decorated with CNY decor. It seems that pink is in vogue this year. Maybe this will help put all of us into the pink of health. Red is auspicious, but under current circumstances, may not be the best color financially.

I have been down for almost 6 days due to an overenthusiastic approach to losing weight. On 4th Jan, I decided to make a change in my meal habits. Breakfast with the gang was OUT. I was having breakfast with office colleagues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was with the Shiseido crowd (Madeline, Yen Yen, Stephen were the regulars). So breakfast was changed to a cup of oatmeal in the office. That was bearable.

Lunch was normal. Whatever the gang decided to eat, i tagged along - eating in moderation. Dinner was another matter. I had cut off rice (carbo) for almost a year of dinner with no appreciable difference. So this time, I just cut off dinner altogether and went for fresh juices. I had bought a new juicer which was pretty efficient. It could get quite a bit of juice from a whole apple (no cutting into smaller pieces required).

I experiments with a mish mash of juices with apple, orange and celery as the core. We added carrots, ginger and a local fruit called kedongdong to the mix. I was getting used to juices for 5 days straight. On the 6th day, problems started - I had GASTRIC pains. Unbelievable!! That was coupled with a low grade fever. Over 2 days, my internal pipes were scoured clean with every visit to the washroom feeling like I had a faucet installed. And once the pipes were emptied, gas traps were happening all over. I could even hear the gurgling every so often. Doctor treated it as just hyper acidity due to my juice intake.

Just when I thought it was getting better, I got floored again and had to go back top the doctor for another diagnostic. This time, in view of the low grade fever, he reckoned that I had somehow gotten some bacterial infection as well. A course of antibiotics and today, 8 days later, I think I'll go back to my original plan - juices for dinner - with less acidic fruits in the mix.

The good news (if you can call it that) is that I seem to have dropped off at least 3 kg for January.

A dinner to start the New Year

The Wongs decided to hold their year end dinner on 1st Jan 2009. So instead of a year end dinner, we had a New Year dinner. Food was great and I really had to control myself from over gorging.

Everyone enjoyed themselves - especially the dogs.

Woof woof!

Fish Head Noodles in Taman Segar, Cheras

Grace and Esther volunteered to be my part time gardeners and on one of those gardening days, they suggested this place near my house for one of the better fish head noodles. If you are familiar with Taman Segar, just go along the front of Maybank all the way to the left (if you are facing the open air carpark) until you reach the junction. The noodle place is just off centered from the junction. They don't seem to have a permanent signboard (other than that dilapidated awning). Just that piece of canvas advertising - Kaki Bola. XO Fried Fish Head Noodle.

We ordered the fried fish noodles and it was heavenly. The shop also provide their own recipe for the chilli. It seems to be a mix of chilli padi, garlic , lime and something else that i could not figure out. Dipping the fish pieces into this mixture enhanced the taste of the meal.

And to wash down the meal - I had a glass of iced coffee/tea mix - made strong and thick and another glass of iced lemon tea.

Hey, gardening is thirsty work lah.