You probably did not know this before but I was born in Malacca and I gave up my Malaysian citizenship when I was 14-year-old. I came to live with my family in Singapore when I was only a year old and every Lunar New Year without fail, we will visit some of my Malaccan relatives who still choose to reside in Malacca. The interesting bit is although Kuala Lumpur is so near to Malacca, I had only ever been there once and it was a decade ago for a night! We really did not get the opportunity to explore the city until last weekend, when Galen and I had the honor and pleasure to be the guests at Josiah and Kim's wedding.  

It was a very short and brief trip so my sincere apologies for not catching up with all of my friends living in KL. We were there for 3 happy days and 2 cosy nights. The wedding was held at The Westin, KL and so we went along to book a room for our stay and my, everything was just perfect and I highly recommend The Westin, KL to you! The Pavilion Kuala Lumpur is directly opposite the hotel and is way better than VivoCity - Singapore's largest retail and lifestyle destination. It is just HUGE and I can find anything and everything there. My first meal in KL was KFC and if you don't already know, let me tell you Malaysia's KFC is the bomb and Malaysia is bagus because you can find Baskin Robbins, Nando's and Krispy Kremes! You won't be able to find any of these yummies in Singapore.

Forget the cheap flights and go for Aeroline Coach which Kim highly recommended to me. It makes a lot of good sense to choose Aeroline coach because you will be alighting at Corus Hotel and you save the money from airport to the city. It took us a 5 minutes ride from Corus Hotel to The Westin, KL. We left Singapore at 9 AM sharp and reached KL around 1.48 PM. The journey was comfortable, pleasant and very enjoyable. It is very cheap to get around KL because taxi fare starts at RM2 and that is barely S$0.83. It is common to have drivers without any meter or whatever reason, and they will quote you a price before you get into the cab. We ended up paying RM10 from Jalan Alor back to the hotel and RM10 from Pavilion to Berjaya Times Square. The driver quoted us RM5 but hey, we decided RM10 would make the driver and us happy, so there you go, 3 very happy people.

I was ecstatic when Kim told me to keep 28th June free for her and was very touched when she wanted to hand me the wedding invitation card personally in Singapore. Kim and I first got acquainted through blogging in 2004 and then we realized, we were both reading the same major in Perth and later even became neighbours at Erica Underwood House! If you don't know Kim personally, just hop over to her blog and I can assure you what you see and read will be exactly what you get in person with her. Kim is the whole package woman and ask another woman, and she will tell you how women are just scary people. Let's just say it is an arduous task to find a woman with such good looks and has an equally big heart to match up to that. She is a very creative person and you will be able to find out more when you hop over to Kim's blog. Her black and white wedding gown, banquet menu and the whole concept of the whole wedding was just so Kim Ong Ng, very creative, refreshing, personal, and all class.

Gorgeous huh? I have more pictures from the wedding to share with you. Enjoy!

With our gorgeous bride, Kim.

With my fellow roti lover, Rebecca.

With the funniest guy, Kenny.

With the founder of Advertlets, wow Josh!

And a montage of Galen and I machiam we were the newlyweds, mwahaha.

I received many compliments about my dress and the credit went to Ee-lyn of We Love Yu. If you want to customize a dress for a very special occasion, I highly recommend Yu for your very own bespoke dress fitted precisely for you and only you as promised by the label. Ee-lyn was a great pleasure to work with and the dress looked even better than I would have thought. With Yu, you know there won't be another person wearing the same dress as you. You will be your very own woman clad in utmost confidence, the finest and dress of your dreams. Thank you heaps, babe!

I was sooooo happy to catch up with my lady boys, Marcus and Jung before we left for Singapore. Jung was previously working in Singapore for the past 2.5 years and is currently enjoying a slower pace of life in KL before heading to Melbourne for work in August. 

All in all, this trip was just totally awesome and out of this world! The trip would never be this much fun if not for you, Baos. Whatever I want to say, you already know and it's all between us so I'm not going to tell a fairytale here but really, you are the best and I feel like the luckiest girl in our G bear world. Thank you so much for everything and now I know, the only person to trust is You.

I always reach for my pair of chopsticks when I tuck into my bowl of noodles and when I eat my Teochew rice porridge. Just like how Indian food tastes a lot better if you use your right hand to scoop up the delectable butter chicken and cheese naan in one moulded morsel in your hand, a bowl of rice just goes perfectly well with your chopsticks! Everyone holds chopsticks in whatever which way they fancy, but if you can hold your chopsticks the correct way. Hey, let's say why not!

See, it is really not tough at all and pretty damn cool if you are a non-Chinese and is able to ching ching chong chong in your local Chinese Restaurant and show your Chinese friends you can do a great job at holding your chopsticks too. I have always held the chopsticks this proper way and have taught a handful of my friends because they asked me to, and everyone was able to pick it up quite fast with some good practice at home. I showed my Indian housemate in Perth how to hold the chopsticks the correct way and everyday after her dinner, she would eat her cut fruits using chopsticks and within a week, she fully mastered the art! Heh heh

 
Good Luck Darling!

I love routines when it comes to what I eat and I never rarely get bored of my favourite yummies. My palate seems to thank me for keeping it happy consistently with my favourites, so I'm glad I don't hear voices in my head too often nagging me to take my tastebuds on a holiday around the world. I remembered eating frozen steamed vegetarian char siew paus for Breakfast everyday for a year when I was in Perth and never got sick of it until they stopped stocking it. I was then forced to try something new and met my new love, Golden Boy pancakes and I was eating that for a very long time too. I don't always stick to just one Breakfast food although I must have my glass of chilled milk everyday. I can now safely say bread is still my favourite choice and I have been eating homemade french toast with Kaya (Singapore's National Jam) for Breakfast a few times a week, haha.

French toast has always been my comfort food and when I was a kid, the luxury only happened when the loaf of bread in the kitchen was expiring and mom could not be bothered to cook fried rice or congee for us. There are many delicious ways to make french toast but this was how my mom made it for us. Very simple and delicious with a cup of hot tea.

Mama Lee's Lazy French Toast - Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 large egg
2 slices of bread
Tiny pinch of salt (optional)
1 Tbs caster sugar
Dollop of butter
Method:
1) Beat egg lightly with sugar and salt if using for a minute.
2) Heat up a non-stick skillet and add in a dollop of butter over a medium low flame.
3) Dip bread into beaten egg and cook on the skillet for 1 to 2 minutes on each side.
4) Done!

These days I usually skip the sugar and salt and spread my french toast thickly with kaya before washing everything down with milk. My kind of Breakfast totally to kick start my day.

So just to refresh your memory, I have mentioned on my 家常菜 / 私房菜 Chinese Home Cooking post about how my mom religiously makes a big batch of sambal once every few weeks. She makes big batch of sambal using these basic ingredients namely - Large dried red chillies, lots of shallots, lots of garlic, some belacan, and some kunyit (turmeric). Blend everything up and mix in some salt and msg (optional) then store them in the freezer in small individual round containers. Whenever she needs it, a small tub is enough without the need to thaw the whole batch of sambal.

Big Batch Sambal
1/2 kg large dried chillies
1/2 kg shallots, peeled
1/2 kg cloves of garlic, peeled
1 cup kunyit
1/4 cup belacan
Salt, to taste (Mom said the sambal keeps better this way)
A little MSG (optional)
Method:
1) Cut chillies into halves and put them into a pot filled with water. Bring to a boil, drained and set aside.
2) Blend chillies and remaining ingredients with a blender.
3) Done! Pack sambal into individual containers and freeze them until ready to use.

When Mama Lee can't be bothered to cook but Papa Lee wants some homecooked food, she makes our favourite Mee Goreng! I grew up eating this really! You should have noticed by now, my family eats a lot of Chilli because my dad is Peranakan and that we are from Malacca where chilli is a staple ingredient in every household. Mama Lee's Mee Goreng is very delicious and extremely easy to whip up after you are done with all the blending work of course.

Ingredients:
Canola oil for cooking
Enough sambal (see recipe above)
Light soy sauce, to taste
Choy sum, about 2 to 3 bunches
Bean Sprouts, 500g or as much as you like
1 kg yellow noodles
Method:
1) Heat up wok and fry enough sambal with oil until fragrant
2) Add in choy sum and fry for a minute
3) Add in yelow noodles and fry for a minute
4) Add bean sprouts and light soy sauce. The sambal has salt and msg in it, so you can leave these out.
5) Done! Easy Peasy

My mom does not add anything other than Chinese green leafy choy sums and bean sprouts because Mama Lee's Mee Goreng is actually her very yummy lazy noodle dish. She paired the mee goreng last week with easy to prepare Tom Yam Goong using store bought tom yam paste, bruised fresh lemongrass, a few chilli padis, a pack of meat balls, a pack of fishballs, some large fresh prawns and a can of straw mushrooms. Boil everything with water and garnish with fresh coriander. Wow la!

I hope you love my homecooked yummies. Happy Masak-ing!

See also: Let's talk about my roots, sayang...