Adrian's Journey

Window 7 Home Premium Review

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

I have been using Vista Home Premium about 3 years and found out it's actually not as bad as being said by many users. Most of the complaint is slow boot time, resource hog, annoying UAC, incompatible driver, 'Sleep' issue just to name a few. Here is my 2 cents view. Vista is actually not that bad. I like Vista more than XP a lot in term of features and appearance. Yes, I do admit that Vista really a resource hogger but installing 2GB DDR2 will help. Hey, what you expect when you want all those muchy niche aero view and dreamscene on your desktop but at the same time complaining Vista is a resource hogger? Best appearance VS best performance, you decide. I dun have any issue on slow boot time as I close almost every startup programmed except the essential one. Some users having problem with 'sleep' mode but it doesn't affect me. Maybe I am the lucky one.

So what's the main different by switching from Vista to Win 7? One word, simplified. Microsoft irons out the entire problem in Vista and gives you a turbo charged version of Vista which renames it to Window 7. No more resource hog, fast boot time and simplicity. It's like a lite version of Vista.

The best changes for me will be wireless connectivity. It's so easy and effortless to connect to a wireless network in Window 7. This is what I called simplified. Nice! Next on my list will be Jump List. I wouldn’t wan to go further explaining its feature but you can Google for it.

Then there is this Aero Peek features. Once you're using it, the main change is a new fade out feature, which highlights the window you're hovering over by fading out all other active windows on the desktop. So not only do you get a window preview in the "peek" window, but you also get a full on preview of the window as it looks on your monitor. On top of it, Superbar is great too. There is improved thumbnail preview, show desktop and you can easily identified open and running process in the Superbar. Window do have sidebar gadget but this time, you can place the sidebar application anywhere you want it to be in the desktop. The ram usage is low too while boot time is a little bit faster than my ex Vista.

There is still so much to learn in Window 7. I am still not familiar with the libraries features but it seems that one can connect an ext hdd and somehow when you took out the ext hdd, there will be a virtual folder which is accessible from there? Not sure not sure. Then there is also Group Home which when you put a network access on Home, the rest of PC with Win 7 with Home network will simply connected and share all the printers and connected device with each others. Easy, simple and very convenience. No setting needed. It benefits home or office with many pc. Again, it’s effortless.

There are still many unknown and more time needed to explore Window 7. I would say Window 7 really trim down unnecessary steps in Vista and make this OS a more user friendly and simple but without sacrificing the features. Neat!

When I upgraded Vista to Window 7 the other day night, it’s a nightmare as it got stuck at ‘Gathering Files, Setting and Programs (18%)’. I tried canceling and installing again and it failed me 3 times. It took me 10pm to 6am failing to install. I googled for answer and apply many solution but still failed miserably too. At last, I did a clean installation rather than an upgrade. It took about one day for me to completely installed, updated, reinstalled other programs, driver, transferring data, pictures, setting etc. A piece of advice to anyone who wanted to upgrade, please do a clean installation. Upgrade you will not be losing any programs in Vista, but it’s a real mess as Window 7 need to take care all registry setting, files and directories, permission, ownership etc. Not to mention currently installed software and libraries that expand from time to time that may cause your system files cluttered. That is why it has higher chances to FAIL.

Why do I get free Window 7 Home Premium?

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Customers who purchase a qualifying Windows Vista®-based PC from June 26, 2009 to January 31, 20101 can get an upgrade to Windows® 7 when Windows® 7 becomes available.

This is being advertised in most of the major computer outlet for Window 7 free upgrade kit when you purchase any pc that come preinstalled with Window. Those who purchase their pc from 26th June will get free upgrade for selected model with preinstalled Vista Home Premium and above. I was so disappointed as I bought my new notebook on 21st June, 5 days too early otherwise I would be eligible for a free upgrade from Vista to Window 7. The price for Window 7 Home Premium currently priced at RM370-RM390. Expensive!

I remember when Vista launched in year 2007 and I bought it around that price too. It's hard to get a pirated copy back then as it’s still new and ‘uncrackable’. I couldn't stand the temptation and bought it. Here is my 2007 blog . (Dillema!! To buy or not to buy!). Fast forward to present, I wouldn’t have do so as it's too expensive for just an OS. Furthermore, there is so much pirated cd easily available on the shelf and not to mention download. But I always believe that using a genuine copy of OS is a must as we will get updates without worrying on anything. Yes, pirated can be updated but there will be a day when Microsoft detected it was non genuine and reduce the function of the OS. I agreed that by then, hacker team will do the job again and this cycle never ends.

I was in LYN forum and looking at comment drop by fellow forumer about the free upgrade programmed. They are excitingly waiting for their copy and there I am only able to drool. So I thought to myself why not try my luck to order the free upgrade. It's just 5 days early. So I place the order at Acer website keying in my notebook serial number and date of purchase. I changed it to 28th June 2009 hopefully able to get it. I didn't place much hope on this as I knew they will surely ask for Proof of Purchase (POP). I couldn’t care less until I received an email saying that my credit card has been charged. Yes, there is shipping and handling fees of USD18.76 which equivalent to RM60+. I was excited to see this because only those who passed and eligible will be charged. Furthermore there is an order number given to me. From that days onward, I checked the status in the given website for almost everyday. I heard that the ETA will be approximately 2 months!

Two COA on my notebook (VHP and 7HP)!

On the 11th days from the email, I was given shipping detail and a tracking number stating that the delivery will take 6-8 days. I check with POS website and found that it will be deliver on 16th November which means in 3 days time. So on Monday I waited for the postman to come but he didn't turn up. When I checked the status again on the next day, it said the item have been delivered yesterday at 5.20pm. I was shocked and called up POS immediately. She told me that the item has been sent out and I should have received it yesterday. Finally she gave me a report number and will pass to investigation dept to further investigate.

I received the Acer Upgrade kit around 12pm on that day itself. When my guard checked with the postman, he said that he was on leave yesterday, so no delivery for the whole Shah Alam. Apparently, the call center doesn’t know about that. Great job POS Malaysia!

Stay tune as I will blog for installation, upgrading and review for Window 7 Home Premium soon.

3 Steps Meguiar Polish + Wax

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:15:00 +0000

I made an online booking with Posh Car Care Auto Detailer on last Sunday to polish my car. One and a half year has pass since my last polish. That time I was still new to car detailing. I remember I went to Autoglym Indian shop to get my car polish. That time I am quite unsatisfied with their end result.

It cost RM180 for a lousy Indian shop to polish my car during that time. Hack, the worst is they even use bath tub cleaner to clean my interior dashboard. It's was damn glossy and not to mention super oily.

More info of lousy Autoglym shop at here

Wash and Claying

Fast forward to this year, I went to Meguiar’s 3 Step Polishing which consists of washing, claying, polishing and wax. All this was done by using Meguiar product. I also did a cushion and interior cleaning too. Total cost me RM248.

Polishing

I am very satisfied with the end result. My car colour was dull but now it’s back shiny and he car appear to look brighter. The only thing that can’t be done is my engine bonnet. According to the guy, he said that the there is no more coating layer thus impossible to bring back the shine. He is right as the bonnet have been repainted by a lousy paint. Maybe I might respray back the front bonnet later.

Wax

It took more than 4 hours to polish my car. The name of the shop is Posh Car Care and located at USJ 19 nearby Digital Mall. Here is their website: Posh Car Care. The staffs are friendly too. They did their best to do the best for me. For this, I gave thumbs up for their effort.

Acer Aspire 1810T Timeline

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:57:00 +0000

I seriously love this Acer 1810T notebook. It looks simply amazing. I was scouting for Daph desktop replacement before we decided to get a netbook. But then Daph upgraded her budget as netbook isn’t that good and decided to get Acer 1410T instead. It's running on SU2700, 250GB Hdd, 1GB DDR2 and freedos. There are only two colours which is blue and red. Both colours look dull and boring. Anyway, since there is not much option, we decided to get it on this coming Saturday.

It's lucky enough that then Acer 1810T was launch and just only started available yesterday. So I call up my friend who is working in Imbi and quickly place a booking for this Timeline. The price is about RM400 higher and we get a double speed processor of SU4100, 320GB Hdd, 2GB DDR2 and genuine Window 7 Home Premium! An additional of Rm400 for all that mention is a steal! Mind you that a genuine Win 7 HP OEM alone will have already cost RM365 the cheapest. Nuff said!

Its very light and the screen are 11.6" with 1366x768 resolutions. The metal hood look very nice and the word Acer and Olympic logo were crafted into the notebook hood. Nicely done and I have to give Acer thumbs up for this. Another thing I really like bout this notebook is it came with Multi Gesture touchpad which I find really nice and useful. Of course a mouse is still the best but when there is none available on hand, this multi gesture touchpad work brilliantly.

I played around with Window 7 HP and found it quite similar to Vista. The biggest different is it really boot and shut down faster than Vista HP. The interface looks more neat and simplified. There is some slight improvement overall which make thing simpler. People actually said that Window 7 is like a turbocharged version of Vista. Haha. Love it! Btw, I am still waiting for my free upgrade kit for Win 7 HP which I have placed an order to Acer. Anyone who bought their notebook on 26th June onwards on selected model and VHP above will get a free upgrade kit to Window 7.I read on a forum saying that eta is around 2 months. Just keep my finger cross.

Overall Daph seems really satisfied with her notebook. I am sure she is still awake by now testing his new toy.

Hotel 81 Rosegarden & The Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street, Beijing 2009 - Day 6

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:42:00 +0000

Day 6 is purely for leisure and relaxes without any plan. We really need a day to wind out from our exhausted day 1-5. We woke up at 10am today and check out from Dong Si Fu Yuan. We had our breakfast nearby before taking train just up a station to Beixinqiao.

It took us sometime before we could locate Hotel 81. It's off road from the Ghost Street. We were so excited when we entered into Hotel 81. It's one of a kind. A traditional Chinese courtyard style hotel! It's pretty expensive at CNY580 though.

There is a plasma TV hanging on the wall, the toilet crafting are so beautiful, the atmosphere is peace and relax, top with the wonderful cold weather. It's just a perfect and wonderful place for us to fully relax ourselves. I was imagining myself if there is any chances to see a Kungfu man come flying in at night and fight at the courtyard. Lol I guess too much of watching those movie I. Anyway, check it out the pic!

Of course we wouldn't want to waste one whole single day just to relax in the hotel. So at night we went to The Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street. It is one of the most famous hutongs in Beijing. There are many different kinds of bars, tea houses, coffee house and souvenir shops mushroomed on the street. The street is ablaze with lights, giving a homely atmosphere as we stroll around. The only thing which we can't stand is the cold and windy weather.

Then we had our dinner nearby that street. I have being told that Beijing is also famous for 'Water Cook Fish'. We jokingly said it as 'Who Cook Fish' as the word 'sui' is rather similar for water and who. The fish is soaking in chili oil with lots of peppercorns and beansprout. It tastes good at first but it turnout very 'geli' after a few times of eating. It's not very spicy but somehow it will turn your tongue numb. We also ordered fried cabbage too.

We then went strolling at Beijing famous eating street, Ghost Street aka Guijie. There are red lanterns, traditional courtyards and hundreds of restaurants along the street.

We walk back to our Hotel 81 and took some night scene picture. Then, we started to pack our thing into luggage. We are going off to Tianjin and saying goodbye to memorable Beijing tomorrow morning.

Temple of Heaven & Liulichang Culture Street, Beijing 2009 - Day 5

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:40:00 +0000

The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations.

We arrived there around 10.30am and were amazed to see a lot of Beijing senior citizen doing several of activities in Temple of Heaven. There is people singing, dancing, gambling, writing, playing traditional game, opera and many more. It was all being done in a group and every activity will have their own little fans. Some are in large group while some are small. It's really unbelievable to see all this senior citizen joining and grouping together to do various activities. I am sure it's a real heaven for the retiree. This activities stretch from North gate and along Long Corridor.

We spend more than 5 hours here visiting POI such as Double Ring Pavilion, Imperial Vault of Heaven, Divine Music Administration, Hall of Prayers for Good Harvest and others. One thing to be noted in Beijing are almost all the attraction we visited are super huge and need no less than 5 hours worth of visiting. You really need to have a 'good pair of leg' to walk around Beijing main attraction such as I mention in my previous blog in Beijing. Nuff said and let the picture rolling.

Then we visited Liulichang Culture Street aka Liulichang Hutong. Hutong means narrow streets or alleys. Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. Liulichang treasure house of precious calligraphy, paintings and duplicates of Chinese ancient books. Being endowed with so many Chinese ancient treasures, Beijing Liulichang Culture Street really deserves a visit to experience the Hutong culture in Beijing.

According to a Chinese saying, no visit to Beijing is complete if you miss seeing the Great Wall or dining on Beijing Roast Duck as a famous and delicious food with very long history. Of course we wouldn't give any changes of missing the best so we had our dinner at Quan Ju De He Ping Men Roast Duck Restaurant.

Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant is one of the best restaurants serving Beijing Roast Duck. It has a history of nearly 150 years, and today there are many chain restaurants of it around the city. The dish is prized for the thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. The meat is often eaten with pancakes, spring onions, and hoisin sauce or sweet noodle sauce. The taste is simply heaven like. We ordered half roast duck, chinese herbal mushroom soup (which ended up as one of the best soup I ever had for my entire life), duck meat fried rice and tofu with egg. We really enjoyed ourselves throughout the dinner. The bill is a lil expensive though at CNY375 but trust me, it worth every single cent for this heavenly 'peking' duck and the superlicious soup and you wouldn’t want to miss it! Enough of talking and let your saliva start drooling. Haha

After the scrumptious dinner, we went back to our Dong Si Fu Yuan hotel at around 9.15pm and started to pack our luggage. Tonight will be the last night we are staying here. Tomorrow, we are going to rest and stay at one of the most beautiful and unique courtyard hotel… at least for me.

Summer Palace & Beijing National Stadium, Beijing 2009 - Day 4

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:55:00 +0000

It took us about an hour from subway Dongsi to Xiyuan station. It's quite a long journey from our hotel and we need to walk and transit subway line a few times too. Upon arriving at Xiyuan station, we still need to walk about 10 minutes before reaching Summer Palace.

Having the largest royal park and being well preserved, it was designated, in 1960 by the State Council, as a Key Cultural Relics Protection Site of China. Containing examples of the ancient arts, it also has graceful landscapes and magnificent constructions. The Summer Palace is the archetypal Chinese garden, and is ranked amongst the most noted and classical gardens of the world. In 1998, it was listed as one of the World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Summer Palace is really a huge garden and we only managed to cover about 60% or less. After spending more than 6 hours here, there is still so many red LED dot on our electronic map. Seriously, this place is damn huge!

We love Suzhou Street really much. The scenery here is kind of peaceful and beautiful with shops along the riverside. By looking at the charm of Suzhou Street in Summer Palace, it gave me a sudden urge to visit Suzhou in future asap. We had our lunch here while simply enjoying Suzhou Street scenery.

I have really nothing much to talk about Summer Palace so let’s roll up some picture here and hope you enjoyed it.

Here is some picture we took during sunset at Summer Palace. I don't think so that one could finish walking with all the POI covered. Yes, maybe you could do that but it will be like amazing race (quickie) kinda thing. A famous travelling website said that Summer Palace recommended time of visit is about one and a half hour. He must be real kidding!

Our next destination is Beijing National Stadium and we took subway to Tiananmen West station. According to my research of direction in Google map, it shows that the national stadium located somewhere near to Tiananmen West station. Daphne was smart enough to ask the station staff before exiting the station. The staffs look at us and reconfirmed the place we wanted to go and she said it's impossible to walk from this station. Then I only I know that Google map gave me the wrong direction! Check the printscreen below! The national stadium is the one I circle up and not the B destination. We quickly make our way there by going back to the train and did some interchange after getting the direction from the staff. Our leg is already suffering and begging for mercy and yet we still managed to crawl there.

Bird Nest Stadium structure are truly amazing and Daph straight away knew that this stadium is very hard to construct. She works in a construction firm so she knew particularly well on building structure and material. The design, which originated from the study of Chinese ceramics, implemented steel beams in order to hide supports for the retractable roof; giving the stadium the appearance of a "Bird's nest". The retractable roof was later removed from the design after inspiring the stadium's most recognizable aspect. Due to the stadium's outward appearance, it was nicknamed "The Bird's Nest"

Beijing Nationals Aquatics Centre in the other hand is simply marvellous too. The outer wall is based on a structure devised from the natural formation of bubbles in soap foam. Many people believe Water Cube to be the fastest Olympic pool in the world. The proof? The Aquatics Centre saw 25 world records broken during Beijing 2008 Olympics. It is 1 meter deeper than most Olympic pools. Up to a certain limit, beyond which swimmers will lose their sense of vision, deeper pools allow the waves to dissipate down to the bottom, leading to less water disturbance to the swimmers.

We spend about one hour and a half here despite our leg not listening to us anymore. We really tortured our poor leg in these 4 days. We went back to our hotel and call it a day.

Badaling Great Wall & Ming Tomb (Dingling), Beijing 2009 - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:30:00 +0000

We woke up earlier today at 7.30am as we wanted to conquer the Great Wall of China. When we came out from the hotel street, we are happy to see that there is a busy local wet market in the morning. This is a good time to snap a few photo of the locality of Beijing daily life. We spend about 20 minutes here despite we are in hurry to go Badaling Great Wall as it's about 70km from our hotel.

We took subway to Jisuitan station and walk to Deshengmen and from there we met a conman that wanted to cut our throat. We knew about tricks of 919 buses to Badaling beforehand and we are extra cautious on this. There will be a lot of 919 buses and all will be going to the direction of Badaling Great Wall. It’s just that the routes are different from each other and some might end up going a big round before reaching destination. The problem is we need to find the exact express direct way to Badaling.

Despite knowing the facts that there are many conman trying to squeeze our money out of pocket, we nearly fall into their trap. This 'bus guy' we met was asking for CNY400 for transportation and keeps asking us to take cab. He said that it's hard to wait for 50 people for the bus as it will wait for passengers to fully board the bus before departure. Then he told us only his bus are going to Badaling and if we buy one way ticket, we wouldn’t be able to come back to Deshengmen. We keep on asking him how he calculates the total CNY400 amount as we knew the original bus only cost CNY12 and he keep on pushing my question away. Finally he told us that amount included ticket for cable car and ‘others’ as he knew we are reluctant and our suspicious grew stronger on him. I told him off saying that the cable car only cost RMB60 and he argued back saying that there is no such cheap price. We walk off and let him grumbling behind. Within a few steps ahead; we finally found the real direct 919 bus to Badaling. It cost only CNY12 per person compare to CNY400! The location of this direct 919 bus is a little hidden behind Deshengmen tower. We reached Badaling in an hour and bought entrance ticket which cost CNY 60 per person and sliding car ticket for CNY 60 too.

I must admit that Badaling Great Wall was truly a wonder of the medieval world. We took a slide car to the 4th station which we need to climb another 3 station before reaching the top of Badaling Great Wall. For the adventurous, you can climb from station 1 and it's said to take about 6 hours as the steps are steep and there is only one way up and down. Sometime you need to wait for an hour’s for people to descend only you can start ascending as it's very narrow. For people who couldn't climb but wanted to enjoy the top could opt for cable car instead and it will bring you to the 6th station. We wanted half half experience so we took the sliding car. We climb for an hour before reaching the top. Alas we conquered Badaling Great Wall and the feeling is so great!

The scenery on top really took our breath away and we really enjoyed the nice cool windy weather. We are lucky to have visited Badaling Great wall and other part of Beijing on October. If we were to go during July which is their summer, I am sure the mood will be completely different. People who are exhausted, hot and tired are easier to get angry. We are tired but the cold weather really helps a lot in controlling our mood. We took a lot of picture here and as usual, let the picture do the talking.

We then hired a private car to bring us to Ming Tomb - Dingling. We wanted to go Changling and Dingling but the driver misunderstood us for other place. We ended up in The Ming Dynasty Wax Museum. We quickly spend a few minutes here and buzz off to Dingling as the time is running out.

We then arrive at Dingling Tomb at 4.30pm and paid our private car and he goes off. We quickly bought the ticket as the Dingling will close at 6.00pm. Dingling is under ground and about 27 meters deep. It is the mausoleum of Emperor Zhu Yijun, the thirteenth emperor who occupied the throne the longest during the Ming Dynasty, and his two empresses. The main features are the Stone Bridge, Soul Tower, Baocheng and the Underground Place, which was unearthed between 1956 and 1958. The entire palace is made of stone. The Soul Tower is symbolic of the whole of Dingling and it forms the entrance to the underground chambers.

When I came back to Malaysia and done some reading, I get to know that the excavation of Dingling tomb was rather disastrous as they didn't have the technology or the resource to preserve the excavated artefacts. Large amount of silk and other textiles were simply piled into a storage room that leaked water and wind. As a result, most of the surviving artefacts today have severely deteriorated, and replicas are instead displayed in the museum. The lesson learned from the Ding Ling excavation has led to a new policy of the China government not to excavate any historical site except for rescue purposes. In particular, no proposal to open an imperial tomb has been approved since Dingling, even when the entrance has been accidentally revealed.

We nearly left stranded over 90km from our hotel as we have forgotten the time and thought the last bus depart at 5pm. We are lucky as the last bus for 5pm was actually from Badaling but not at Ming Tomb. When we came out from Ming Tomb, there is only two private cars left on the parking lot. We are so scared at that time and luckily a bus came just in time. We boarded the bus and it took us an hour to the last station. From there, we have to take another bus to Deshengmen which took us another hour. We reached home nearly 9pm and we had maggie noodles and some grilled meat which we bought on our way to hotel as our dinner.

We are so exhausted by the time we finished our dinner and bath. Our leg seems not listening to us anymore and they beg for a rest. We use Yoko Yoko as counter pain for our leg. We called it a day and have a good sleep.

Forbidden City, Tiananmen & Wanfujing, Beijing 2009 - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:11:00 +0000

We woke up at 8am today and had our breakfast in the hotel around 8.30am. Dong Si Fu Yuan breakfast sucks to the max. Nuff said. Our destination for today is Forbidden City, Tiananmen and Wanfujing Street Snack. I planned visiting Tiananmen at night as many forumers said that Tiananmen has a nice night scenery. We then took Beijing subway and reached Tiananmen around 10.30am.

What I didn’t know is Tiananmen is actually a huge square that is connected to Forbidden City. I thought they are separated afar by each others. On our way into the Forbidden City, we came across persimmon trees. This is my first time looking at persimmon tree and it bears a lots of persimmon fruits on each of every tree! Ticket for Forbidden City cost CNY60 per person and we managed to get it after 10 minutes queuing. We also rented the automatic tour guide aka electronic map which run on sensor. The red LED shows point of interest (POI) and when you have arrived to that particular POI, the LED light will goes off indicating 'visited' places and automatically begin talking about the history. Deposit CNY100 for each unit and CNY40 for English while CNY10 for Chinese language.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. The construction of Forbidden City took a total of 14 years involving millions of workers and hundred thousand of artisans. It was the order of Hongwu Emperor in Ming dynasty to start this massive construction during 1406.

I am amused and fascinated at the structure of the building in Forbidden City. Just imagine that you are walking in an emperor's palace which is the most powerful man in China during the era of 1400-1500 something. During that time if you are a normal person, dun even think to steps into this powerful palace. If you offended the emperor, be prepare to be beheaded and not only you but your whole family! I was so interested in this Forbidden City history that when I came back to Malaysia, I read the whole summary of this piece of history as I wanted to know why there is no more emperor’s generation anymore in China. I found out that the last emperor was Pu Yi with the history "From emperor to normal citizen" which is quite interesting, Nanking massacre, protest at Tiananmen in 1989 and others. I wonder why I have more interest in knowing a part of China history rather than our own Malaysia history. Well, I wouldn't want to bore you any further with words describing Forbidden City and Tiananmen but I will just let the pictures do the talking instead.

We spend a total of 8 hours from 10.30am to 6.30pm in Forbidden City and Tiananmen and we had a wonderful sightseeing here. I enjoyed the sunset in Forbidden City too and we ate biscuit and hot dog as our lunch. The time sure past very fast here. The only cons is our leg is killing us with all the walking we done here.

We then took the subway to Wangfujing station for street snack attack for our dinner. I must admit that Donghuamen food is better than Wangfujing. We ate tan tan noodles by the street while watching opera show on the second floor of the building. Then we continue walking down the street eating those snacks we ate at Donghuamen. Then we took subway to Dongsi station and walk back to our hotel. Both of us soak our feet into hot water as our leg is so painful. We called it a day around 11pm.

Oh, by the way the temperature in Beijing during day time is somewhere between 15C-18C while at night about 10C-13C. A lot people said that during October is the best time to visit china as it's not so cold and hot. For us Malaysian, it can consider pretty cold. Haha

Bali, ayam kambing soon..

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:28:00 +0000

Yup, you heard me right. Bali, I am coming soon.

We will be flying to Bali on the 26th January 2010. Well, just say that I get quite a superb bargain on the Air Asia air ticket and Tune hotel in Legian. All I could say is the flight and accommodation that I booked cost below Rm500 for 5D4N stay. That sums up to be only Rm250 per person! What's more, the departure time is 9am and reaches there by 12pm. And going back time will be 1.55pm which is extremely great time too. The wonders of this Tune hotel are for RM155 I could stay there for 4 nights. Now how cool is that. A mere RM38.75 a night! You better believe it! I have stayed in Tune hotel in Penang before and all I could say is superb!

Anyway, of course there is a catch on this super mambo promotion by Air Asia. It's a rainy season during Jan - Feb in Bali. Heck with the price of peanut, I couldn't care more. We will just embrace Bali with raining coat if necessary.

I actually wanted to book on Dec but then it was too expensive during school break and year end holiday. Upon searching the website, the flight to Bali itself already cost RM704 cheapest. Then, the departure time is something like 4pm and you reached there 7pm night. One day gone. Returning time sucks too at 6.05am! It will be as it like 4D3N if you get what I mean. The better air ticket will cost no less than RM900 and above. Not to mention that the hotel is expensive too.

I have started to do some light survey on the places of interest in Bali, currency, food, bike rental, conman artist, map and others. There is a lot more to edit in my Bali draft. Anyway, it's still early for any preparation yet. Gosh, I can wait for another exciting trip!

Donghuamen Night Market, Beijing 2009 - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:32:00 +0000

Currency: RM1.00 = CNY 2.02

We reached LCCT around 12.15am as our flight is 3.00am. Why so early? Well, this is to avoid additional 50% surcharge for the limo taxi that brought us to LCCT. We call the airport taxi to pick us up at 11.30pm. We had our supper at Old Town in LCCT and boarded the plane at 2.45am. It was a long 6 hours journey to Tianjin, China. The Air Asia X is equipped with in flight entertainment LCD but you need to pay to enjoy these facilities. Anyway, for in flight info such as GPS etc is FOC. We slept throughout the journey.

We touched down Tianjin at 9.05am and took a bus to Tianjin Railway Station. We bought the bullet train ticket from Tianjin to Beijing and boarded the train at 11.40am. The bullet train cost CNY57 per ticket. The speed of the train is amazing according to Daph. I felt asleep in the train. The top speed is 324kmph as written in the screen! We reached Beijing in no time.

Our hotel is Dong Si Fu Yuan hotel where it's located at Long Fu Si Street in Dongcheng district. We took their subway and headed to the nearest station which is Dongsi station. We checked in the hotel and were a little disappointed with the room as it look a little old and wear out. The price per night is CNY180. It seems to get good feedback from the trip advisor though. First, the breakfast seems always finishing anytime from 7.30-9.00am. Mostly only vegetable and hard bun etc. Then, they never clean the cup in our room, never sweep floor etc. They only change the towel and tea packet. The last day we stayed, the water heater spoiled. They even nearly walk into our room at 6.30am in one of a morning and luckily we put the door chain lock. Then they apologize as they thought nobody is in the room. There is no kettle but they only thermo. They fill the thermo everyday in the morning and expect the water to be hot until night. What’s more, you pour the water out and there is water dripping on the other end of the thermo! I think I can go on many things but I will put a full stop here. We stayed here 5 days as we have not much time to look for other hotel. The only thing I like is the location of this hotel. There seems to be a good hotel a few steps from Dong Si Fu Yuan but it was fully book until next month according to the hotel receptionist.

We headed to Temple of Heaven but it's already closed by the time we reached there. So we decided to move it to other days of our self make itinerary. Btw, by 5.45pm the sky is already dark and by 6pm it's like 7.30pm here in Malaysia. This is due to autumn season. The weather is cold throughout the day especially at night.

We went to Donghuamen Food Street and taste a very new food/snack in China. We tasted a few foods here. It cost about an average of CNY10 per food here. Among the nice food we tasted here is 'satay look alike' lamb, stuffed pork ball, unagi stick, fried noodles and sugar coated fruits.

Now the bad one we tasted is pineapple sweet glutinous rice, fried milk, corn (their corn is very different from ours), goubuli, chien ping and the worst among the worst is exotic food, starfish. Just for being ‘been there, done that’ kinda thing. Hey at least I have eaten a starfish. It cost us CNY20 for the fried starfish. You could only eat the inside part as the skin or shell is too hard to be eaten. China people really can eat anything. There is a lot of exotic food such as live baby scorpion, worm, dog meat, just to name a few.

We walked back to our hotel which is about 4-5km plus lost and wrong direction from Donghuamen and Wangfujing. It's only day 1 and our leg is almost broken. Haha. Seriously, we walked a lot today from Tianjin to Beijing with our heavy big luggage and not to mention a lot of wrong way and direction when going to Dong Si Fu Yuan hotel. We called it a day around 11pm as we need to wake up early tomorrow for a full day plan ahead.

China, Ayam Kambing!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:33:00 +0000

I am now in JJ Kepong and I am so excited that by tomorrow 9.00am, we will be landed in Tianjin, China. Our flight supposes to depart at 1am but it is delayed to 3am.. I have called up airport limo to pick us up at 11.30pm tonight. Gosh, I can't wait to fly and yet I haven't even pack my luggage lulz.

Basically, I will be covering mostly in Beijing and only a little in Tianjin. Research has been done intensively and I hope all our journey goes smoothly. I have also done mapping to each of the place we are going and it's as detail as "Head west on 东四西大街/東四西大街 toward 连丰胡同/連豐胡同 for 0.3km" Thanks to Google map, I am able to get a very detail direction. Not to forget getting as much info as I can on Beijing various scam/conmen trick. The most famous one should be Tea Ceremony, Medicine, Art student, Black Taxi and other minor scam.

Day 1 - Temple of Heaven - Donghuamen Night Market
Day 2 - Forbidden City - Behai - Tiananmen - Wanfujing
Day 3 - Badaling Great Wall - Ming Tomb
Day 4 - Summer Palace - Bird Nest Stadium
Day 5 - Hutong Liulichang - Guang'anmen Food Street - Hutong Zhuanta
Day 6 - Courtyard Hotel 81 Rosegarden (F&E) - The Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street
Day 7 - Tianjin Ancient Cultural Street

Any additional place will be added in if there is any free time during our visit. I am sure important places like Tiananmen is well decorated as they had just finish celebrating China 60 years Independence Day. Well China, AYAM KAMBING!! (I am coming)

Wedding Night Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:26:00 +0000

We woke up early at around 7am today (27/09/2009) to load cooking utensil, cooking material and others for tonight wedding dinner into a rented lorry. All this 'ka zhang' is for Daph mum's cooking at Thean Hou temple for his son wedding dinner tonight. The reason they did it themselves as they believe that their own cooking benefit from giving guests the best of the best cooking ingredients. They wanted all their friends and relatives to have the best of the best with her generous cooking. I must admit that she is really a tough mama to handle all this by herself. Of course she does hire 7 aunties to do the washing and cleaning job and 10 youth as waiters.

We continued sleeping after loading the utensil while Daph parents and his bro go to Thean Hou temple for preparation. We only went there around 12pm to decorate Thean Hou temple's staging. It took about 2 hours for us to decorate the staging with the help of Daph dad and bro.

I took a bath in Then Hou temple toilet at around 5.15pm as I am the last one doing the staging balloon decoration. Daph had to bath earlier as her friend will make up for her around 4pm. Daph bro, Weng need to go back to fetch worker for tonight wedding and need to go off earlier too. Everyone is busy with their own task but I can ensure you that the busiest person is Daph mum. She needs to cook for 62 tables and she started to do preparation and cooking at 10am! Even when the dinner is ongoing she frequently needs to go into the kitchen to ensure everything goes fine and at it best.

Around 7pm, some of the guests have already arrived and there are a little hiccups during placement of table for guests. Sometime, there will be a long queue of guests waiting to be seated due to some error in finding the guests name VS number of table to be seated. We should have bring our notebook and thing will get easier using excel to quickly sort out name and table. Anyway, with the help of her cousin and relatives, we manage to iron out the problem and the arrangement goes smoothly. We waited for the guests to arrive until near 8.30pm before the wedding dinner start. Some of the guests already complaint and grumbling that it's very late start. What to do, there is still about 15%-20% late comer on that time. (I should have issue show cause letter for each of them for late coming like what I did in my company. Hehe). KL people will always be late for wedding dinner!

The dinner goes well and we certainly are satisfied with our staging, food and our course happy for our newlywed couple. Everyone looks happy indeed. The dinner ended around 10.30pm and this time we need to wait for the workers to finish clearing up the hall and kitchen. I then sent a few aunties and a guy back to their home in Jinjang and reached Kepong around 1.30am.

At Daph home, we have a post mortem on the wedding dinner with Daph parent and brother. We talk and chat until 2.30am before calling it a day. Everyone is so tired by then but with a big satisfaction smile planted on each of everyone face. It's like someone pat on your shoulder and said Good Job!

Wedding Ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:57:00 +0000

I woke up early today as it’s Daph bro, Guan wedding day with Cindy. I am his brother groomsman on last Saturday 26/9/2009. I reached Kepong around 7.50am and ate breakfast at his house. We waited for other groomsman to arrive before we headed to Puchong to 'fetch' his bride back.

It's game time for his bridesmaids once we reached her apartment in Puchong. All the groomsman is ready to battle and we are power enough to go through many of bridesmaids challenge with ease. There is tong yuan stuff with god know what is it inside, find certain year of coin in cold ice bucket, and break the ice to take the bride room key, recognise bride lips in a paper and much more. Alas, the groom gets her bride with the help of groomsman and off we ‘fetch’ his bride back to Kepong for wedding tea ceremony. Chinese Wedding Tea ceremony is performed during a Chinese wedding. Tea is used in Chinese wedding ceremonies mainly because tea is Chinese national drink and it symbolizes respect. I would say the tea ceremony is probably one of the most important parts in Chinese Weddings.

After lunch the tea ceremony is being performed and mostly all of the relative and family will drink the tea and give red packets or jewelleries. Some relatives prefer the bride and groom to wear the jewellery gifts immediately and will even put it on for them. With generous relatives, you may look like a Christmas tree after the tea ceremony. Unmarried elder siblings will not present the couple with gifts after drinking the tea instead the bride and groom will present gifts to the younger siblings and cousins who serve them tea. The tea ceremony ended around 2.30pm and we sent tai kam che (Chinese MC) back to her home in Aman Puri.

At 3.45pm, we headed to the bride and groom house in Kajang. It's said by tai kam che that at least a young kids must follow them back. They will have to jump up and down on the bed to give luck to the couple. It is said that this practice gives hope on the fertility of the couple and will make them produce an heir soon.

Then we fetch Daph relative back home and reached home around 6pm. We were so exhausted by then. Later we accompany Daph younger brother to their grandma house to pick 38 of her 'Ayam Kampung' for tomorrow wedding dinner in Thean Hou Gong. We slept at 10.15pm on that day as we are tired like mad. I would say it's a tiring but fun day. Tomorrow will be another hectic day. We have to get the stage done in Then Hou Gong and prepare other thing as her parent will cook for their son wedding dinner. Yeah, her mum will be cooking for 60+ Chinese wedding dinners!

Sitiawan and Taiping

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:52:00 +0000

It's rather a busy weekend. Daph bro is getting married and the preparation is a little havoc. Now only got time to do a little blogging. I went to Sitiawan to attend Daph younger bro marriage dinner last Saturday (19/9/2009) with her family. We took the old road to Sitiawan and to Pantai Remis which is her brother's wife hometown.

It's rather interesting going via small road as you can see many small town or pekan. We took the Kuala Selangor road and the journey took us a total of near 4 hours from Kepong to reached Pantai Remis. We stay in a rented house while we were there and it situated only a few KM from Sitiawan and 50KM to Taiping. I was glad that it's very near to Taiping as I will be going to visit my sister new born baby on the next morning.

I must admit that 'kampung' wedding dinner start exactly on time unlike in KL. The wedding dinner is 6pm and by the time we reached there at 6.05pm due to some hiccups in our journey, everyone has already arrived. Wow! We were the pig leg (Daph bro and his wife) and yet we arrived late! It’s so different from KL, as normally the pig leg will be standing in front of the restaurant waiting for everyone to arrive. In KL, if the wedding dinner is said to be 7pm, it's actually 8.00-8.30pm before everyone can start to eat. Not to mention some even start at 9pm! I wonder if KL following Thailand time. Maybe we need to set out KL GMT to +8 instead of +7. The wedding dinner finish early at around 8.15pm in Pantai Remis. I am so not used to it as normally it will finish around 10pm something.

The celebration is quite good but the food in the restaurant is kinda below par. It is said to be one of the best restaurant in Pantai Remis but somehow it's not up to our expectation. The food here really is only a so so. After dinner, we went home to the rented house and it's photo shooting session.

The next morning, we visited Daph bro's wife house and her parents is kind enough to offer us a few fresh coconut to bring home. Anyway, there is a lot of flies in Pantai Remis especially her wife’s house. Just imagine if you were to drop a piece of 15" pizza on the floor, it will be fully covered by flies within a few second! No joke! I am not sure the reason behind this but I regretted that I closed my car door a few second too late. Lucky enough we managed to fought and expel the flies out through the window while on the way to Taiping. Daph family drove back to Kepong while we continued our journey to Taiping. The journey along the kampung road to Taiping was really refreshing in the morning. We drove slowly while enjoying the weather and sightseeing Malay celebrating Hari Raya festive in kampung.

Sister newborn baby Brian is really cute. He was only a few days old. Youyou is getting cheeky and naughtier but he seems really happy moving from Singapore to Taiping. Maybe it was due to Singapore houses was small in apartment while here in Taiping the house is so huge and he was able to run here and there. Moreover, there are a lot of people to play with him too. Ah Hun bought us to makan makan while we were in Taiping.

We went back the next day via old road but different route from where we came from. We stopped at a few places such as Ipoh, Bidor, Kampar and many more places which I couldn’t remember the name. It took us a total of 7 hours driving slowly back from Taiping to Kepong as we took our own sweet time exploring lot of small towns. It's a tiring but lovely trip.

Chef Ak in action - Friends Birthday Celebration

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:05:00 +0000

I was a bit stunt when I invited 12 bunches of ‘honourable’ guesses for Ah Fatt and Sau Fong double celebration birthday. How do I cook 13 portions with such a small wok and small pot? How would it taste if I cook in large scale? Will I able to meet the demand? So far I have cook only for 6 person max. This time, double of the amount. How if I failed to cook acceptable dishes for everyone? I thought to myself…

Alas, I put all the thoughts behind and carry on with the plan on last Saturday morning. I bought some of the groceries in JJ, Kepong while waiting for Daph to finish her work. Then we had lunch with her friends and only started to look for other groceries around 5pm. I need to buy spare rib and lotus as I need to prepare overnight cooking in slow cooker. We went to 3 Giant but none has spare ribs. We only manage to find it in Carrefour Subang around 8pm but unfortunately, lotus root is still nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, I remembered there is a few shops that sell vegetable in Taipan and off we rushed to Taipan after buying the rest of the groceries. Lucky enough, we managed to get hold of the lotus root in one of the shops and we reached home at 9.30pm. We started to prepare lotus root soup and spare rib, peel and crush garlic, prepare jelly, chopped some vegetables and clean chicken meat for tomorrow's cooking. All this took us about an hour plus. Lucky enough Daph have bought me a bigger '2 in 1' cooking pot with steamer and a few pans.

The next morning we started to prepare all the dishes around 10.30am. The lunch will be held at 1.30pm and you might ask why the heck so early to do the cooking? Here, take a look at the list of dishes to cook.

1. Curry of Life
2. Orange Honey Chicken
3. Egg Ham
4. Fried Enoki Egg
5. Stuffed Mushroom with Pork and Fish Paste
6. Baby Kailan
7. Fanshu Leaf
8. Minced Pork Tofu
9. Fried Cabbage Tuna with Glass Noodles
10. Lotus with Spare Ribs
11. Konnyaku Jelly

Yup, a total of 10 dishes with 1 dessert! It was quite a challenge but at the same time I was damn excited. Lucky enough I have my helpful asst. Daph to help me with preparing core like washing, chopping, cutting and preparing the thing that I wanted to cook. Konnyaku Jelly was cook by her. I started to cook around 10.30am and finished by 1.30pm. A freaking 3 hours plus and yesterday 1 hour plus. Total of near 5 hours spend cooking for all this dishes. By the time I have finished cooking, I was so exhausted to even eat.

But all the tiredness went off when I see all my friends are happy and appreciate my cooking. In fact nearly all the dishes have been cleared up. The satisfaction seeing all the 10 dishes being eaten up are nowhere to describe. I am rather relieved as all the dishes have reasonable taste even though the quantity that I cook is in large portion. Take for example the fried cabbage tuna; it was really heavy and tiresome to stir fry one whole big wok of cabbage in it. The wok is medium size while the cabbage is damn a lot to even stir fry. It really required some skill to cook such a large amount of food. I am lucky that all the previous training really took off rather well. For the stuffed mushroom, only after when I took a bite of the mushroom when I realised that I completely forgotten to cook the oyster garlic sauce. It was suppose to have this sauce to go with.

Alas, everyone went home and it's time for me and Daph to really relax. We took a bath and straight went to bed. It was very tiring for both of us but one thing for sure is we felt rather satisfied for today's cooking. Hope they really enjoyed their meal and so does the birthday boy and birthday girl.

This last picture will give reader a sense of my 'honourable guesses'

Chef Ak in action - Orange Honey Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Orange Honey Chicken

Method and Ingredients
1. Combine flour, salt, and pepper together in a plate
2. Dip chicken in egg mixture and roll evenly in flour mixture to coat
3. Heat oil and deep fried the chicken until it turned golden colour
4. Take it out and put it aside
5. Mixed orange concentrate, honey and soy sauce together in a small bowl
6. Fry garlic and ginger to fragrant
7. Pour in a cup of water and mix sauce in step 5
8. Turn the heat to medium and let it boiled for a few minutes
9. Mix 1tb of cornstarch in quarter cup water and mix thoroughly
10. Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens
11. Put in the chicken and mix well
12. Garnish with slices of orange and spring onion

Stuffed Fish Paste Mushroom

Method and Ingredients
1. Takeaway the bones in the Mackerel fish and minced thoroughly
2. Dissolved some salt in water and slowly adding it into the mince fish
3. Set the fish paste aside
4. Soak dry mushrooms until softened
5. Fill up the mushroom with the fish paste
6. Placed the Siu Pak Choi onto serving plate
7. Steam the stuffed mushrooms for about 20 minutes
8. Make some oyster garlic sauce and place it on top of the mushroom
9. Sprinkle with spring onion

Dried Bean Curd Soup with Black Fungus

Method and Ingredients
1. Soak black fungus and glass noodles (tang hoon) in water for about 10 minutes
2. Bring water in pot to boiled and put in soak black fungus
3. Add in a few slices of Szechuan vegetable
4. Add in dried bean curd and simmer for 15 minutes
5. In another wok, fried beaten egg, drain away the oil and mix it into the soup
6. Let it simmer for another 10 minutes before putting in glass noodles

Overall I enjoyed the Orange Honey Chicken very much. It taste good and agreed by my fellow housemate. It's my first time and it seems to be quite successful. Stuffed Fish Paste Mushroom in the other hand resulted to be a little too salty for the fish paste. This was due to over putting salt and light soy sauce when minced the Mackerel fish. It could have been better. Nothing to shout about for the bean curd soup but just that I had put in a little too much of glass noodles. It doesn't look much at first but trust me, once it is soak in the water it became a lot.

I like to learn and cook new dishes as I tend to be over bored with the same old menu. Most of the recipe is taken from the net. I am sure you guys have notice that lately there is a little improvement in the appearance of my dishes. I am still learning on creating appealing dishes. Sometime a simple decoration will make the dishes look more pleasant.

Chef Ak in action - Sambal Mackerel Fish

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:55:00 +0000

Sambal Mackerel Fish

Method and Ingredients
1. Marinate Mackerel fish with turmeric powder for 15 minutes
2. Fried in medium heat oil until it turn golden colour on both side
3. Took the fish out and add in garlic
4. Add in big onion and stir fry for 2 minutes
5. Add in chili paste, sugar, salt and light soy sauce to taste
6. Mix the sambal sauce together with the fish
7. Garnish with spring onion

Cabbage Tuna Egg

Method and Ingredients
1. Cut the cabbage to small slices.
2. Fry the garlic to fragrant
3. Add in tuna chunk and beaten egg together
4. Add in cabbage and continuous stir fry
5. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt to taste.
6. Garnish with spring onion and fried shallots

Baked Bean Egg

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic to fragrant.
2. Add in beaten egg and stir fry for 1 minute
3. Pour in a can of Ayam Brand baked bean
4. Mix well and bring it to boiled
5. Garnish with spring onion

This is the first time I ever cook fish dishes. It turnout good and I kinda like it. All this while I didn't know that Ikan Tenggiri is actually named Mackerel fish in english. I thought it was some kind of sardine fish as I saw this word quite often in can of Ayam brand lol.

Chef Ak in action - Black Fungus Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Black Fungus Mushroom Chicken

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic to fragrant
2. Add in sliced ginger and soak dried mushroom
3. Add in chicken and stir fry for 10 minutes
4. Pour in light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper
5. Transfer to a pot and add in black fungus
6. Simmer for another 15 minutes

Cabbage Tuna

Method and Ingredients
1. Cut the cabbage to small slices.
2. Fry the garlic to fragrant
3. Add in tuna chunk
4. Add in cabbage and continuous stir fry
5. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt to taste.
6. Garnish with spring onion

Minced Chicken Tofu

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic and minced chicken to fragrant
2. Take it out and add in the tofu
3. Add in soak dried mushroom
4. Sprinkle preserved radish on top of tofu
5. Add in oyster sauce, sesame oil, and pepper, light and dark soy sauce
6. Steamed in under high heat for 15 minutes
6. Garnish with spring onion

I actually dun quite like black fungus as it's kinda tasteless but it seems to have some potential benefit to improve health. If you want to know, please google the benefit of black fungus. The Black Fungus Chicken is a little too salty where else other dishes are good. My Black Fungus Corn soup is a failure as it tastes not too good. This is mainly because of the overnight cooking in slow cooker that overkills the soup. Soups such as corn, tomato, white or red carrot just to name a few is not suitable to be cooked overnight in slow cooker. Somehow it either didn't bring out the taste or totally overkill it. Only vegetable that is hard such as lotus root or herbal soup benefits for overnight cooking using slow cooker. A lesson learned.

PS: Most of my cooking blog that I posted here are yesterday night cooking. Tonight cooking will be publish by tomorrow night.

Mum's KL Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:32:00 +0000

29/08/2009

I fetch my mum from Melaka and we head to KL at 10.30am. This is her first official visit to my rented house and KL visit. Upon arriving at my house in Subang, we rested for a while and headed to our first destination, Sunway Piramid. We took our lunch at Dragon I and mum was impressed with the classy environment of the restaurant. The place where we were seated overlooks Sunway Lagoon which is rather a great view. However, for the food, the beef and Szechuan Ramen and 'Xiao Long Pao' were just an average joe to her. Then we do some window shopping before heading back home for a bath and rest. Mum couldn't walk much as her leg is not very good due to her heart surgery many years ago.

Around 5pm in the evening, we headed to Daph’s house and later to KLCC. She has been to KLCC before but it was quite a long long time ago. We took her dinner at Sakae Sushi and she told me that Sushi King taste better than Sakae. Somehow, it was very true as KLCC Sakae sushi is not really up to par. Perhaps it was because the restaurant was too packed at that time. We even waited for about 15min before we had a place. After dinner, we took some KLCC photo together and have a short window shopping there before calling it for a day.

30/08/2009

We woke up as early as 8.00am as we are going for Sunday Mass in Kepong church. I brought mum for breakfast in Teochew Fishball noodles in DU and later fetched Daph together to attend mass which started at 10.30am. After mass we head to PJ and had our Seafood Porridge lunch. This should be the tastiest porridge I have eaten so far in my entire life. However take note that it cost RM32 a pot but could easily feed 3 people and the ingredient is rather generous.

After lunch it's time for Sungai Wang shopping. We went to Lowyat and Sungai Wang and had our teatime at U-Village. A rather boring time for me but a heavenly time to Daph and my mum as they happily shopping for shoes and clothes. Yawn. Luckily there is many handphone store around for me to window shop. Haha. We headed to Petaling Street around 4.30pm and had the famous Mata Kuching drink. We walk around Petaling Street and browse through lots of handbags and clothes while we were there.

We then drive to The Curve and again do some shopping at FOS before we finally had our scrumptious dinner at Cineleisure Tony Roma's. We ordered TR Sampler Ribs and ribeye. Last time me and Daph ordered 7oz filet mignon cook in medium rare which is too adventurous for us. So this time, we ordered a 10oz ribeye cook in medium instead. It tastes perfectly to us. We also ordered a Potatoes Baked soup and Onion Loaf. Mum seems to enjoy the dinner very much. I can feel that my stomach is getting more and more bloated! We take a stroll along Cineleisure before calling it for a day.

31/08/2009

Today is our Independence Day but somehow there is not much celebration. Some said this was cause by H1N1 but the fact is most Malaysian is fed up with the never-ending political drama. I won't go detail into political issues as it's not worth blogging. Today morning as usual we headed to Daph house to pick her up. Then we go to the famous Ikea. Mum was rather impressed at Ikea as there are many things to see and buy. She has never seen such a gigantic furniture shop in her entire life before. She bought a few small thing and we had our lunch at Ikea. We ordered meatball and Swiss cake. After Ikea, it's time for me to send mum back to Melaka. We reached Melaka around 3.45pm. I had a great time with my mum during her present.

Chef Ak in action - Ayam Masak Merah

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Ayam Masak Merah

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic to fragrant
2. Add in chicken and potatoes
3. Add in Ayam Masak Merah powder and salt
4. Stir fry and mix well
5. Add in some water and 6 slices of tomatoes
6. Stir fry for about 15 minutes and add cut chillies
7. Simmer for another 10 minutes

Cabbage Eggs

Method and Ingredients
1. Cut the cabbage to small slices.
2. Fry the garlic and prawn for 2 minutes
3. Pour the egg in and stir fry
4. Add in cabbage and fry until dry.
5. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt to taste.

Chinese Spinach

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic to fragrant
2. Add in chinese spinach
3. Add some water and salt to taste

Tenpayaki Beansprout aka Taugeh

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry sliced garlic to fragrant
2. Took it out and add in soak sliced mushroom
3. Stir fry and add in light soy sauce and blackpepper sauce
4. Add in beansprout, pepper and salt
5. Stir fry for about 5 minutes and add in fried garlic slices.

I am thinking that my cooking is a little towards salty now. I need to cut off salt and oil usage especially for frying dishes. The Ayam masak merah, the potatoes is still a little uncooked but it taste good. Next time I should fry the potatoes first before cooking. I am not sure what is the green vegetable was but it's a little salty as I accidentally added a tsp of salt into it. Half tsp should be better. As usual, I love the cabbage eggs but the tenpayaki taugeh is a little different from the real tenpayaki and I suspect some missing nin here.

Chef Ak in action - Sambal Kerang (Cockles)

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:29:00 +0000

Sambal Kerang (Cockles)

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic and onion
2. Mix chili paste with light soy sauce and sugar
3. Add in mixed chili paste and water
4. Off the heat and add in cockles
5. Stir fry to mix well

Kangkung Belacan

Method and Ingredients
1. Clean and cut the Kangkung
2. Heat up the oil and fry the garlic and shallots
3. Add in sambal belacan and chili paste
4. Throw in Kangkung and fry until cook
5. Add some sugar

O Kui Tou rice

Method and Ingredients
1. Fry garlic, dried shrimp and shallots to fragrant
2. Add in soak slices of mushroom and chicken chunk
3. Add in o kui tou and fry for 5 minutes
4. Add in oyster sauce, dark and light soy sauce and a tsp of salt
5. Stir fry to mix well
6. Add in 1 large bowl of water and wait until it boiled
7. Transfer it into rice cocker with clean rice in it
8. Press the cook button

Corn soup with Szechuan vegetable

Method and Ingredients
1. Cut corn, 2 tomatoes and Szechuan vegetable
2. Cut 2 tomatoes into 8 slices
3. Sliced a few Szechuan vegetable
4. Throw everything into a pot of water and bring it to boiling
2. Add in salt to taste and simmer for another 20-30 minutes

This is the first time that the O Kui Tou rice failed me. It is only 80% cook! I am started to think that the rice cooker is up to his limit already. It all started when I cook tomato rice. Maybe his time is up. I steamed it with wok but this time adding in water. Luckily the result is good. Haha..

I love the rawness of the Sambal cockles. It's still juicy when you bite it. The cockles easily overcook, so you need to watch the heat. It's preferable to turn off the heat once you throw in the cockles. You just need to stir and mix it well.

Kangkung belacan is a little too spicy but I still love it. The soup is good too. Man, it's already been over a month plus and I still love to cook. A good or bad sign?? Macam Si lai!

Chef Ak in action - Char Kuey Teow v1.1

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Char Kuey Teow

Method and Ingredients
1. Heat wok to real hot and fry garlic and shallots to fragrant
2. Add in prawn and fishcake. Stir fry until the prawn turn pinkish
3. Add in light, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, special chili and pepper
4. Place in the hor fun and continue to stir fry evenly
5. Move everything to one side of the wok and crack in eggs
6. Lower the heat while throw in cockles and stir fry for 10 seconds
7. Off the heat and add in a handful of beansprouts and stir fry for 5 seconds
8. Remove the dish to plates and serve hot.

Chicken Oats

Method and Ingredients
1. Deep the cut chicken in beaten eggs
2. Roll it in oats (Red Quaker oats)
3. Sprinkle it with salt
4. Deep fried the chicken until golden brown

This CKT v1.1 is very much nicer than the previous one. This time, the hawker CKT feel is there. I am not sure what the reason is but I guess the heat of the wok play an important role here. Adding in cockles is definitely a must for cockle’s lover. Just remember to fry cockles and beansprout with very low heat for only 5-10 seconds before served.

I learned the chicken oats recipe from a bookstore in JJ, Kepong while I was lepaking there yesterday. It seems pretty easy from the book and I thought why not I try it myself? So I bought Quaker Oat and did it today. The outcome is pretty nice and crispy on the outer layer but kinda tasteless in the inside part (meat). Perhaps if I marinate it with curry powder and cook it with curry leaf, the taste will be better.

Chef Ak in action - Nasi Lemak & Curry of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:47:00 +0000

Nasi Lemak v2.0
Method and Ingredients
1. Prepare rice as in normal cooking
2. Pour in 200ml trim coconut milk
3. Put in tied pandan leaf and ginger sliced
4. Stir to mix well
5. Add in 1 tsp salt
6. Press cook button

Curry of Life v1.1
Method and Ingredients
1. Marinate chicken with turmeric powder overnight
2. Fry the garlic, curry leaf, onion, tomato, chili padi, sugar and chili boh
3. Add in the curry paste and water then stir-fry until fragrant.
4. Add the chicken and stir-fry so that the chicken is coated with the curry paste.
5. Put in potatoes and stir for a minute and add the 1tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt
6. Transfer it to big claypot with 3pcs of lemongrass and let it simmer with low heat
7. Add in 150ml coconut milk into the curry and stir evenly
8. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

So here is it, the upgraded version of nasi lemak v2.0. It's sad to say that this v2 nearly failed me. It happens like the previous tomatoes rice that I cooked but at least this one is already 80% cooked. The cook button pops up after a minute I have open the rice lids to stir. Damn, it’s so frustrating! So I steamed it in wok for another 10 minutes. To those of you who have cooked rice with coconut milk or other liquids or stocks, you will probably know the frustration of not being able to get the rice to cook properly. Next time I should add in the coconut milk only later when the rice is half cook and still wet. Btw, I just get to know that if you wan to recook the rice, you need to add in more water. Perhaps I should try Nasi Lemak v2.1 soon.

Curry of Life v1.1 is an upgraded version as I added in several more ingredients such as lemongrass, tomatoes, onion, chili padi and sugar. With all the additional ingredients I have put in, this v1.1 is a little heavier in taste which is of course produce more fragrant, spicier or simply more ummppp or kick. This is definitely for heavy taste bud person. However, I still prefer the previous curry as it is more lite version.

Chef Ak in action - Nasi Lemak

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Khoo) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Method and Ingredients
1. Prepare rice as in normal cooking
2. Pour in coconut milk
3. Put in tied pandan leaf and ginger sliced
4. Stir to mix well
5. Press cook button

Sambal Anchovy (Ikan Bilis)
1. Mix chili paste with light soy sauce, sambal belacan and sugar
2. Fry Ikan Bilis until it turn brown
3. Add in garlic and onion
4. Add in mixed chili paste and water
5. Stir fry and mix well

ABC Soup
1. Cut 2 tomatoes into 8 slices
2. Cut 1 big onion and potatoes
3. Cut half Szechuan veg into thin slices
4. Boiled water and throw all above in
5. Put in 'biji biji' pepper
6. Add in anchovy and salt to taste
7. Finally add in some fishball

The nasi lemak fragrant is there but it's a little too light. Can consider as Nasi Lemak lite version as I only put in very little of coconut milk. It's the leftover from cooking Curry of Life the other day. Normal recipe of Nasi Lemak using thick coconut milk but I am only using light coconut milk. Top with fried egg, own fried groundnut, sambal ikan bilis and fried ikan bilis. Missing nin will be cucumber. Overall, it is still acceptable.