Archives for June 2011

Things my friends do: Human Knife Sharpener

June 28, 2011 By Suanie 14 Comments

This Tan Yee Hou has been wanting to come and sharpen my knives since forever.

Huh, sharpen knives? Just buy the bulat bulat tool that they sell for RM50 or less lah! Why so ma fan, have to ask someone to physically come and sharpen the knives? All the same one lah!

Turns out, it’s not all the same. Apparently this Tan Yee Hou is really into it. It’s a family thing, the tools he possesses belong to his grandfather or something and you can’t find those types of sharpening stones any more.

So one fine day, a 20 something year old boy was stuck in my sister’s bathroom sharpening a lot of knives the old school way.

Tan Yee Hou!!!

I found out that he has learned a lot about knife sharpening, i.e. knives to cut vegetables or meat have different angles so must be sharpened accordingly. He’s the de facto knife sharpener in his family. They buy cheap knives from the night market + sharpen regularly = works like a RM500 knife.

The sharpened knives work beautifully. An el cheapo knife that I possess chops up carrots like a brand new Zwilling cleaver. Fanbloodytastic!

If you’d like your knives sharpened the old school way for a small fee, go contact Tan Yee Hou.

14 Comments Filed Under: Things My Friends Do Tagged With: how to make knives sharper, knife sharpening petaling jaya, sharpen knife kuala lumpur, traditional way to sharpen knives

Cuti-Cuti Malaysia: Pantai Kerachut, Penang

June 21, 2011 By Suanie 6 Comments

You can’t eat all the time in Penang, you really can’t. As much as you’d like to, there are 3 limits as to why it is not possible: the physical limit, the humanely limit and the dignity limit. Someday you will understand.

For the other hours when you are not eating, there are activities to be had. Places to go, things to do. To cut a very long story short, we decided to go to the Penang National Park in Teluk Bahang (a few km after Batu Ferringhi).

Entrance into the National Park is free but you’re required to register at the counter, most likely for safety reasons. There are two trails: one through the jungle leading to the meromictic lake, Pantai Kerachut and Teluk Kampi. The other at the edge of the shores, leading to the USM Marine department, the more famous Monkey Beach and a light house.
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6 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips

Cuti-Cuti Malaysia: Lunch in Ipoh

June 20, 2011 By Suanie 9 Comments

Ipoh is my favourite stopover when journeying up North. Something about the serene and breathtakingly beautiful limestone hills dotting the edge of the city, and being the birthplace of some of my favourite celebrities such as Patrick Teoh and Lat. OK I suppose I somewhat like Michelle Yeoh too.

I was first introduced to Ipoh food by Jaime (as were many other things in life). GPS was non-existent back then so she relied on her good ol’ memory. She brought us to a corner shop called, the food was really good and it stuck in my mind for many years as real Ipoh specialties.

Kevin, Joyce and I were going to Penang so I asked Jaime for directions to this shop. Found out that it’s called Thean Chun on Jalan Bandar Bijih Timah. Thanks to Kevin’s iPhone + Google Maps, we got there without problems. As Ipoh uses coupon parking system, we had to buy them from a nearby old-school medical hall. Had to read the directions on how to use it, heh.

Thean Chun restaurant in Ipoh

The one thing that I wanted to eat was the famous Ipoh sar hor fun at Thean Chun. Apparently this stall has been around for four generations, currently operated by 67 year old Mr. Neow Ah Chye.

“Watcha looking at?”

Silkily smooth Ipoh-made kuey teow in a light but flavourful broth, served with prawns, chicken slices and Chinese chives. Hearty and satisfying! A small bowl costs RM4 while a big bowl costs RM5.

I normally do not like beansprouts, but the one here is quite fantastic. Fat, juicy and crunchy beansprouts in soy sauce and white pepper served with chopped spring onion. RM1.50 per plate.

Thean Chun is also host to a few other stalls that sell assorted good food. I see a lot of orders for chee cheong fun and poh piah. We didn’t get any of those: only 3 of us! We ordered the pork + chicken satay instead. RM7 for 10 sticks. Quite delicious!

And for dessert. It is unusual for a coffee shop to serve anything but ice kacang or cendol. Thean Chun has a rather famous creme custard dessert at RM2.10 each. It tastes like halfway between a pudding and tau foo fah. Definitely a must-try!

We had a good lunch, but inflation has hit hard, eh? Or has Ipoh hawker food always been the same price as KL’s?

Walking back to the car, took these photos. One is a pavement with colourful tiles, I thought it to be characteristic. The other is just a random reminder of what the pillars in front of the old shop houses were used for – advertising the shop’s names and products. Batu Pahat used to have a lot of them, now they’re all repainted with gaudy colours. Modern signboards are huge pieces of plastic with printed names and such. Still my memories remain.

Thean Chun coffee shop
73 Jalan Bandar Timah, 30000, Ipoh, Perak.
GPS: N 4 35.78028 E 101 4.67681

9 Comments Filed Under: Eating Out, Travel + Trips

Weekend Trip: 8 Things I Did in Singapore

June 15, 2011 By Suanie 7 Comments

#1 – Took responsibility for Ryan on our first time traveling together to a different country, just the two of us. It is a lot of work keeping an eye on a kid, especially at the airport. But it was a fun learning experience (for me).

#2 – Checked in to Novotel Clarke Quay with the rest of my family who arrived at different hours. Lovely rooms.

#3 – ~~Dumped~~ Left Ryan to my folks while I spent 3 hours getting reacquainted with Golden Ale at Brewerkz. Alone but oh so happy!

#4 – Attended my cousin’s wedding dinner. The dishes are a tad different from what I’m accustomed to in Malaysia. For example, the soup was almost bright orange in colour.

#5 – Had possibly the worst chee cheong fun at Liang Court’s Kopitiam. It was this thick…

#6 – Kept disturbing Ryan as he tried to watch Ben 10 in peace. No such luck.

#7 – Met with Shirley!! <3

#8 – Had super awesome ramen at Tampopo, Liang Court. The soup is rich (great stock with pork bones), the ramen springy and the black pig shabu shabu DELICIOUS!

All in all, I had a blast 🙂

7 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips

The Ryan-approved Spanish-style Baked Shrimps

June 6, 2011 By Suanie 20 Comments

I made this twice. First time was overcooked but edible. I have a tendency to overcook, something about fear of poisoning myself and others around me just because the ingredients are raw-er than they should be. Food poisoning doesn’t sound like a dignified way to go, if you get what I mean.

The second time, I separated it into two bowls. One with chilli for me and one without for Ryan the Nephew. I’m a great aunt like that. You should be so lucky to have an aunt like me.

This is a real easy and simple way to enjoy your shrimps. By the way, do you know the difference between shrimps and prawns without googling? I don’t, they’re the same to me. I’d always thought that shrimps are smaller and prawns are bigger. According to this article, they are biologically different. Shrimps have large front pincers and shorter legs. Prawns have longer legs and their second pincers are big. Interesting eh? There, you learned something new today. With the following recipe, you’d learn two new things! La vida es maravillosa!

Here’s what you need for the Ryan-approved Spanish-style Baked Shrimps:

Ingredients:
– 400g Shrimp meat, de-shelled with tail intact, deveined
– 8 garlic cloves. More if you like, less if you like
– 1/3 cup / 80ml olive oil. I use extra virgin
– 1 tsp Salt
– Chilli Powder or Flakes for Adults (optional)
– 1 tsp Lemon Juice for Kids (optional)
– Fresh Italian parsley or cilantro/ coriander

First step: clean the shrimps. Village Grocer sells shrimp meat sans shells with tails intact, less work for me yay! But you still have to devein the darn things. Deveining prawns is a thankless job, and you only do it for the people whom you really love. It’s really so.not.fun.

Take a sharp knife and run it through the back part of the prawn. See the yucky black line thingy in the photo above? Toss. Do the same for the opposite part of the prawn, there would be a small, yucky clear line thingy. Toss. Rinse and repeat for all prawns.

At some point, you should pre-heat your oven to the highest setting for about 15 mins. Mine goes up to 250 degree Celcius.

Next: Lay the shrimps on a single layer on an oven-friendly baking dish. Or two dishes, if you are making an adult version (chilli) and a kids version (lemon juice). Feel free to arrange them like how I did. It earns you brownie points too, ‘cos your nephew would be praising you to high heavens for being so clever to make two prawns stick together like that.

Your garlic cloves should have been peeled and cut to thin slices. I love garlic and I go way liberal with them. You can add or reduce the amount of garlic, but I’m telling you that they taste absolutely yummy.

Sprinkle the salt all over the prawns. Add however much chilli powder of chilli flakes your taste buds can take. The amount of chilli powder that I added in the photo below wasn’t enough for me 🙁 I think chilli flakes give more kick.

For the kids version, you can opt to add the lemon juice. Or not. It makes some difference but not world-changing.

Lay out the garlic slices all over, then pour the olive oil on them.

Dump them into the pre-heated oven for about 8 to 10 minutes. They’ll come out looking like this:

Add some chopped parsley/ coriander if you want to. Serve to appreciative nephew.

Bask in the following adoring praises:
“Xiao Yi, this is the best prawn ever!”
“Xiao Yi, next time you should only cook this kind of prawn ok.”
“Xiao Yi, you are so clever!!”
“Xiao Yi, I love them so much! They are so delicious.”
“Xiao Yi, I don’t want to eat any other prawn but this prawn ok!”

Okay.

20 Comments Filed Under: Eating In, Recipes Tagged With: baked prawns, home tapas, prawn tapas

Ryan and his lyrics book

June 3, 2011 By Suanie 9 Comments

Do you remember how you learned to read? I don’t, exactly. It was a blur of alphabets and word posters and Peter and Jane. Thankfully my Mom being a teacher means that we had a lot of reading material lying around in the house.

I think Ryan was having some problems with his reading, generally from a lack of interest. Mom found a solution for that: by writing down lyrics (in big friendly letters) to his current favourite songs, which coincidentally are her favourite 😀

See, big lyrics book with big handwriting for the boy.

… first page is a John Denver classic.

… this is Ryan reading and singing.

And this is Ryan with his evil youngest aunt in her most disheveled because it was at a comfortable place forcing him do everything according to her whim and fancies, in this case laughingly pose for a photograph.

Think it’s working. Ryan seems to enjoy learning to read via his lyrics book. Other oldies but goodies include Moon River, Knock Three Times and Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree. All my favourites too!

9 Comments Filed Under: Stories + Conversations Tagged With: ryan the nephew