As Suanie Sees It

… actually, not that she really cares because Ryan’s with her in Batu Pahat. He has not been enthusiastic to speak on the phone with me - which is a great thing because it sorts of shows that he’s having a great time; which is a lousy thing because he should be missing me like mad!!! Or at least suck up to me a bit because:

1) He will come back from Batu Pahat
2) I frequently babysit him
3) There are certain advantages to sucking up to me, because he being a 3-year old cannot afford certain things such as a RM 2.50 el cheapo badminton racquet.

Hmph.

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I had a wonderful birthday week, thanks to the wonderful people in my life. The lots and lots of birthday wishes on Facebook, MSN, via SMS etc. My eldest sister gave me a Nike Up Or Down EDT and a Nike deodorant, my second sister gave me a bottle of DNKY’s Delicious (Red) and cooked an awesome birthday dinner. Erna belanja-ed me lunch at Kiku Zakura where we over-ordered and overate. Spongefox belanja-ed dinner at William’s. David Lian belanja-ed lunch at Kanna @ Sek. 17. Your votes for my 88db.com entry; I lost but thanks for helping

Spot David Lian!

Thank you all

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Last Saturday after dinner to celebrate my brother-in-law’s grandfather’s birthday (he turned 98!!), I hopped over to ORANGE for the Hennessy Artistry party. Didn’t stay long for various reasons, but did some camwhoring with the usual suspects.

Taken with a Polaroid camera, I scanned it when I got home

With Elaine and FA

I made my exit as The Dey performed their first song. So I still have no idea who Shayne Ward is, and I absolutely do not give a…

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Speaking of Shayne Ward, someone asked me if I would be interested in interviewing him for a magazine. So I checked out his entry on Wikipedia, read it through and presented my sample questions. That someone shuddered and would probably never ask me to interview anyone ever again

Look, the kid may be the greatest singer since Freddie Mercury, the greatest songwriter since Bob Dylan, the Adonis of this generation, whatever. So he attempted to jump-start his pop star career in 2002, right? So he won the X-Factor in 2005, right? Then in 2006 he wrote and published his autobiography?!? What the…

Why does that tick me off? The same reason why I’m pissed about singers and bands releasing their ‘Greatest Hits’ padahal they only had about 2 or 3 albums before that. The nerve, the gall, the arrogance… How do you say ’seriously, who the fuck do you think you are?’ in 10 languages?

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I didn’t have to work on Tuesday, so I could go pick up KY from his office for dinner that evening. The roads to and in KL were a dream! Never felt so happy driving around KL before. We had dinner at Wan Hou Steamboat Restaurant; ze pork balls were simply too awesome for words! You must try it if you are in the area.

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Jaime and Janice’s brother, Gerard (aka Calvin) got married on the first day of Hari Raya. I was supposed to go over in the morning but I overslept by an hour, and decided it would be rude to just crash. He had his wedding dinner at Rick’s Cafe Casablanca that evening.

Janice and I

Didn’t stay long because the pins holding my hair together were cutting off blood supply to my head. Two Panadol Actifast and 80 mins of sleep at KY’s transformed my face from the grumpiest piece of shit you’d ever encountered back to my usual awesome self.

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FA’s friend from Colombia, Juan was in town and she invited me to their outings. So we had Paulaner @ Bavarian Bierhaus, The Curve on Thursday evening, and Kilkenny at Champs @ Centrepoint, Bandar Utama on Friday evening.

FA with her uni mates, Juan and Vincent

Hah! The first Colombian I’ve met and talked to! Heh, it was lovely meeting you

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What I watched on the idiot box:

The Tattooist: I didn’t realise that the main actor was the same main dude in Roswell, the TV series from years ago! Wahey! Actually the movie was a bit stupid. Some dude with a past unintentionally unleashed an evil spirit determined to go on a murder rampage. Then there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense. For example, more than one person in a row go to the tattoo parlour not knowing what they want, allowing the tattooist a free hand in the designs. Then the tattooist really does it free hand, no need to sketch beforehand on a tracing paper and transfer it one! Wtf? I watched Miami Ink you know!! Well, 60% stupid lah. I liked the part where they showed Jason Behr’s naked butt

Wall Street: Charlie Sheen was so young o_0! Daryl Hannah was blah. Someone should remake this movie. In today’s world, it would be faster, more complicated, more ruthless, more everything! Like, Jason Bourne meets Wall Street. That would be fun.

Black Sheep: Hahaha, this was a bit stupid but damn funny and enjoyable! Forget the lousy rating over at IMDB — you should watch it, if only to see the special effects by Weta Workshops.

True Blood: Never liked Anna Paquin, still don’t really fancy her. But I find this new series interesting, especially with the cello sounds whenever something creepy is about to happen. In fact, I’ve dumped ‘Ugly Betty’ for ‘True Blood’, and I really loved ‘Ugly Betty’. Unfortunately its first episode of the new season seems well and truly lame, and that’s not a good indication for the rest of the reason. Not worth my time and effort.

Anyone has The Sopranos Season 6 and is willing to lend it to me?

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KY had to go to Computer War for something. While waiting for his something, he spotted this truly awesome copywriting work at the back of a device:

A for amazing!

Just had to share, you know

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Yesterday Rachel, KY, LucyLiu and I went on a mini road trip to Morib. The last time I was there was in April, so I had quite a time trying to remember the correct turnings and what-not. Got owned by a young Indian chap at a shop, when one of this two directions took us to a road that seemed to lead to a plantation.

Suanie at Pantai Morib… again

Took a few nice photos. Will upload them on Flickr and create a set for it when I can be arsed.

We had dinner at Restaurant Kang Guan at the bridge entering Pulau Carey.

Dinner!

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K, dowan to blog already. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL last night is calling me

Early last month, we received an invitation from Andrea to dine at Coca. Truth to be told, I’d never heard of it before but almost everyone around me has. Goes to show how much or how little I know, but please do not let that minor hiccup stop you from inviting me to anywhere. I am a fast learner

I reckon that most of you Muslims who read my blog should be grown-up enough to NOT complain about my blog posts on food. Okay lah you can marah-marah a bit heh, but that’s not really going to stop me Well, look on the bright side — you get another buka puasa dining option! I am so kind and generous, I overwhelm myself sometimes

Coca Restaurant @ Subang Parade

One fine evening, KY, FA, Ringo, Tim and I went to Subang Parade for said dinner. KY told me that Coca is well-known for their steamboat. So that was what I’d expected to have. There we met with Andrea, who is the Marketing Manager for Coca; a most pleasant and friendly lady. She told us that she would not be feeding us steamboat, but an array of dishes with rice to showcase Coca’s new extensive menu. O okay, I’ll go have their steamboat another time on my own then.

Drinks and juices for everyone!

I had the Thai longan drink, it was nice. KY ordered the roselle drink and he said that it was super nice, especially with the inclusion of a very crunchy roselle bulb.

First off, appetisers. We had the pandan chicken, stuffed prawns and deep-fried calamari.

Appetisers - pandan chicken, stuffed prawns, deep-fried calamari

The pandan chicken was very delicious, definitely one of the better ones I’ve had. You should try it when you pay Coca a visit. The stuffed prawn wasn’t really to my taste, but it’s not bad. I think they had fish paste, prawns and mushroom bits. Tim really loved the deep-fried calamari — that was also when we discovered that Tim’s allergic to shellfish. Hah! There were lots of what looked like crunchy deep-fried flour that came with the calamari. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be garlic! Very nice!

Seafood tom yam, steamed fish with Thai sauce, green chicken curry

The seafood tom yam was somewhat spicy, with very generous portions of seafood. I forgot what type of fish we had, but it was very fresh and rather nice. The green chicken curry was not bad, though it could be improved because I’ve had better somewhere else.

Kailan, prawns, tofu with scallops

The stir-fried kailan was yummy. FA thought it was a tad sweet; later Andrea suggested that maybe the chef had included some fish sauce in the dish. The fresh prawns were deep-fried with oats; sweet and satisfyingly crunchy. While we were trying to cram in as much food into our stomachs as humanly possible, Andrea came around and asked if we would like to try some tofu because she didn’t want Tim to go hungry (him being allergic to prawns and crabs) and he said yes. So a claypot brimming with tofu, mushrooms, mixed vegetables and fresh scallops appeared on our table a little while later. I think Tim whacked most of it, as I was not the bottomless pit as I thought I was.

The big ticket item - chilli crab with crispy man tou

We also had chilli crab, accompanied by deep-fried buns for you to soak up all the sauce that is served with the crab dish. I had most of it because I love crabs. Even then there were lots leftover We did think of you, Kim. According to Andrea, this is a very popular dish at Coca. The sauce is strong, slightly spicy (for me) and when you take a crispy bun to it, it was awesome.

Sago in coconut milk, mango with glutinous rice, red ruby

Then came desserts. My favourite has to be the sago in coconut milk. Well I liked the others — fresh mango with sticky rice and red ruby — as well, but the sago did it for me. For some reason, Ringo cannot take coconut milk, and so she had…

Ringo with her ais kacang

Well, we were thoroughly stuffed at the end of dinner. I still cannot believe that we had so much to eat! I asked Andrea for a quick round-up bill of what we had. She said it would come up to about RM 500. Well, I’m glad that Coca belanja-ed us makan

I was told that there are currently two Coca restaurants in operation — one in Subang Parade where we had dinner, and the other at 1Utama. They are looking to opening another outlet, but have yet to make a decision on the location. You can check out their website for full addresses, contact info and opening hours.

Kepuasan tahap maksima

Well it was a most satisfying meal. I had a lot of trouble walking afterward. Thanks for having us

- Full Flickr set here, including a couple of extra photos and larger sizes. You get the idea.

Sometimes when I feel the overwhelming desire to control the world, I don’t bomb embassies. Nor do I run naked in public singing “We are the world”.

Instead, I cook. It is a really therapeutic solution minus the bloodshed and hatred, and I don’t do harm to anyone but myself.

So yesterday I got down to it and prepared spaghetti with seafood.

First, the ingredients.

Fresh prawns, cuttlefish, fish fillet and the world saver Prego’s spaghetti sauce. I can’t really make my own sauce YET so this would have to do for now. Besides it’s not bad.

You have to wash them stuff really clean. You need to de-vein the prawns because it’s like the end of the world if you don’t. You need to peel off the purple-ish skin from the cuttlefish then slice it into many little pieces. You need to slice the fish into bite size — by the way dory fish is cheap and tasty; that massive fillet above costs like what, RM3?

Then you need to heat up the pan a little, then pour in some cooking oil so that you could fry some chopped garlic. You don’t really have to, but I like chopped garlic in my food, so now you know. Next empty the can of the spaghetti sauce and add some water, because I find that Prego’s sauce is usually too thick and a tad salty. For a full can, add half a can of water, and maybe just a little bit more, depends on how you like your sauce (or how stingy you are).

Dump all the ingredients in and let it cook for a while… I don’t know, maybe 5 - 10 minutes? It all depends on how non-raw you like your food, ahem. I like it very cooked, go figure.

Oh yeah, you should have some spaghetti boiling too. This should be done a bit earlier because they take some time to cook.

Bla bla bla, everything is ready, serve to feed yourself for two to three days.

It’s not quantum physics but even if I don’t get hitched, at least I’d never go hungry.