Bookworms unite!

I went to the Big Bad Wolf books warehouse sale last week with my daughter and had such an interesting time. If anything ever gets me excited, it's a book sale. Book sales are my retail therapy equivalent to shopping for clothes and other girly stuff. For a time I actually wondered if I'm the weird one out but last week's experience at the book sale put that thought to rest. I met many, many bookworms while waiting for the book people to open their doors to us into book heaven. You know who the bookworms are - we are the ones who are there right at the front of the gates excitedly straining our necks to see what's inside and planning all our strategies. Quite ridiculous, actually. We'd compare notes and share stories, and I was very pleased to find similar-minded people who actually thought nothing of spending huge amounts of money on books because we think it's worth it. Like they say, birds (or in this case, should it be worms?) of a feather flock together ... and there were many birds (worms?) that day. Not only that, we all practically had the same thoughts on lots of other topics too - shopping for clothes, for instance. To us, it seems that if a shirt fits - great! Now can we have all five colors of the same shirt and get this shopping over with! It's so different when we talk about books. The mood changes entirely - everyone gets excited and we're all suddenly talking like old friends. Someone commented that bookworms are not environmentally friendly since trees have to be cut down to feed our habit. That's true, but a bookworm will never give up the joy of holding the book in their hands. Oddly, we just don't find the same joy by reading a book over the computer screen. It somehow takes away a very substantial part of the fun of reading a book. We bought lots of books at the book sale but it just never seemed to be enough. We are eagerly waiting for the next sale again and next time I will be even more prepared! For the time being, I am eager and happy to just lose myself in the books that we purchased last week.

Living with dyslexia

Dyslexia is often regarded as a developmental learning difficulty but I would like to think of it as learning difference.

If you’ve been reading my blog, I would never have come across as a dyslexic. The fact is I am. I’ve had to contend with learning difficulties in school because the traditional educational setting just do not recognize the possibility of children learning in a different way from their peers. It is especially so in the Malaysian educational setting where students learn by rote. It was exceptionally hard for me, thus I am almost always among the last in class during my school years. That’s not to say that I’m stupid. Far from it, actually. I won’t blow my own trumpet and say I’m exceptionally intelligent either. It is just that I do better at some subjects, languages and arts specifically, and just can’t understand other subjects. I was always the top scorer in school for English and Bahasa Malaysia so the teachers are always perplexed by the rest of my results. I have never had to sit down and study when it came to languages and arts. It all just came naturally. By the time I was in secondary school, I was helping some of my classmates with their homework. However, being good in languages is not enough to make it in life. My parents, worried for my future, sent me to tuition after tuition in the hope that my results would improve. That didn’t work, obviously, and I hated those after-school tuition sessions fervently. It was such a surprise to everyone that I even managed to scrape through my exams.

At that time, students were put into two categories, the smart ones and the not-so-smart ones. No one had any inkling about learning disabilities then. It’s a different world today, thank goodness because my daughter was recently diagnosed as a dyslexic too. I’m not too worried about her diagnostic because frankly, I don’t see dyslexia as a disability. I see it as more of a gift because dyslexics also happen to be very creative people. At a time when everyone wants to “think out of the box”, no one can do it better than dyslexics. Can you imagine what a boring world this would be without dyslexics? If dyslexic luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Lee Kuan Yew, Richard Branson and countless others can achieve such great heights of success, dyslexia can only be described as a gift.

When I am confronted by mothers who revel in discussing the number of As their children got in their last exam, I am comforted by what Sir Jackie Stewart said, “You be nice to people with dyslexia because one day you might be working for them”. That just about makes my day.

Weekend buffet lunch @ Oriental Banquet

We celebrated my mom's birthday recently at Oriental Banquet for a weekend lunch buffet. We had originally wanted to try the buffet at Noble House in KL but they are always fully booked, thus we were told to try our luck at Oriental Banquet.

We managed to book our table without fuss for lunch on Sunday. Our reservation was for 11:30am and when we arrived there were only a couple of tables of guests there. The buffet line was not completely set up yet so I managed to sneak in some photos while they set up. There's a decent amount of food there so I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Our menu for RM39.00++ per pax consists of a bowl of sharksfin soup with crabstick for each person. The soup was quite mediocre although for RM39.00++ it's decent with real sharksfin.

I liked the appetiser section where the food is served in dainty spoons and shooter glasses. My favourite is the pomelo salad with octopus. The tangy salad and the chewy octopus topped with crispy squid is quite addictive and I found myself going back for more. The crispy fish skin topped with salsa is also quite good.

For the hot mains, there were a wide selection of dishes to choose from such as spinach tofu with mushrooms, moneybags, steamed fish, braised chicken, glutinous rice, yong tau foo and noodles.

There's a section of hot soups too with bak-kut-teh, yellow wine chicken and carrot soup.The selection of dishes are rotated so there is actually a wide range if you stay for longer hours. There's peking duck which I had to queue up for and also suckling pig for which I had to wait for the 3rd round before I finally got a chance to get to it before it's all gone.

I managed to take some pictures of the process for the Peking duck.

There's just a small table for desserts like Chinese pancake, ice-cream, fruits and hot desserts such as gingko and soya.

Oriental Banquet is a part of the Oriental Restaurants Group and is located at 16 Jalan 19/1, Section 19, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Tel : 03-7957 8488.

Fear of .....?

Fear. Now, that’s a word that many of us can relate to. Being human, it’s natural for us to fear the unknown. However, I do think that people go overboard sometimes. Like fearing a bespectacled boy like Harry Potter, for instance.

I am always amused at why books/movies like Harry Potter and Da Vinci Code even warrant a religious discussion. Because to me, these are purely entertainment. I very much doubt that watching a two-hour movie like Harry Potter is going to make people want to join the occult. Surely it takes more than just a movie (a PG-13 rated one at that!) to want to sell your soul to the devil? No doubt the invasion of the vampires will soon get some people’s knickers in a twist again.

How amusing it is that people fear books, movies, setting foot in other places of worship, yoga, sport anything that resembles a dragon or worse, participate in the funeral rites for one’s parent. Did these people honestly believe that by indulging or participating in any of the above their faith in their religion will diminish? Or wiped out? Is it that simple? If their faith can be so easily shaken by something as trivial as these then obviously they need to rethink their faith. And no, I did not just pluck these examples out of the air. It’s unfortunate but I do happen to know people who fear all the above. The last example is most upsetting. I think it's unbecoming for a child to refuse to perform funeral rites for his parent because it is against his religion. Surely God will not begrudge a person a final act of filial piety?

I’ve been to many places of worship, participated in the activities, have had Christian cell group meetings at my home and even pray alongside my children at night (to Jesus Christ!) but I’ve never been tempted to simply rush out and convert to Christianity. My faith in my religion has never been shaken and it will never be.

My point is, do we really need to be told that we can’t do this, can’t watch this, can’t do that? Are we incapable of making our own decisions? It is an inherent part of human nature to be curious about things and being restricted means added curiosity equals to mistakes. Anyway, we don’t need moral guardians, well, at least I don’t need them because they are an absolute insult to my intelligence. I just wish that people have a little more faith in themselves instead of feeling threatened by everything that comes along their path. Life is just not meant to be lived that way.

A family of bookworms

Books have always been an integral part of my life, partly stemmed from the fact that as a child, toys were a luxury my family could ill afford. My toys were almost always dismembered remnants of what it should have been so I had no other choice but to look elsewhere for entertainment. My fondest childhood memories centered around my favourite books, books that were everywhere in the house, brought home by my father who was then working for a publishing company. They were not only my source of entertainment, they were also very much a source of knowledge in my growing up years. I remembered reading for the first time the Pharoahs of Egypt and seeing Tutankhamun's gold sarcophagus in all its splendour. I was immediately hooked and my fixation with the ancient Egyptians has continued to this day.

As I grew, it was only right that my fondness for books grew too. I started buying books and soon, I had amassed quite a collection. I loved my books, old as they may be. Each one of them have given me so much joy. They were a form of escapism for me, to escape from the realities of life for a short while. My reality is not at all bad, of course, but I do believe it's healthy to just let go once in a while. You see, it's a little different for me when I read, for the characters from the stories come to life in my mind's eye and for a time even, I lived and breathed the stories that I read. I can see, hear and feel the characters so vividly they almost seemed real. It can be quite disorienting at times, but that just adds to the excitement. I loved books that are very descriptive because it just makes it so much more real for me. I've spent many a sleepless night for that reason.

I am not limited to just a few choices when it comes to books. I'll read anything - be it fiction or non-fiction. My choice of book depends very much on the mood I'm in although I draw the line at "trash". I read on a wide range of subjects - autobiographies by famous world leaders are a favourite. I also like thrillers and conspiracy theories that keep me on the edge. I have no qualms reading horror books either although I'm quite the scaredy-cat. I have always had such a morbid fascination with vampires and I've a collection from Bram Stoker's Dracula to Anne Rice's Lestat to my current favourite, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I guess it wouldn't be very far off-mark to say I'm always well-read.

My love of reading have rubbed off quite positively on my eldest daughter. She was introduced to books at 5 months old and she's loved them ever since. She's 8 now, and not a day goes by without her reading at least a page a day. Obviously I've amassed quite a collection of children's books too. Our collection has many an award winner as well as encyclopedias and children classics. I've recently introduced books to my youngest, who's almost 6 months old. Hopefully, in time she'll enjoy reading with us too.

Recently I gave away boxes of my old books to my hubby's church library. I did it with a heavy heart because those books were such a huge part of my past. I will take comfort that instead of languishing in the store room packed into boxes, those books will now be a part of someone else's life. I hope it will bring immense joy to the reader, whoever that may be, just as it had for me.

Friday's, 1-Utama Old Wing

Last Friday my hubby and I took a day off work to spend time with our elder daughter who has been sorely neglected ever since the baby arrived. It was a day that she got to dictate and decide what she wanted to do. And since it's a Friday, she wanted to have lunch at Friday's.

For drinks, I liked the Granny Smith Green Apple soda. It was very good!

Friday's always have such big servings which are just too much for Asian stomachs. So we took their offer of a 2-course meal for RM29.90. For the appetizer, we ordered boneless wings which are not actually wings, but are succulent chicken breasts coated with buffalo wing sauce. The chicken were quite delicious.

We ordered Fish & Chips for the main. We got 2 big pieces of fish atop french fries. The fish was very fresh and succulent! Yumm!

The Jack Daniels chicken strips was very nice. We love the sweet Jack Daniels-infused sauce and just kept dipping everything, including the fries, into it. Absolutely lovely!

Since Fridays' have the Kids Eat Free Everyday promotion, our daughter ordered Cheese Nachos served with tomato salsa. She really liked it, but then again, she likes everything with cheese.

And for the finale, we had the Mocha Mud Pie. I used to love this dessert with the chocolate ice-cream and gooey caramel sauce. It used to come topped with lots of cookie crumbs but this time it looks kind of different. So little cookie crumbs on top. Friday's is always a good place to go to when we hanker for good ol' fashioned Tex Mex cuisine. It's a fun place for the kids plus young and enthusiastic waiters/waitresses.

TGI Friday's : G203a/205/206, GF One Utama Bandar Utama Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Petaling Tel: (603) 77294822

Kinnaree Thai Restaurant, Jaya One

My obsession with Thai food continues with our dinner at Kinnaree Thai Restaurant at Jaya One recently. Kinnaree at Jaya One is apparently a branch of the original restaurant in Bangkok so I was expecting good food.

The restaurant looks very posh and classy. I love the exquisite statues of the Kinnaree and the very beautiful frames of lotus leaves.

Now, about the food. We ordered the Yam Som O (Spicy pomelo salad with shrimps & chicken) and Som Tum Gung Sod (Spicy green papaya salad with fresh shrimps). The pomelo salad served here is an acquired taste due to the addition of thick coconut milk and toasted coconut flakes. The coconut milk made the salad very rich. It's very unlike the pomelo salads we've tried in other Thai or even Vietnamese restaurants. Needless to say, I don't like this salad at all.

The Spicy green papaya salad is served the way I like it. The lime juice gave it the tartness and sweetness from the palm sugar balanced it well. This is one dish any decent Thai restaurant can't go wrong with.

The waiter recommended we try the clear soup for our Tom Yum Kung as apparently it's better. It was a recommendation that we eventually came to regret because it sure didn't taste like how Tom Yum should taste to me. I have to note here that my mom makes a meaner Tom Yum.

For a less spicy dish, we ordered Kai Ho Bai Toey (marinated chicken wrapped in pandan leaves served with ginger and sesame sauce). The chicken was "over-fried" (is there even such a word?) which made it hard. It would have tasted better if it was not over done.

The Poo Nim Sam Rod (stir-fred soft shell crab in sweet and spicy tamarind sauce) fared much better. I requested for the sauce to be served separately to accommodate our daughter who didn't like spicy food. The spicy tamarind sauce was a good accompaniment to the simply fried crab.

We were recommended the two version fish (I don't know the name of the dish) by the waiter coz we cannot make up our minds whether we wanted our fish fried or steamed. I liked the steamed fish in lime juice and fried fish with a sweetish sauce is not bad either. This is actually the best dish so far!

The Stir-fried Kailan with salted fish was not too bad either, but then this is an easy dish for ANY restaurant.

For dessert we had the Thab Thim Krob which is served with slivers of sweet jackfruit.

I am a little disappointed with the food here but perhaps I expected too much. The dinner cost us close to RM300.00 which is very expensive for a meal that did nothing to quell my cravings.

Kinnaree Thai Restaurant12-1 Palm Square, Jaya One, 72A Jalan University, 46200 Petaling Jaya Tel: 03-7957 3910

Mother's Day dinner at Mei Chi Xuan Restaurant, Dataran Sunway

Our Mother’s day celebration this year took us to Mei Chixuan Restaurant at Dataran Sunway.

The interior of the restaurant is simple but then again, we didn’t come for the ambience. We were there for the food and I’m happy to say that they didn’t disappoint.

We ordered 5 dishes which included Roasted Pork Trotter, Butter Prawns, Soft-shelled crab with salted egg yolk, Stir-fried Kailan, Shark lips and their house specialty, Braised tofu with needle mushrooms.

The braised tofu with needle mushrooms was the first dish to arrive. The mushrooms complemented the smooth tofu very well. We really liked this dish.

The stir-fried kailan was fresh and crunchy albeit a little bland. A more liberal sprinkling of salt would lift this dish. The pork trotter was really good. The meat separates easily from the bone with fat that literally melts in your mouth. The cucumber and mango chilli dip that came with the dish complements it very well. Very tasty!The butter prawns was a disappointment though. The prawns were big and fresh but I didn’t like the accompanying egg floss that seemed to be lacking something.I like the soft-shelled crab with salted egg yolk though. It was seriously addictive although a little oily. The best part was I didn’t have to get my hands dirty!The star of the show was the braised shark lips. We've never tried shark lips before and was recommended this dish by the restaurant. The shark lips is soft and gelatin-like and went really well with the gravy which was very much like sharks fin soup, except that it's without the fins. It was delicious and we mopped the whole dish clean. On my second visit recently with my colleagues, the restaurant recommended Eight Treasures Duck. I’m not a fan of gamey duck meat although this dish was pretty good. The duck was tender and stuffed with various ingredients such as mushrooms, roasted pork, chestnuts and a few other ingredients that I couldn’t make out. We also had the Lala in Superior soup. It’s not my favourite dish because I thought the ginger in the soup was too overpowering.
The steamed assam fish was a disappointment. The fish was a little tough, maybe due to its size and the assam gravy it came in lacked that special kick. I liked F4's version much much better.The house specialty of Prawn curry in coconut was good though. The curry was sweet and thick and went very well with steamed white rice. We also ordered the fish paste with asparagus and mushroom. The fish paste was springy, contrasting nicely with the crunchy sticks of asparagus and carrots.

My family really likes the food served at this restaurant and would definitely visit again.

Mei Chixuan is at No. 32A Jalan PJU5/10, PJU5, Dataran Sunway, Kota Damansara 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Tel : 03-61416122, 016-2783089.