Supper guilt

Urgh...I feel so guilty. Been snacking late at night. I stopped eating supper some time already but recently I started again. It's not because I'm hungry, just feel like eating while I'm working. Not good for me, I know, working late into the night and eating so late some more! Tsk tsk tsk!

I've threwn out the bottle of Clarins fat burners oil a few months ago. If I still have it, I'd probably be using it. Hehe.

I think I will have to suppress my urge to eat supper. It's not hard for me to do, just that I never really said no before. But now that I start to feel guilty and bad about it, I'd better stop already!

Good durian

Just had some large seeds of durian, packed from yesterday at the SS2 Durian Buffet. They are really good and tasty. But it surely comes pricey, just 2 fruits cost us RM45. And they are not exceptionally large, but I've got to say the size of each seed is sufficient and satisfying.

I ate so many today that it's actually quite out of the norm. I normally just have 3 to 4 max, but I had a lot more than that today because I couldn't stop. Yeah, that good. It's my second time having it in a span of less than a month.

Can't continue having too much of durian because it's real fattening. Don't want to go for diet pills like apidexin after eating too much durian. Not that worth it though the taste is great :)

Japan is so beautiful!

We had 8 full days in Japan, touring Osaka, various parts of Hokkaido and Tokyo Disneyland. We travelled mostly by bus and took two internal flights. It was freezing cold, especially in Hokkaido where the temperature dipped to -10 degrees Celcius. It was snowing so we got to enjoy some fun time in the snow.

Here's a full account of the trip.

Hotel

We stayed at different hotels every single night. Why did we change hotels everyday? Well Japan is really big and we travelled far and wide to visit the "must-see" places. It makes no sense to travel all the way back to the hotel, so we stayed where we finished off for the day. It was really tiring carrying our luggage day in and day out. But to make up for it, we stayed at some nice boutique hotels in the cities and also got to experience the Japanese style of living in some hotels further out of town too.

This is Cross Hotel, a lovely boutique hotel in Osaka. Very nice, very convenient. Highly recommended!
Nice layout of the bathroom even though it's small.
The shower room is separated from the WC. There's a nice big bathtub to unwind too!
This is a typical Japanese style hotel room. There are no beds in here!
This is my favourite item in the room. A tea serving set.
In the evenings, hotel staff come around to set up mattresses on tatami mats and we sleep like the Japanese.

Food

We feasted on so much seafood that we're staying away from them for a while now. Everything there is huge! I'm not talking about the serving portions but the size of the seafood itself. Scallops, fishes, octopus, squids and crabs are so huge that they look rather frightening. Nevertheless, they were delicious.

Each scallop only cost about RM9.
I don't need to eat a lot to get full!
Grilled mackerel with seafood soup.
This is one huge king crab to be shared amongst 4 people!

Beautiful sceneries

We visited some very beautiful places in Hokkaido. We saw hotsprings in the mountains, the very serene and peaceful Lake Toya, farms that has turned into nothing but a snowground where we went snow mobiling (and got toppled!), and to a place called Otaru where it's well known for its glass products and music boxes. Nice little town.

View of Lake Toya
View of the mountains from Lake Toya.
Taking a break at snow mobiling in the middle of nowhere!
Ray and I, icy cold at a hotspring.

Disneyland

The tour included a day pass to Disneyland. Tine left me a comment earlier about visiting Disneysea instead and I think I have to agree with her. I only saw Disneysea from the outside and it looked more appealing to the adults. Disneyland was fun for me 15 years ago, but now it doesn't hold much.

However, this Disneyland trip is still memorable since it's the first time Ray and I visit it together. We didn't go on much of the rides. Took lots of photos instead. We managed to catch the parade show and did a little shopping.

Ray and I with the fairy-tale casle behind us.
Just checking to see if anyone missed me enough to send me mails :P
Is this the real life Mr. Donald Duck on the grounds of Disneyland?

Shopping

In my post before leaving for Japan, I said I wasn't going to spend a lot because things are expensive. Things were expensive but it didn't stop us from buying. Haha. Ray was always saying "We're here all the way, might as well buy!" How not to spend with that kind of encouragement, huh?

We bought a box full of Japanese food stuff. I also bought 20 puchi puchi, orders from my colleagues. The girl at the shop looked quite shock as I "sapu" all her puchi puchi, digging into unopened boxes to find the colours I wanted!

Then came the highlight purchases of the trip...

The bag is rather small and not too practical, but I couldn't resist!
This one could pass off as a mummy's bag to make up for the small one, right? ;)

Cute stuff

Japan is so full of cute items, attractive packagings and Hello Kitty stuff. I think most people buy a lot of Japanese food and sweets just to look at them instead of eating. Who could blame them?

Apparently these are nice to look at but doesn't taste good.
A moo-moo pack.
Chocolate biscuits in the shape of Hello Kitty.
We had tea and coffee at a cafe where you get to take the cups home. Of course it's all billed for.

To sum it up, Japan is a really nice place to visit, albeit a little on the expensive side. In all 4 seasons, they have equally nice attractions. But I think if we go in the winter times, there's more to experience in terms of snow sports. Anyone thinking of planning a trip there anytime soon? :)

Anyway, I'll leave you with more photos here...

My cravings for the day

Out of nowhere, I started craving for tea-break today. And what I wanted was good old cream crackers with kaya spread generously on it. The perfect way to wash it down is with a cup of hot tea. Mmmm...

*Slap slap slap*

Had to wake up to reality. Where on earth can I find that in the middle of the day while stuck in office with a thick pile of documents waiting? :(

Avocado Cream Dessert

I was having lunch at Li Yen recently. It's a nice little Chinese restaurant in Ritz Carlton Hotel in the heart of KL. This place being a Chinese restaurant, I was surprised that a Brazilian dessert is on its menu and from what I hear, the restaurant is known for this particular dessert, too.

The host ordered a few portions of the dessert to be shared and I was thinking "How do I stomach just cream? And, avocado?? Isn't that for facial or something?".

The dessert finally came. It was a pile of light green cream served in a bowl. I didn't snap a picture of it, but it looks something like this:



Don't be fooled by how it looks. I had my first spoonful and instantly loved it! It's very light in texture, definitely not the thick kind of cream I thought it'd be and so wonderfully refreshing. It was served chilled and every spoonful became more addictive than the last.

It seems like a very easy dessert to make. I found a recipe of it from Recipe Zaar. But I'm too lazy to try it. The one at Li Yen is still highly recommended.

Marco's Pizza

A week ago, we ran out of ideas of where to eat. Then I remembered passing Marco's Pizza opposite Kelana Jaya LRT station. So we headed there to try it out. You won't miss the outlet because it's got a huge, attractive signboard on the shop-front.

The outlet is huge. It reminded me of those teen flicks I used to read as a teenager when it was the in-thing for western teens to go to pizza joints for group dates. You have a choice of seating arrangements like little booths, bar-tops and of course the regular dining table and chair sets.

It also has TV screens showing MTVs, cartoons and sports. So pick your seat according to what you wanna watch!

About the food, we had a Hawaian pizza for mains and an appetizer of herbal and garlic bread. The pizza was impressively topped with very generous servings of cheese, turkey ham, pineapples and mushrooms, as you can see from pictures below.

Hawaian pizza

See that cheese?

The bread was spread with lots of herbs and garlic.

We enjoyed our meal there and a week later, I recommended and returned to the place and ordered exactly the same menu! If you're there, do try the desserts too because they come highly recommended. They look very enticing too, but we were too full for sweets. Anyone who has tried it, do share your experience.

Meme: Childhood Memories. It's all about food.

I've been tagged by Funky Cookies to continue this meme that calls for 5 childhood memories that relate to food. Most of my childhood memories of food stuff are closely related to my grandparents and cousins. Gets me nostalgic thinking of them. But anyway, here's going back in time and here are my selected 5.

1. Junk food galore
I don't have a sweet tooth but I sure fancied the little heavenly Sugus sweets which my grandfather bought me. In my heart, he was the best magician after David Copperfield. He would make a Sugus sweet appear out of no where. I've secretly ransacked his room looking for them but never found a trace. I loved the magical Sugus moments with grandfather. I also enjoyed the little pleasures of the plastic cup jellies that come in fruity flavours and the thinly sliced hawthorn-berry strips called Haw Flakes.

Love these jellies, especially when chilled.

The Haw Flakes rolls that I still enjoy till today.

2. Puttu mayam
I don't know what puttu mayam is called in English. It's a vermicelli-like noodle that's eaten with sweetened coconut crumbs and gula melaka. An Indian man used to drive his motorcycle in the backlane of our house every morning and when he honked, that was the cue for us to dash out and buy his puttu mayam for breakfast. They're hardly around these days.

3. Sunday brunch at Klang Bak Kut Teh
Grandma loved car rides. Every Sunday we would take a drive from KL to Klang for her favourite food, bak kut teh. We savoured every bowl of soup and meat. As kids, our favourites were the yau char kwai that we soaked in the bak kut teh soup. While studying overseas, I craved for yau char kwai and to my delight, found an almost similar substitute for them in Yorkshire puddings. No kidding!

A hot steaming pot of herbal broth with meat and mushroom was our favourite Sunday specials.

4. Tong yuen
My family used to celebrate "Kuo Tong" day. It is believed that this day is even more important than the Chinese New Year. I never knew much about the history of it but what I remember most is a bunch of us kids sitting around a table with aunties and uncles making tong yuen. Tong yuen is a sweet glutinous ball soup that families make on Kuo Tong day. I don't quite like it but I loved kneading the flour into perfect balls. Cousins and I would compete to see who made better ones. The house would be brightly lit and lively.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, who is the prettiest of us all?

5. Yau char kwai in Kopi-O
Another favourite breakfast of mine was to soak yau char kwai into black coffee. Love the aroma of the steaming coffee. Most times I only get to eat this when Mom and Dad have already left for work and my aunt gave me this treat.

That wraps up my 5 favourite childhood food memories.

The baton has been passed on from:
1. Oswego Tea
2. Masak-Masak
3. Funky Cookies
4. Eternity

I'm required to tag others to continue passing this baton. So here you go, lucky ones, enjoy!

1. FoodCrazee
2. Thinking Aloud
3. Foxynell
4. Jason Mumbles
5. Xmocha