Here We Go Again… April 27, 2009

I think that when you have a lot of choices on what to do during the weekend, you will most likely wind up doing nothing. At least, this applies to me. I had a choice of going back to Great Eastern Mall and *thoroughly* enjoying their buffet promotion before it ends. Or I could try my gym marathons at either Jaya 33 or Celebrity Fitness. Or I could even go for this Love Classifiedsthing that I randomly entered on Friday night and won… but in the end I didn’t do any of the above. I might as well have turned into a vegetable and just root myself into the soil… seriously, give someone too many options and they just … turn tail and run.

Anyway, I felt really bad about the radio contest thing. Seriously, at the rate I’m going, I’m going to be blacklisted by all companies that organise contests. Saja masuk, but don’t show up. Story of my life. I was quite gung-ho about it at first… called my friends to go. How did I know that 2 had work (one working up to 18 hours that day… siao!), 1 got a hangover (specifically told her not to go Waikiki the night before already!!!) and another one had dance classes. Haih. Seriously, I cannot organise anything spontaneously. I have to really, really plan everything out and give people “orders” like, “I want you there at so-and-so time!” I’ve gotten so anal about things like this that when I went for that SGAM thing in Genting with my colleague, she would randomly ask me a question like, “So Leech, what time should we have dinner?” and I would answer with some kind of essay like, “Well, seeing as the last lecture ends at 6pm, we will then proceed upstairs to our rooms, let’s say we give 30 minutes to shower. The magic show starts at 9pm. I think we can have dinner at 7:30pm, so after showering, we can still relax for another hour or so!” I mean, come on, thinking back on it, do I have to detail everything out? Isn’t a “7:30pm” succint enough? No wonder my colleague replied back with an “Aye aye, Cap’n!” -____-”

Actually, I’m getting pretty moody nowadays, not just because of my car (poor me!), but because I just paid my taxes. Haih… you can’t run away from it. So I just accepted my fate, paid through my nose and can now proudly go about saying things like, “Wasting tax payer’s money. Wasting MY money only!” with full conviction again. -___-”

Have to reshuffle my holiday plans around… hope everything is “all systems go!” this time. I really can’t wait to make this holiday a reality! It’s going to be soooooo much fun! This year, I’m really planning to go to some really weird places. Holiday months for me will be in :
- May
- June
- November
And I really want to slot in another all-girls trip somewhere there…

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Just to fill in some food pictures & images on my blog, here’s a small continuation from the Cambodia Food series. MrOng, the DGM (Deputy GM) for our company loves this place. And so does the Head of Loans division here. According to MrOng, she would go in to the restaurant in the morning and stay until the evening, just pecking at her food and enjoying copious amounts of tea. Once, she stayed until so late that the owner of the place (evidently, her friend) allowed her to sleepover too. Anyway, the restaurant is quite pretty and the food is not bad. Nothing very Cambodian about it of course.. my colleagues are fans of Chinese food, hehehe. Anyway, the name of this place is Tea Club. Went here multiple times so this is a consolidation of all the outings.

Restaurant interior…

MrOng and MrHo— who is now back in Malaysia, really happy to be back in ITD.. hahaha.

This is AlanTan, the auditor. Pls stop calling me daily, hahaha! (Keep on asking me on this-and-that audit issues… seriously IT audit is such a pain. Everyone in this company is too chickenshit to do anything devious anyways.)

This is Paex2.. who is no longer working in the company.

The exterior of the restaurant.

Vietnamese coffee with biscuits. (Not high class enough to call it biscotti, haha).

Pretty authentic “pan meen”. Think Imma eat some pan meen tomorrow.

Yong tao foo… btw, the USJ yong tao foo is really nice. Wanna ask my parents to go there lah!

Springrolls.

MrHo’s wan tan mee… I told you, they like their chinese food.

Seafood noodles.

Fried rice… forgot what style it was, but it was pretty decent.

Miserable looking chicken wings… I think the chicken wings I made for all our parties even nicer, kan Dull?

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There’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. There are people who can’t do it as well as I can, and when I tell Raymond, “Why do they do it? When they are not as good as me! And I’m better than them, but I don’t dare.” And he says, “People got the confidence… and they don’t mind when others laugh at them and question them. You only think so much.”

So how?

P.S : I tried pole dancing today. Damn it’s difficult! No wonder the instructor teaching us is more muscular than any Body Combat / Body Attack female instructor I’ve ever seen. Maybe comparable to Body Pump instructors! I only managed to swing myself round the pole ONCE and I believe it was totally a fluke. After the class, my right forearm was pretty tender. *ouchies*

I was STARVING in Cambodia Part 3 April 1, 2009

I’m freaking tired, man… I can’t even blog properly, so this is going to be a filler post about food. I gymmed 27 days out of 31 days in March. From Jan – March I went to the gym a total of 60+ times. That is about 65% of how many times I gymmed for the entire 2008 ok. Hahaha! Thing is, I’m tired, but not totally worn out. I can still go again and again. It’s not to say I’m not working hard… or maybe I go to the gym so often, this is already “normal” for my body. I’m trying to change my gym routine here and there to top things up a notch, but it’s still early days. And at the end of the month when I weighed myself… the figures didn’t even change. Man! Maybe I do eat a whole lot. >=\ But I don’t really believe so because I have soooo many cravings that I don’t even give in to.

List of cravings, just to make myself go even more nuts :
nasi briyani bukhara * roti canai * roti telur * cheese naan with tandoori chicken * banana leaf rice * pizza * mac & cheese * sushi * doughnuts * baked cheese rice * grilled chicken foldover * macdonald’s french fries * teh tarik panas! * dim sum * lo mai kai * bak kut teh * char kueh teow * salted egg crabs * buffalo wings * pastaaaa * nasi goreng pattaya * KFC * Jogoya (don’t even think the quality is that good.. it’s just that I saw old pics I took there and suddenly the craving came again) * the fudgiest, chocolatiest mud pie evar * yong tao foo *

Okaylah, enough la. Let me post food pictures instead.. zomg. Continuing with the Cambodian saga. Oh yeah, might be going to Laos, but not anytime soon. Boss scared me this morning when she asked me if I’m free to travel on the 6th of April. Actually, I’ve got a lot of travelling plans booked between May – July, so if there’s any overseas project, faster send me in April so I can collect some pocket money first, haha.

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These are actually very boring food pictures. Cos it’s all about Chinese food, like hello, don’t tell me you never ate chinese food before. Hahaha. Actually, for me it’s quite rare to eat in a chinese restaurant nowadays because I usually dine alone. When I went out with my family last Sunday to have dinner in Subang, I felt like it was such a novelty. The dishes we order are always the same – 1 veg + 1 tofu + 1 meat. It gives me a weird kind of comforting feeling to know that “some things never change”.

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia – there’s this whole row of Chinese restaurants near our Bank. Most of the restaurants are operated by China nationals, so the food is really authentic Chinese food and not a fusion of Chinese + Cambodian. Price wise, it was not bad (it’ll add up to USD1.50 – USD3 per person, depending on how extravagant we ate that day), and my colleagues especially liked it because they could converse in mandarin with strangers again. For me, I would randomly stab at whatever looks good on the menu, but it would usually turn out REALLY bad. After a while, my colleagues revoked my privilege of choosing at least one dish.

There were some things I ate there that I’ve not eaten before in a chinese restaurant in Malaysia… maybe because we just never thought of ordering it. Stuff that I really liked were :
a. scrambled eggs with century egg aka “pei dan dan”. Super high calories wei, but damn yummy! We’d order this dish every alternate day.
b. fried squid with black beans – we ordered this by accident one day, and the next time we went, the waiter couldn’t understand what we were trying to order, ahahha.
c. fried pork ribs with garlic aka “zhao pai ku”. Deep fried with TONNES of garlic, I would “sapu” the basket of garlic as well. Hahaha.
d. tender bamboo shoots… I bought a can of the stuff in Malaysia and tried to stir-fry it but it just wasn’t the same.

Okay, so anyway I know it’s not much to look at, so just indulge me as I remember my chinese restaurant dining days in Cambodia.

Shan Dong
Aka the most favored Chinese restaurant of the lot, mainly because their menus came with pictures and most of their waiters could speak mandarin, even the Cambodians.

Ms F likes to bring the vendors here – pictured here are Tuyen & Mr Thai.

Small bites before dinner is served – peanuts sprinkled with sugar and some kinda pickled radish thing… like kimchi but super sour and generally unedible.

The black bean squid I was raving about ; some vegetable that my colleagues kept raving about… erm.. looks like a fatter version of long beans to me… *veggie blind*

Twin steamed fish ; the deep fried garlic pork ribs I mentioned earlier.

Sizzling beef slices ; stir-fry tofu & veg.

COLD PORK SLICES ; VEG WITH MINI FISHBALLS.
Both terrible dishes were selected by yours truly. This is why my dish-selection privileges were revoked. The pork slices were 99% fat ok, and I felt bad for ordering it so I ate it even though it was not nice. T____T Until Ms F said, “Leech, you can stop eating it because you feel guilty, ok?” HAHAHA.

Mapo tofu ; stewed chicken with black beans.

Some spicy chicken dish ; stir fried veg with a generous portion of prawns.

Stir fried tender bamboo shoots ; Scrambled egg with century egg

Pak cham kai (steamed chicken) ; fried dumplings (John’s discovery, credit where credit’s due, ok).

Shang Cai
Only went here once, I wonder why. From the food pictures, I remember that it was pretty tasty. I think we’re very much led by the crowd – the restaurants which have a lot of people inside, we instantly assume to be good (hence constantly returning to Shan Dong and further propagating this theory to other tourists, I suppose). I remember this place was pretty empty, but it was well-kept and clean. OH yeah… I got stomachaches after eating here… but really, it could’ve been anything. Even the water I drink daily. No one else fell sick after eating here. I suspect the mushrooms…

Fried tofu slices.

Veg with sliced mushrooms. I think I selected this dish… which is why I kick myself again because the mushrooms really tasted OFF.

Prawns on a sizzling hot plate.

Pork patties in a rich tomato sauce. This was really really good.

Spicy chicken dish… look at all them green chillies!

Okay la, enough for today. I just found out that not getting enough sleep can contribute to gaining weight! That and maybe daydreaming about eating all the time, heh! Will continue the Starving-In-Cambodia Chinese restaurant series later. Eh, I really feel like eating chinese food now… but tomorrow the boss is bringing us out for a Japanese lunch. :3~

I was STARVING in Cambodia Pt 2 March 17, 2009

Boring day today. Mrs C told me, “Keep yourself busy” and was actually happy to hear that I have been doing a lot of crap to get on with my life. Things like being busy at work. Making myself busy at the gym. Meeting up with friends so often. When you run from one end to the other end, you make yourself too busy to stop and think, which is why I haven’t had time to write back emails to all my friends who have sent me stuff. Yeah, what a stuck-up person, hahaha. People write long-long and you quiet as a mouse. I am going to reply 1 email a day until I have finished replying everyone. Today I’m good… so I replied TWO. Hahahahha. Last in first out though. Hahahahha. Terrible. *slaps self*

Anyway… cannot stop stressing how boring the day was. Work work work work work found interesting gym instructor’s blog work work work work work gossip gossip have to meet manager work work have to talk to auditor work work work cannot comprehend how some users do problem reporting work work work. Hahaha! When management gives you extra work, it’s because they “tai hei” (look up) your abilities. This is supposed to make you feel good, but strangely it doesn’t?

Most interesting thing about today is a friend trusting me with a secret… hehehe. I feel honored. Hahaha. Another interesting thing is someone who reads my blog emailed me because they found my profile in a friend-making website. From back in my college days. Hmm… I miss that website actually. I met a few really interesting friends back there. Like J, the lecturer’s brother. Like K, the guy who taught me the theory of inbred dating. Like Uncle SS / Uncle E, who introduced me to the “joys” of The Escape Club. Damn funny people. And damn was I free last time. Just for being able to even know these few strange people, I have no regrets having to deal with the throngs of perverts and hi/bye friends. Impressionable young girl, they probably don’t remember me though. T___T

Seriously, I am sooooo envious of people in college. When I was in college, I couldn’t wait to start work and earn money. If I ever have kids of my own, I would allow them ample freedom and $$ so that they have enough to enjoy themselves while they are still young. $$ should not be a factor for wanting to work so early. Maybe gaining experiences / getting a head start, etc. But not $$$$$$$.

Oh yeah, Kim said that Dragonball got all of ONE STAR in the Star newspaper movie reviews. In contrast, Sex Drive actually got 3 stars, and it’s just a dumb teen comedy. Wtf? Should I still go watch it? Hahahhaa.

Anyway, I have nothing more to ramble on and on about, so here’s part two of the “I was STARVING in Cambodia” series.

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Lucky Burger
This is the Lucky Burger I was talking about. I had bad experience with this place.. in the sense that my food didn’t look like what was displayed at ALL. But this place is nice because they have a gelato stall! And it’s about RM10 for 3 scoops of ice-cream. Hahaha, I came back again just for the ice-cream. No wonder can grow fat in Cambodia! (Seriously, if you are a fat person in Cambodia, you’ll feel bad .. like EXTRA bad because the people around you are dammmmmn skinny. It’s VERY RARE for you to find a FAT YOUNG person in Cambodia. I apologise if you think I’m generalising, but this is the truth!)

Again… I got admonished for taking photos. But anyway, you can see how delicious the burgers look… ON THE DISPLAY.

And this is what I got.. the Aloha burger set or something like that. Damn siasuey, they will call out your number to tell you to get your food from the counter, but they are calling out the numbers in Khmer language. I waited sooooooo long until the staff realised I’m not Cambodian and had to help me with my food. Sigh… do I look Cambodian to you? I’m not being racist or anything, but seriously… do I look Cambodian????

It looks pretty sad, you have to agree with me on this.

Monica joined me later, and HER chicken set looks much more yummy. Reason I didn’t order the same thing was because there’s KFC in Phnom Penh… hahahhaa. We ate KFC there at least once every 10 days.

The gelato! All kinds of flavor – apple, mango, coconut, yogurt, rum & raisin, etc etc.

This is the KFC you will get in Cambodia.
Don’t know why same case with Thailand (or at least, Udon Thani?) — they don’t have coleslaw! So full of carbs…

Fei Li
Fei Li literally translates to “Fat Li” which is a very flattering name for the owner of the restaurant… who was originally from Malacca. Wah, I’m really good at going to Cambodia and trying out all the Malaysian food there, hahahhaa! And all the fast food! Seriously, don’t puke blood over the things I do, it’s just that there are VERY few NON-road side stalls that serve Cambodian food there. And come on, it’s a neighbouring country, so how much more exotic can their food style get?

Anyway, this restaurant also caters to the “upper class” there and again, mostly only see expats or Malaysians inside here. MrHo was the one who introduced us to this restaurant and of course, we made him pay for it as well. Hahaha!

The people who took me around for my meals… without them I would be lost! And probably kept on going back to Mamak’s Corner. ;D That’s MrHo and Monica.

Fish cake, tofu with mushrooms.

Spinach dish, pork ribs.

Very “ping siong” (normal) hor? I already blogged about the time we ate crabs in Fat Li… that one was a much more $$$$ meal. Hahahha. Must not “chop” MrHo for so many expensive free meals, hahaha.

Sorya Steamboat
Actually, I forgot the actual name of the restaurant, it’s located at their local “shopping mall” called Sorya, and it’s located on the highest floor of the building. Supposedly with a gorgeous view of the city skyline and all that from the top, but I swear that you can’t see much, hahaha. And the windows are kinda dusty, so I didn’t bother to take photos. Anyway, we had the steamboat there, which is … well, like normal steamboat that you have here in Malaysia. It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t particularly memorable. But they have char siew (barbecue pork) here!! So if you ever have pork cravings there… then you know where to go lor, keke.

Sifoo Wong perusing the menu. We ate here because it was Ms F’s last day in Cambodia (senior management always get to leave early, the “chut zhai” stay back late and execute orders, hahaa.)

Mushrooms, meatballs, tofu…

Lotsa meat and veggies.

Something that looks like sushi, but isn’t. More like meat wrapped with seaweed, hahaha.

Char siew aka barbecue pork… you can’t keep Sifoo Wong away from his char siew / siew yoke… basically anything piggy.

More of that bean+coconut milk Cambodian dessert.

Suhaimi’s
Another Malaysian restaurant, but with a concept that they should have here in Malaysia – there will be about 6 different “lauk” (dishes), and you can take AS MUCH OF EACH ITEM as you want… and as much rice too!! BUT… you can only go one round. HAhahaha. Limited buffet! It’s about USD4+ per meal. Pricey stuff, but worth it. Anyway, our daily allowance can more than cover up that amount.

We dragged Randy to this restaurant because we wanted him to try Malaysian food. He said it was too spicy, and then never joined us for lunch again. Hahaha!

Randy entering the restaurant.

Nah, all the different kinds of dishes you can get there.

Free soup as well.

Random Roadside Bakery
Baked goods in Cambodia… in a store, or by the road… take your pick!

Local Khmer Snacks
Stuff that the staff in Cambodia share with me during their tea break. All of them are really nice… I don’t know the local name for the food, but I will try to describe how it TASTES to you.. hahaha.

Doughnut covered with caramel and sugar.

Some kinda soft, doughy thingy, covered with creamy coconut milk.

Something like our goreng pisang, but harder, and they fry yam, potatoes as well as bananas.

Peking Canteen
This is one of my favorite places to eat while I was there. Cos it’s CHEAP. And the food is so simple and plain, but filling. I wish I knew how to make the same thing back in Malaysia! It costs less than RM3 to eat just the noodles here.

The tea egg noodles. The sauce is a mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce, TEA, I don’t know what else. If I knew, then I would make it for myself daily, hahaha.

Something like fried gyoza?

Mapo tofu.

MrHo smiling in a mental manner… hahaha. From overtly stressed face to crazyman face. Hahahhaa.

The auditors – PeiPei and Alan… Donno how… was talking about work with Alan today, and then started talking about the cost of Chinese wedding dinners. Hahahah!

That’s all for now! Oh, and Kim, I found out the name of the Thai song!! I will share it with you, but 101% you have heard it before. I feel like asking Kris to translate it for me, hahaha.

I was STARVING in Cambodia Pt 1 March 13, 2009

Er… Happy Black Friday! Don’t really have much to update on my blog, so it’s a great time to put up my filler picture posts from long ago. I’m quite a happy camper because my weekend is totally filled up and I’m going to be busy, running here and there, but it’s great cos I’ll be meeting people who I haven’t seen in a long while! By the way, read this “Dear Thelma…” sort of article in FHM a longggg while back and I’m curious…

Could you accept it if your husband / wife is a bisexual and is very honest & upfront with you that they think that there’s nothing wrong with sleeping with someone of the same sex while they are married to you. What do you think about that? Do you think erm… okay I accept that because there are some needs of his / hers that obviously I cannot satisfy, or do you think “no such thing as ‘bisexual’ — you are just being greedy!” and refuse to “share” your significant other in such a way?

I’ve gotten some really surprising / unexpected answers about this! Hahaha.

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Just a food post about all the restaurants / places I ate while I was in Cambodia. Seriously, people who go to this country and complain that there’s nothing to eat are either very picky people or they just haven’t opened their eyes big enough.

BB World
They don’t have Burger King – they have Lucky Burger. They don’t have McD’s, they have BB World! Pretty good prices here – you can get about 10 nuggets in your value meal set for the same price as what you would pay for a nuggets value set in McDs in Malaysia.

Also, they didn’t allow any pictures, so after I was admonished for click-happy-ness, I sat in fear in the restaurant.

Klang Boy Bak Kut Teh
Remember me mentioning that the vendors like going to Klang Boy BKT in my previous post? This is what we usually have in KBBKT:

The restaurant… very sparse and clean.

They have curry chicken here… much to Wong’s delight. I didn’t really have any Malaysian cravings while I was there… hmmm.

Karipap! Very nice, very big, lots of FILLING. Even hard boiled eggs are part of the filling, hahaha.

Delicious chilli mee pok that I always order. It’s the first thing I would eat in Cambodia if they sent me to work there!

Fishball soup that comes with the chilli mee pok.. hahahaa. Go Cambodia to eat mee pok, how silly.

Pan meennnnnn.

Free “dessert” in the form of green bananas (they are ripe, it’s just that this kind of banana remains green, so some of the Malaysians don’t eat it even though it’s perfectly fine because they are “programmed” to be unable to eat green bananas, hahaha).

Mini paus!

Fried veggie to go with the bak kut teh.

Fried tofu.

Bak kut teh!

Keur Keur
The chinese characters for this restaurant’s name is the same as “big brother” in mandarin. I like this restaurant the most because it’s one of the cheapest restaurants within walking distance of the office. The style of the food here is a mix of Chinese & Vietnamese. Highly recommend the ice milk coffee which I ALWAYS have when I’m there. The cost of the coffee is usually half the price of the fried rice itself… Hahaha. (I.e: If fried rice = RM4, coffee is RM2).

Seafood fried rice.

My favorite – black pepper fried rice.

Ice milk coffee. *love*

Mamak’s Corner
Another restaurant opened by a Malaysian. He travels back to Malaysia quite frequently and claims that his bags are stuffed with local spices to ferry back to Phnom Penh. This place is pretty pricey… and most of the time, the people eating here are Malaysians or Caucasians. Rarely any locals would eat here because it’s expppppp. Good location… less than 2 minutes walk from our bank. I keep getting dragged here because the Malaysians all feel nostalgic and because you can get roti canai here, which is a big freaking deal when you’re stuck in Cambodia for months on end. Oh and teh tarikkkkkk. Yeah, that was sorely missed. But expect to pay about USD5 per meal here. You tell me expensive or not?

The “economy style” rice here. Wah, once you pick a meat dish and an egg, expect your bill to be USD6 and upwards.

See?? Later learned the lesson and only eat veggies… hahahaha!!

See how happy John is to be here? Hahaha!

Roti sardin and teh tarik for dinner. HEAVENLY.

As you can see from the decor, they are rich enough to invest in archways, fancy lamps and artwork. Hahaha. Wong said that he likes the painting because he is from a ‘kampong’ and feels very at peace staring at the painting in Mamak’s Corner.

New Paris
This is a chain of restaurants that sell “higher end” Cambodian food. Kinda fusion because you can see Vietnamese style stuff there as well. The Deputy General Manager treated us to lunch here one afternoon… and when he drove us over to the restaurant, we saw in action how he had to bribe the traffic cops. Erm.. they bribe about RM20 worth. So cheap wan.

Appetizers that are reminiscent of Vietnamese springrolls.

Bad pic, but this was basically some kinda fried prawn dish.

Fried fish… not very appetizing food styling, but trust me, the food is really good.

Steamed chicken.

Stuffed bittergourd soup, which is probably the only true Cambodian classic which I miss dearly.

Dessert in the form of some kinda green bean mixture with coconut milk.

Okay, I’ll continue this another day. Hahaha. I just realised that I’m more or less writing a post like “where to find Malaysian food in Phnom Penh”.