Thursday, March 13, 2008

Noodle in Cucumber and Meat Sauce

I don't know the origin of this noodle dish but some say it is Fuzhou. Since I have never been there, I cannot proclaim it as so. But it is certainly our favourite dish. It's so easy to cook yet so tasty. The combination of spicy sweet meat sauce with refreshing cucumber just blend so well. Hmmm... Just Imagine! Between Greg and I, we can wallop the whole dish.


500gm of yellow egg noodle
1/2 tsp of salt
2 tbsp of oil

1) Wash the noodle well if you buy the outside ones. Boil noodle in water mixed with salt and oil till cook. Approximately 5 min or so. Set aside in a nice serving bowl.

300gm of chicken or pork mince
1 no of med green chilli, cut to small pcs, deseeded if you dont like it spicy
1 no of med red chilli, cut to small pcs, deseeded if you dont like it spicy
1 no of large cucumber, cut into thin strips
1 tbsp of minced garlic
3 tbsp of oil

2) Place cucumber strips all around noodle.

3) Heat up wok and add oil. Stir fry garlic till fragrant but not burnt. Add meat and chillis. Continue stir frying.

1 1/2 tbsp of bean paste (tou pang jang)
1 tsp of hoisin sauce
3 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tsp of soya sauce
1 1/2tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of cornstarch + 2-3 tbsp of water
some pepper to taste

4) Mix all the seasoning till combined. Add to 3. Simmer till the meat is cooked. Taste to see if you like the level of spiciness and sweetness.

5) Pour on top of the noodle. Serve.

It makes good party dish.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

People's Power

On March 9, Sunday morning, Malaysians woke up to the news of BN being denied their 2/3rd majority and their loses of 5 West Malaysian states in the March 8 elections.


Both of us stayed up till almost 1 am but finally caved in after that. We went to bed praying for our country. And God has done the impossible, or what we as the little humans had thought was the impossible. Once again God has proven that He reigns!

For many Malaysians, we have been disheartened, disappointed & let down by our government. Badawi promised in 2004 to fight corruption, improve transparency, to have open public tenders, build the economy and one Malaysia for all Malaysians and repair any mess that was left over from the Mahathir era. Instead things got worst ~ corruption went rampant;


Politicians built houses worth millions

and fed the crowd in a feast that costs 1/2 million and they went scooting away free;



Kerises were pulled out and kissed at parties' assemblies, threatening racial intergrity; racial segregation was more obvious than ever before; THE FAMILY-controlled businesses are booming while most small to medium businesses finds it harder and harder to survive based on real capabalities; civil service hardly improved; universities' position started to glide downwards in their rankings; we hear about kidnaps and murders of children, terrifying robberies and snatching and we don't even feel safe in this land anymore. Our politicians went on their merry ways, saying the darnest things and promising the same old promises that they had never plan to fulfill. They went on disregarding the people's voices. They heard but never listened.

March 8 proved that they cannot disregard us. We had shouted very quietly and in an orderly fashion. When we put down the two strokes on our balloting paper, we had chosen to give ourselves a chance. We said, "WE Malaysians have a choice now." We only want those who serves us and us alone only. We are not the oppressed people as we thought we were. We have rights and we exercised them. By exercising those rights, we had given ourselves hope. We had set a new heartbeat, a new precedence for Malaysians and our children. Many of us woke up on March 9 and felt that new ray of hope. There was no huge excitement, no jumping up and down in joy, no huge parties or celebrations to be seen. But Greg and I for one, smiled from the bottom of our hearts. We felt very warm and peaceful, very quietly thankful to the Almighty and we smiled at that new ray of hope. Malaysia still has hope.

Many may feel that Sarawakians are still deep in our sleep and how could we let that 'ruling' family continue to oppress us. Are we really that gutless?! Are we really that stupid?! Sarawakians' polling results was nothing to shout about for sure. Initially, many of the oppositions are actually winning the main urban areas in Sarawak until the postal votes came in from the interior.

But i do appeal to all readers to understand that Sarawak and Sabah is not just comprising of Malays, Chinese and Indians. We have the real sons of this land, the indigenous people ~ the Ibans, the Dayaks, the Orang Ulus etc. While most people in the urban areas are not supporting the BN coalition, these people are clueless about their rights. Many of them are uneducated. These are simple, forthright, trusting people. To them life is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. While we have Malay, Chinese and Indian oppositions, they have no one to speak up for their rights. There is no one to tell them that they are treated like the rubbish in their own land. Their 'representatives' had been ripping them off. Those 'representatives' have given these people nothing. For their own selfish gains, they sold off their people. And these people, many of them so poor and their living conditions so sad that some dont even have the basic ammenities. So for a few miserable dollars, they sold off their votes and their rights, and in some cases their lands and their homes.

Please have mercy on these people. Opposition leaders, please don't forget them! Bring on their plights with you! Stand up for them too! We truly believe that God loves them dearly and we would pray that there would be some good people standing up for them soon. We dearly hope that they are some among themselves that would fight for their rights and tell them how oppressed they actually are. Then only then we, maybe in the near future, will see the real people's power in Sarawak.

If the BN coalition dont put their acts together, the revival would not be only in 5 states but across the land. If the opposition dont work to deliver what they promised, we will change them. And that is Real People's Power!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Undisputed Porridge & Yu Tiaw in Hong Kong

When I was younger, I used to enjoy my grandma's porridge every time I went over to her old wooden house during the school holidays. Me & my cousins would usually eat them with soya sauce, & to go with it, she'd cook kembong fish, ladies' fingers, plus a host of other side dishes which I can't remember anymore. That'd give us enough energy to go climb fruit trees & run around in her yard, which was basically a self-sufficient mini-farm/orchard - got chickens, coconut, guava, mangosteen, langsat & rambutan trees. It was like adventure land for us.

In Kuching, good porridge shops are rare. There's Kuching Chicken Porridge at Rubber Road, & the other place at Padungan. However, these places do not seem to fare very well. Their porridge are usually either not hot enough or too watery, with 'soggy rice' sunk down to the bottom. So when the soggy rice is separated from the water, it's not very appealing. You might as well eat rice & drink water at the same time.

A good porridge is when the rice is cooked till it breaks down & it gets so mixed with the water that it becomes brothy. That is what I call REAL porridge. And that's what we had in Hong Kong at an old shop called Wai Kee.

This shop is really concealed from the main streets.


To get there, you'd have to walk through a maze of old lanes lined up with other hawker stalls just as old.

It's a privilege to know this little, almost secret, path.

It's definitely a place only locals know about. For a tourist, finding this place this would be like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, a revelation, true enlightenment.

For us Malaysians, it'd be like finding durians in the middle of nowhere.

I've said it before, porridge is for granpas. You don't need teeth to eat it.


I've never tasted porridge as heavenly as this. Excellently superb. If there's 5 stars, I'd give it 6. Out of 100%, I'd give it 110.

Lean pork with century egg.


For HKD10 (RM 4.45), the minced beef congee with fish "is cooked till the rice achieves a smooth, velvety consistency."


The coalition of independent sauces - chilli, hoisin, soya.


This shop is also famous for its carrot cakes which are made of glutinous rice which are hand ground till fine. But somehow we didn't get around to order it. Besides the porridge, anything else in this shop also tasted good.

Original Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun. Beats the ones in Kuching anytime.

Yu Tiaw/Yu Char Koay (Dough Fritter) wrapped in Chee Cheong Fun.


Behold, I bring you humble offerings of golden richness.


Behold, we're un-humbly stuffing the golden richness into our mouths.


Apparently, the Yu Tiaw here is the undisputed heavy weight champion in the whole of Hong Kong.

It's crispy inside & out, it has the ammonia-free taste without the oil, not dry & yet not damp.


This is one of the few instances where perfection has been achieved in this world.

This little shop can sell up to 1,000 pieces a day.

The Yu Tiaws in captivity. The warm light keeps
the optimum temperature for them to mate & breed.

82 Stanley Street, Central
Tel: 852-2551-5564
Opens 7am-7pm
Directions: Central MTR Station, Exit D1 & D2

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Sahara at Home

A while ago I wrote about a grill restaurant called Sahara. It's one of the few places in Kuching where you can find good grilled grub.

Well, several nights ago, we had another one of our little get-together-gether with the usual friends at home, and so we ordered food from the same restaurant again.

Look at these wedges. I don't know what they feed these potatoes but they look as prosperous as the BN YBs. I'm sorry lah, can't help it since this week is really filled with election fervour.


Do you like our new blue flourescent Ah Lien table mats?

Any more Lien & they'd be blinking with neon lights.


The fish & chips always taste better right off the frier. But these have been waiting on our table for too long & they became soggy & wrinkly.


But the tartar sauce was excellent. I was basically eating the Tartar sauce WITH fish & chips, and not the other way around.


Oxtail Stew. Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. Hey, if you've seen me, you know I can afford it.

And that's not all. There's more my friend. After all, this is Greg & Nee on the Go.

Lamb Shank with the as-good-as-it-looks Mashed Potatoes.


At this point, we were full to the neck. So whatever excess food we're gonna have from this point onwards have to go somewhere else, like into our backs.

Grilled Spare Ribs


Oh, I almost forgot, there was also Thai Pineapple Rice from another place.


The feast was a feat. Basically that nite we had walloped the whole range of livestock known to mankind except for the chicken.

Nuffnang Ad