Little Stories 300 : Home-Made Nasi Lemak Luncheon

Nasi Lemak at Makcik Aja's

Last weekend, our "extra" cooking session was held at Aja's house. The theme is kampung-style, and our main food is nasi lemak. I was there to help Aja (tiny helps because I was also packing at the same time). I just suggested that we have home-made nasi lemak for lunch that weekend, and the little plan turned into an extra fun eating session - like I said before, kalau tak extra, tak sah. When I checked back on last year's posting, we also did something like this in the exactly same month - read here. 

The extra parts are :

• the table deco (ma bawak kain batik from Nilai)
• ma wore baju kurung (to fit the theme, lololol)
• ma tried her best to find local fruits (nanas, manggis, buah mata kucing)
• siap beli daun pisang to alas our foods
• siap pasang lagu2 traditional on the background while we eat

But it was a fun little family gathering, nice food, nice chat, nice time spent together - with us, the original clan. The dessert was pengat pisang and cream puffs (Ra bought them). I even ate lactase to enjoy the cream puffs (this is a reminder to restock my lactase pills).

What I didn't tell them is that I started all these after I watched The Bear, hah hah. I started to appreciate the eating experience, my aim was to rewire the eating experience with something nicer for me so that I could enjoy eating. Because I've been having a hard time eating for several years - that every time I eat, I feel awful and bloated. Maybe due to stress and anxiety. So I don't really eat or enjoy eating, because my brain seems to associate food with feeling sick - then I lost a lot of weight lah. I want to change that.

So, I'm a social eater, I eat when I'm with people. 

I try my best to put in a good effort and enjoy the cooking process with them, then I eat slowly. I still can't eat as much as everyone else without feeling a bit uncomfortable but I think it is working - I am enjoying these little home-cooking sessions, I think I should let Sofi help us too so she can improve her eating habit as well (I think she is as fussy-eater as me, this might be good for both of us).

Anyway, I hope you can enjoy our little home-cooked sessions and my beaaaaautiful colourful food posts because I'm always so excited to compile my own pictures from these experiences. Hah hah. 

Happy eating.

Little Stories 254 : Quick Breakfast at Broom

I don't have anything worth your time to tell about this post, it is just a post about a beautiful cafe, beautiful lines of pastries, a divine frothy dairy-free matcha latte, and a nice vibe. A fancy place for a plain person (like me, I do feel out of place). I was an hour early for the Moss Fest event, so we decided to have breakfast at Broom Artisan Bakery just right next to AweGallery. 

As I said, nothing much to tell about the place - it was surely beautiful, and it gave inspiration for me to do a food spread in my doodle journal. Price-wise, it is just like any other cafe: my croissant was RM 7 and my matcha latte was RM 15. My mom would surely membebel if she sees any of us eat out like this (even though I do this only once or twice a month - but I posted it online when I do, so it seems often enough).

I mean, how could I not? Again, the place is beautiful and the foods are visually appealing. How could I not appreciate beautiful things in life? Look at these, it's the art of food styling, interior designing, and visual branding in one go :

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Remember in Croisserie I sat at table number 11 and this time I sat at table number 1: 

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Look at that frothy matcha latte in a ceramic clay cup - it was heavy and thick ok. I want to bring home the Japanese cup if I can. Plus the croissant is crusty and buttery. I didn't eat those desserts that much because I wanted to avoid dairy (I had a workshop to attend):

But anyway, it wasn't a nice time because I still feel awkward with my brother-in-law and he seemed to not enjoy having to spend more money on 'basic food' and good vibes. But in my defense, perhaps to maintain good things in life, you'll be needing to put extra $$ on certain things? It's really hard to find good things that are free, right? Sure I do mamaks often enough, but nothing at mamaks are nice to be photographed or visually appreciated, they don't really care about the visual part of food or interior of the restaurant or the design of things.

Is it so wrong to spend money every now and then to appreciate beautifully crafted things?

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Anyway, the next day I invited myself for a simple breakfast at my brother's house (because I want to try sourdough bread that he just bought) plus we need to buy groceries from NSK. I didn't eat for more than 15 hours by then so I was light-headed when we arrived and could not help him at all in the kitchen. Yes, I have the habit of leaving my stomach empty for a long stretch of time - especially if I had late lunch the day before :F Not a good habit. 

Anyway, here's what his 'simple breakfast' stands for:

But then, he is a baker and he loves to make food for people, I guess he really enjoyed this (so I secretly transferred money to pay for the food and drink later that day as a token of appreciation).

That's it for my end of July beautiful food post ! 

Food : Healthy Snacks, Fruits and Smoothies

I've been splurging on healthy fruits and snacks since early this year - due to my constant hunger, probably *boredom* of staying alone most of the time at home and being extra health conscious. I don't eat-out as much as I used to (due to being at home at least 6 days a week), I make home-made foods and I'm having fun experimenting. 

Things I learned :

• I eat fruits with yogurts for snack and smoothies for breakfast - almost every single day. So I mix and match a lot. 
• I slowly changed from flavored yogurt to natural and sugarless yogurt (which I hated months ago). It takes time, and a LOT of fruits to wash the yogurt's natural taste.
• I learned that local banana is tastier and sweeter but don't last as long as imported bananas. 
• I learned that if you received several boxes of strawberry (especially if someone that just came back from Cameron Highlands) - keep the strawberries in the icebox/freezer right away, just keep some of them down to eat as snack or with yogurt, or they will rot in 3-5 days. 
• Berries are weird - you don't have to eat them fresh, smoothies always work with berries.
• Oat, granola and seeds are a nice addition into your yogurt - they give a bunch of mixed taste and crunchiness. 
• No longer buying Boost - because it is much cheaper to make one at home and it tastes the same depending on which fruits you have at home. You can make 3-4 juices/smoothies for 2 people and for several days with the same amount you spend at Boost. 
• Local/tropical fruits are always the best, sweeter and juicier : Over-riped guava, jambu air, mangoes, rambutan, jackfruit, watermelon, dragonfruit, mata kucing, papaya, mangosteen etc - but they are not so smoothies/yogurt friendly. You can always eat them as snack tho. 

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Here are some ideas to help you start eat healthy :

Early morning smoothies consists of :

• Watermelon
• Red apple
• Green apple
• Chia seeds
• Flax seeds

or 

• Frozen banana
• Milk
• Frozen berries 
• Chia seeds
• Flax seeds

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Morning breakfast / Tea-time snack consists of :

• Natural / greek yogurt
• Oat
• Granola
• Chia seeds
• Sunflower seeds
• Fruits of the day on top (apple/watermelon/kiwi/berries/grapes)

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Night snack (usually around 10pm) :

• Easy to eat fruit of the day (apple/watermelon/mango/guava/dragonfruit/jambu air)

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To Buy :

Local fruits are much cheaper, need to go to weekly pasar malam, they are usually great for daily snacks (to be enjoyed just like that) but not so suitable for smoothies or to be eaten with yogurt, they also stay fresh for 3-5 days so you can't buy a lot at a time. The trick is to buy the seasonal fruits during the season - not after or before the season. 

Imported fruits are usually more expensive, you can get it anytime at the supermarket, fresh for longer time and you can also put them up in the freezer for smoothies. 

I buy both - local fruits every week, imported fruits probably every 3-4 weeks. I think at this point, I spend around RM 50 per week for fruits. 

Apps/websites I tried to buy fruits or healthy snacks or fruits :

• MBGonline
• Signature Market
• Amazin'Graze
• Happy Fresh (app)

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Some of thoughts about the things I've tried :

1. From Amazin'Graze : I really love their Hazelnut Blackforest Granola that you can put on top of your yogurt or overnight oat. The granola tasted like chocolate so it balances out the fruit taste in my yogurt, and there's no refined sugar in it. I first bought it in JayaOne last Feb and enjoyed it so I bought 2 packets online with Super Seed Butter (my first try) this month during the promo season. During my first order I received free stuff and shipping.

The Super Seed Butter consists of sunflower seeds, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds, with no palm oil, no salt and no refined sugar. Af needs less unhealthy fats to lower down his blood pressure and cholesterol level, and I need to control my sugar intake. Although it is much expensive than my favorite peanut butter and jam, I think I need to start putting on extra thought on what I'm really eating every day - so why not. The verdict : it tasted decent with bread, not as I imagined combined seeds would taste like, a bit less sugary and less oily. I might try their other nut butter options in the future. 

2. The Frozen Mixed Berries that I ordered from HappyFresh (Aeon Equine) : These frozen berries are very nice for our morning smoothies but not so nice for yogurt/overnight oat - the taste is just different. They are frozen fruits, more brittle and not that fresh anymore - so I just add them up in our morning banana smoothies.

First buy from HappyFresh, ordered early in the morning and arrived at 11am on the same morning. The strawberry that I ordered were sold out, so the buyer asked whether I would want a change in different strawberry (a bit more expensive) - I said yes and apparently it was then credited in my account after the purchase was made (I thought there was no extra charge because he didn't mentioned it) :

3. From MBGonline : The blueberries that I ordered were sold out while they were processing, so I got free upgrade to a pack of seedless grapes - I think they played the right card here because I like their services since then. You can also wait for seasonal/promo items here, because sometimes they are much cheaper than the ones in the supermarket. 

4. From SignatureMarket : Most of the seeds and nuts that I bought since last year were from Signature Market. Seeds are mostly cheap, nuts are crazy expensive. I usually need 3 things : chia seeds, sunflower seeds and flaxseed. You can sprinkle chia seeds/sunflower seeds on almost anything : smoothies, yogurt, overnight oat. As for flaxseed, you need to grind it - so I usually only add it up in my smoothies or juice. Nuts and dried fruits are luxury items bought every 6 months. 

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How long will this fruit-craze phase stay ? 

I'm not so sure - I've always think about fruits as luxury foods because they are expensive. But this year I'm giving my body what it wants :F 

Did my skin cleared up ?

I'm in a hormonal phase - so I can't be sure. The small acnes on my face come and go, my skin is still oily like a teenager. But, the small bumps and rashes on my arms are gone (like chicken skin, but less). 

I don't know whether this past 6 months changes anything in my body, roughly I still feel the same even though my diet changed a lot. But I think I'm staying in this course as long as we can ♥️I didn't even drink coffees or tea - no daily/weekly caffeine anymore.

Hope you'll start your journey soon !

Little Story 226 : Fancy Brunch

Honestly I've never been to a fancy brunch session, because :

• I hardly do any social gathering
• I don't go out that much *I stayed at home gathering fats on my thigh

On Miss Chin, travel + travelogue :

My one and only friend, Tasy asked me to join her in meeting our former teacher from our high school; Miss Chin. I don't have many people from school that I'm still in contact with, and Miss Chin is the only teacher that we still meet every few years for 'borak2'. 

She's also my favorite teacher, I don't think she knows it. I love creative writing and English since I was in high-school, so I sometimes send my stuffs to her to let her read and improve - she was my EST teacher. She is also an avid traveller, she travels every year, and once she let me do her Europe travel scrap book during my holiday - where I collected all her photos and do cut + paste with her small notes & trinkets. THAT, was where I get the idea to record all my travelling experiences, because I felt really inspired by her travel stories. By 15, I already decided that I wanted to travel as much as I could and by 17, I decided to share my travel stories in my writings + photos (but I found writings alone will be a bit boring to read, so I doodle + illustrate). 

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On the brunch + beautiful foods :

We set the meeting a week before, so I had already put a mental note on going to meet Miss Chin during the upcoming weekend without no excuse. I can be annoyingly super-anxious and cancel last minute, but I tried not to because I really wanted to meet Tasy & Miss Chin that weekend.

So Af drove me to Tasy's house on Saturday morning, we bid goodbyes ❤ and Tasy drove her car to Pavillion. Miss Chin was already there by 11 am, and I think we arrived 15 minutes late like a proud Malays 😅 . It was my first time in 'Wild Honey', so I didn't know what to order - they suggested to try the 'European' breakfast set (consisted of poach eggs, slices of chicken ham, roasted tomatoes and a lot of juicy mushrooms), Tasy ordered her 'Canadian' set (layers of pancakes and honey + jam) and Miss Chin ordered the 'Berkley' (greek yogurt and a lot of fruit compote and berries). 

They are vibrant and full of nice colours, I really love how they are presented. So I had to take some photos of the blog. Here's our lovely foods photos :

Note : If you don't do fancy places much, just ask people to suggest the meal for you and you can read up the description to see whether you might like it. It's okay to ask, don't feel inferior 😅

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I'm glad I decided to go out and meet them,

it was so refreshing ❤

Little Things 230 : Sweet Things

I'm old !

I no longer enjoy sweet and sugary things. 

Instant coffees and hot drinks in cafes/mamaks make me feel really uncomfortable in the mouth - I rather have unsweetened green tea, mildly sweet coffees or plain water. I used to like desserts and sweets very much.

Daww, I'm old.

Well, my brother is taking orders for home-made carrot cakes - and chosen cakes by request. 

You can contact him if you have something in mind. He made this nice white vanilla cake with purplish flowers for a wedding cake today, even I can't do something that beautiful and eatable at the same time. Kudos! Ps - Too bad I don't eat desserts as much nowadays.

Mini Escapism : Rimba & Rusa

A little splurge on fancy food and place. 

We went to Rimba & Rusa after we wrapped things up at Etsy Made Local, because the sales was good I wanted to treat AF with a nice dinner. He helped me so much these past 2 weekends.

I knew about the place because of Wondermilk & Hello Dear. As a designer, I am a big fan of their designing team : be it from the marketing point of view, or interior design or branding itself. Every single things from them are inspiring and worth Pinned ! You can stalk them IG or even facebook account, worth every likes. They are really good in designing :

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Location :

The place is located just 11 minutes from Battery Acid Club, it was really close by, if not because of the traffic. We used Waze to go there, here is the map :

From their IG :

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The food :

I ordered Ciao Carbonara (RM27) & Af ordered Pulled Beef Mac & Cheese (RM22), we shared a pressed juice of Pink Power (RM14) and mineral water (RM2.50), it totalled around RM 70 after GST. Expensive? Of course it was, I would be lying if I say it was all affordable - because I cook fresh foods everyday, I can say this totalled up to 10 days of home-made cooking for two. But I wanted to spend it on the place, because of my appreciation towards the obvious hard-work they did on the restaurant and because we worked hard these past 2 weeks :D 

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The interior

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Things I took home :

Along all the inspiring photos of the place and the designs, I took the paper coaster before the drips of water fell on it and also the golden sticker of Rimba & Rusa on the bottled water we ordered. All added in my journal.

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Work Related : Japanese Foods & Drinks Sticker Packs

Here are some of my stickers from my previous trip to Tokiyo that I printed out for my Public Garden, Singapore event a few weeks ago. I've been keeping these for almost a year now :F I used these stickers in my personal travelogue for the trip. Sooo nice that I can draw and make my own stickers for my own syok-sendiri travel journal kan :D

These are my favorite items while we were in Tokiyo - like our first day early morning breakfast when we first learned how to use the vending machine at the airport (I remember the blue morning, cold breezy rain and both of us sitting at the deck waiting for morning light) , or our random juices like Coconut water that doesn't taste like coconut at all - more like a sweetened water that we bought at our first park when we were lost in the city while searching for the nearest Daiso we saw in the map, or our daily breakfast drinks throughout the trip, or lots and lots of Onigiris. 

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All ready and packed for next events in November (I signed up for Junk-ed Makers' Market and Etsy Made Local). Also selling these sticker packs  in my Etsy.

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Little Things 217 : Basic Japanese Food

The Miso :

I've been searching for Miso soup paste for awhile now. Since I've been spending a lot of my money on eating sushi and miso soup with rice at restaurants, I figured that I might teach myself to make it myself.

I found a local reseller that sells halal Miso paste from Japan with non-GMO soy for RM 10/500g. So I ordered the pack with extra wakame (dried seaweed) from her as well. The pack arrived a week later. Since that day I managed to make miso soup for myself in almost every dinner - mostly just with additional wakame, and sometimes I added veggies as well. Af can't process the taste so I think I will finished it up all by myself. *it might take awhile.

Like all the fermented soy, Miso soup got hundreds of benefits - it goes almost the same level as our tempe. Yes, it contains a lot of sodium and a higher risk of having it genetically modified, in that case you can use less Miso paste for each meal, don't add any salt to it and find a non-gmo soy in the ingredient list. The taste should be quite subtle, additional foods like tofu and wakame can give a nice taste. 

If you are interested in buying a non-GMO soy, halal miso paste, you can contact this lady and ask her more about it : kesoma.rai@gmail.com .

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As for sushi and onigiris :

One weekend, I tried to make some sushis and onigiris using our normal cooked rice. I put some tuna, added those rice in the diy mini sushi maker that I've been keeping and tried to wrap it using nori. I failed. It crushed =.=

So during our next restock, we bought a different type of japanese rice that is supposed to be more sticky and stay together to create nice little sushi. I waited until Af  isn't at home to try it out - can't accept another failure in food experimentation. But this time it worked ! The japanese rice can stick together and it was really easy to form :D So I made some sushis and onigiris with the cooked rice, tuna, cheese, some kewpie mayo and nori.

T^T I can make my own basic onigiri now T^T
We can definitely save more money making our own onigiris for lunches during our next escapism in Japan. Kaaaaan.

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Tokiyo Trip 8 : The Food

Did we mentioned the groceries we bought before going ? We bought along :

• 3-in-1 Milo packets
• Ready-made fried rice's packets
• Tinned tuna
• Chocolate bar
• Cikedis
• Sambal ikan bilis
• Maggi

The apartment we rented was ready with a small kitchen and a place to cook so my early plan was to do simple cooking for some nights and breakfast. Most morning started with a glass of hot Milo and bread slices with sambal ikan bilis or tuna. We ate out during lunch time because we were never home.

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Daily lunch, tea-time & dinner :

We both understand that we were on a budget travel so we weren't that fussy on the minimal food intakes. Most lunch time were spent on 2-3 onigiri for each person (110 yen+) and a box of drink of choice (120 yen+).  So we spent around 100-300 yen for each person during lunch. The great thing is the places that we chose to have our lunch. Every morning we will head to the nearest park in the place that we will explore on that day, when we arrive the destination then we will find the nicest place we could find and eat our lunch. Tokyo got a long list of beautiful parks and gardens that worth a visit. And I love parks, so that was how we spent our lunch. With the sound of birds and cicadas *this, I'm not lying. I'm even convinced that they put a record player inside trees and bushes to make the garden sounds so nice.

We will also have a short tea-break, usually consisted with 1-2 onigiri and 1 choice of drink like juices and caffe latte. We both fell in love with their caffe latte (138 yen) since the first day. We decided to drink it every single day throughout our trip. One thing I noticed, there were A LOT of Starbucks around in Tokyo - I guess people in Tokyo would rather drink overpriced coffee as well :)

For dinner, we tried buying some ready-made cooked rice at Lawson and the mini market in packets. I cooked it with the ready-made perencah I brought along from home and added with a fried egg. We also found a joy in eating fish tempura (130 yen) from the market. It was decent and enough for the night.

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Unplanned big meals :

There were 4 unplanned big meals that we had. 

The first one was paid by Ishijima san on our first day when we met her in Marunouchi - we ate at an Indian Restaurant. Their specialty was naan. Each set of naan and the additional 'soups' as they call it was around 950 - 1050 yen. It was super huge for me, I can hardly finish it =.= *free meals*

The second one was in a Nepalese Restaurant in Kichijyoji. I was hungry without no reason and we accidentally walked by a huge signage that sold naan *again . We shared a meal set of naan cheese and mango lassi. The price was 1040 yen.

The third one was in Ueno. We spent our morning in the zoo and were super hungry by 3pm. We couldn't find any mini market or 7/11 to buy our onigiri. When we did, we can't find anywhere to sit and eat our late-lunch peacefully. So we walked toward the Ameyoko Street because we were near the place and then we saw a Kebab shop. *with halal signage!* Yes, yes, yes ! By that time, we haven't eat meat for a week. We both ordered a nice spicy chicken kebab and enjoyed it on the chair they put in front of the shop. They even put a box of tissue on each chair because no one managed to eat the kebab without getting all oily and greasy. The kebab was really-really great. Chicken kebab for 500 yen each, so the total was 1000 yen for both our meals :

The fourth one in Akihabara. We weren't that all excited in the electric town because we both weren't into toys and miniatures and expensive devices. I was having a back-pain and I can't walk much so we decided to find a halal restaurant to relax. After asking an Indonesian receptionist, we walked 5-mins to Siddique. I had a thick cheese naan while Af ordered chicken briyani. Both meals totaled 2040 yen.

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I did a calculation *because I took note on every-single-thing we spent on. 

We spent around 12,500 yen for food in 8 days, that's roughly around RM 440, 

and around RM 220 for each person. Not bad, kan? :D

Food : Yogurt with Nutella

For late afternoon lazy snack, you can try this :

Natural Yogurt
Nutella
Crushed Chocolate

Take some Nutella, mix it with odd-tasted natural yogurt and stir it. Add crushed chocolates on top of it and leave it in the freezer for 15 minutes. You'll get a decent taste of Nutella Frozen Yogurt :

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Doodle : Food Illustration *update*

Other than little plants' illustrations, 

I'm having fun doing colourful foods illustration :D

It started with illustrating perfect sandwich for lunch : 2 slices of bread, cheese, fried egg, Kewpie mayo, and slices of left-over chicken. And then somehow those colourful fruit pies, pudding, napkin, and coffee came into the illustration as well. 

Eye-straining weekend, I'm going home now ❤

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PS : I noticed that the blogspot changed the original colour after auto-compression, making it a bit dull & greyish, so posted another version in my Behance!

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Little Things 150 : Salad

Take few leaves from lettuce, wash it clean, let it dry a bit, and cut it in small sizes. 

Boil some broccoli, avoid salt altogether. 

Open a can of tuna, my personal favorite is tuna in water - almost tasteless without salt and oil, giving strong tuna's taste and smell.

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Put several chunks of tuna in a bowl, don't forget to keep the remaining in a clean tupperware. 

Add in boiled broccoli and lettuces in the bowl, add some Kewpie mayonnaise and several fried anchovies too. Mix it up with forks until they blend in nicely, add some more mayonnaise if you are not used to veggies. Finally add some cherry tomatoes in the bowl to add cheerful colours instead of all depressing green stuffs in a bowl. 

Additional of boiled egg with a pinch of pepper or grilled chicken breast can make your meal lively too. 

Happy salading ❤

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PS : Welcoming the 30's.
On second note : Do we 'boil' broccoli? Do we actually call it 'boil' ?

Food : Cakes De Lemari

Hello !

I used to dislike cupcakes before this year. I hated the colourful icings and spongy cake. But that changed since I tasted 1) Tasya's little cupcakes made for my & aja's birthday , and also 2) cupcakes from Cakes De Lemari, a brand new little cupcake shop in Equine Park. 

Without icing, cupcakes taste a lot better !

Sugar, colours and everything sweet? 

I suggest you to try cupcakes from the shop.

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By the way, my handsome-single younger brother is currently working part-time there, soooo if you want to meet him and exchange nice small talks, now it's your time ! 

PS : He is currently doing his degree in Cyber. Hewhewhew. 

This is cakes in the jar :

Tiramisu, Caramel, Rainbow& Chocolate.

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Here is a rough map I did on GoogleMap,

it is near Maulana & Snogurt, Equine Park.

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Foods : Chilis & Ma

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Although I don't enjoy foods as much as most people do, I do enjoy looking at how they are presented and how interestingly beautiful they can be. Those various natural colour combinations according to how creative and intricate the chef wants it to be. 

We went to Chilis in Mid Valley. 

We don't really go to expensive places to eat much except on special occasion : Mom's birthday! 

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Pictures were taken by using :

Lumix LX 3

I  hate watermarks, 

so please be informed that all this pictures are mine, 

thank you.