C'est LA viE

I am well known for being a foodie, and one of the reason that I am so passionate and interested in food is because of my family.

All of us are particular for food, especially my dad. Both us dad and daughter share the same taste bud, we always crave for the best food in town.

Dad is willing to try different food, is just he still typical a chinese cuisine eater, always boast about the worthy and value of price in eating chinese food.

He could accept Korean and Japanese, or even Vietnamese, but he would still insist Chinese cuisine especially with ordering various types of dishes along with white rice is the best. 

Recently, we had come across some rarely attempts of food experience in our neighbourhood. 

Just like today, we visited this Thai restaurant where i never knew that it had been opened since 2015, until i discovered via facebook. 

I was amazed with their clay pot tom yum, though dad complained that there are too much of lemon grass and spices bits in the soup, but i think that's the essence of tom yum which we cant really neglect, and in fact their portion is very generous, i got to drink up to 3 bowls!, not just me, all 4 of us got almost similar 3 - 4 bowls of soup. 

We ordered 5 dishes: clay pot tom yum, stir fry fish with egg plants, omelette, pandan chicken and papaya salad. 

Overall, their dishes are not that spicy, but very flavorful, except for the omelette is slightly small and the pandan chicken is almost tasteless. 

We were so full after our meal, but the waiter was very enthusiastic to recommend their home made dessert, and really fall for it after his constant approaches. 

I should have poured all the coconut milk to the mango sticky rice, i forgotten the coconut milk is salty, how i claimed myself a foodie? ==

Actually the mango sticky rice is very nice, but it would be even better if i poured all the coconut milk in, because it was too sweet.

Thankful that dad and mum allowing the dessert because i knew them well that they would skip dessert, because neither of them are dessert fan. 

Main reason was dad has diabetes and need to cut down on sugar, while mum is always concious about health and would ban sugary sweets. 

So today considered very special that we can have dessert after dinner, and also happy that this thai restaurant actually can use U-pocket app for discount =D 

Here also would like to throwback some of the food experience i had recently with my family.

Dating with my man, my dad, haha. It was just 2 of us for dinner that night, and dad was asking me to bring him to places where i had those good food with my friends.

But that is so hard to find good cafe food or special food in our neighbourhood, so ended up we come to Todam. It had been a while since our last visit, and their food still good. 

What surprised us was we underestimated the size of the seafood pancake, and was so hard to swallow everything in the end. 

Definitely over eating and stufiing that night.

Curry fish at the restaurant we used to go, no one can resist curry~

Last but not the least, we also gone to the Korean BBQ place we went once last month. I think actually their food was just alright, and decided to bring mum and dad for Mr. Dakgalbi next time. =)

Indeed a family day today, and somehow it should be also a exciting yet terrifying day for me.

Why? Because I had registered myself for a swimming class! Yes, in the end, I made it.....yet to...because the pool was too crowded and I really not feeling comfortable to take this course in such a crowdy pool with kids and parents shouting around, throwing balls, having fun....that's really freak me out!

I nearly quit and asked for refund, but I was convinced and decided instead of quit then finding a new swimming class, i will switch to the Tuesday swimming class. 

The only thing maybe I need to sacrifice is my Tuesday badminton session, which is actually made me hesitate. 

Well, but my swimming class is only 4-sessions per month, and is actually not a contract-tied class so I actually can just go for one month and see how it goes.

Of course I can drive to the badminton court after my swimming class, but it would be very late and perhaps I only can play for half an hour with my wet hair on.

So, i will forget badminton class for this first month then, and see how the swimming class goes, unless the badminton session can change to other days. 

But I dont think they will, so I will see how it goes. The good thing is swimming in Tuesday also can save my petrol and toll fees, because I dont need to do extra driving on Sunday, plus the aquatic centre was closed to my company (in the same town). 

I sincerely hope there will be quiet on Tuesday, otherwise, that would be another factor for me to switch to another swimming class. 

Later in the noon after lunch, I went to Empire Subang with my family for the travel fair. 

Apparently I got "extra" annual leaves from my probation period last year. Since I was confirmed, I also eligible for these 3 and half days.

For sure i will redeem my leaves, and I was requested to use all of them by June. So, I asked my retired mum if she plan to go for a trip and we've been looking for chiang Mai, Thailand.

However, I was tired to find for accommodation, flight ticket, itineraries etc for such a short time, so going via travel agency group tour will be the most efficient and time-saving solution.

I proved it right because we had booked for the trip today, it would be 5D4N during raya period, but need to be final confirmed in the next few days. 

So means before my korea trip, i am likely to travel Chiang Mai first lol. I think i need to really cut down my temptation for cafe hopping and avoiding unnecessary expenses. 

Then, we also gone to Jaya Grocer for grocerries, coincidentally, there is a NZ fair too!

How I missed NZ? VERY MUCH!!! When i see all the products, my eyes were blinking, there were all so familiar, yet some new variety and flavor also released!

We spent more than RM100 here, but it was worth because I know NZ products are great!

Even the whittakers also have new range! 

Dad also bought the Kapiti ice cream, I picked the vanilla bean one, because i remember i tried it once and it was good! 

Still good! Not that sweet and ordinary like other vanilla ice cream, this is more a real vanilla bean ice cream! You can spots the vanilla bean bits in the scoop. 

RM5 is not expensive actually, it is cheaper than Inside Scoop! And you dont need to pay extra to choose the waffle cup~

Another good thing i discovered is this porto bello mushroom! I thought this species only grown in NZ/Aussie, but surprisingly Malaysia also grow these!

So I decided to do a quick research on this mushroom and shocked to find out both portobello mushroom and button mushroom is actually the same!

According to wikipedia: 

Agaricus bisporus is an edible basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Europe and North America. It has two color states while immature—white and brown—both of which have various names. When mature, it is known as portobello mushroom, often shortened to just portobello.

When immature and white, this mushroom may be known as common mushroom, button mushroom, white mushroom, cultivated mushroom, table mushroom, and champignon mushroom

Wow! this is impressive and amazing! I thought they were both different species! 

However, there was also some saids that though they were belong to the same species but actually they were under the same species but different strains. This species originally have brown cape and would sooner mature into the portobello mushroom. Then, a farmer discovered a cluster of naturally mutant white cape mushroom in his mushroom bed, and the current white button mushrooms were descended from that cluster~

So meaning white button mushroom do not grow into portobello mushroom, but is the same species while different strain of mushroom (with brown cape) grow into that. 

Happy to find out this, and wikipedia is not always right =) 

After shopping, I suggested to have vietnamese meal because dad and mum seldom have chances to dine at Subang area, plus their last experience at a vietnamese restaurant near home was bad.

So since i had experience dining at Pho Vietz at Empire Subang, why not let them to try out.

Mum chose the spring roll & lemongrass chicken vermicelli, which is always the menu i picked everytime have vietnamese meal. 

But we were too full, because it was just close to 5pm when we dining, mainly because we dont want loose the chance to have meal here =) 

Therefore we only ordered 3 mains, beside the vermicelli is banh mi and traditional beef stew with rice.

I initially planned to order pho with beef, but dad was interested to have this traditional beef stew =) 

Actually the taste was not bad, just i find the beef brisket was too chewy and hard. 

For the Banh Mi, it was good as last time, yummy!! 

Glad that all my family like it a lot! Highly recommended, better than subway a lot no matter in price or taste!

So that's all for today, love how we bond together and laugh around casually, chit chat about good food and all those random little things in life. 

That's what i cherish and grateful for. What a good day =)

There were 3 of my colleagues having birthday in the April month, and Nancy suggested to have a dinner together tonight.

Food was meh, and price was not cheap too, i guess there is no necessary to mention where we dining then.

Well, i had prepared for the worst taste, and understand this is just a dinner using excuses of someone's birthday. 

We only gathered for 1 and a half hour, there were no birthday cakes, most of the people was either talking among their own circle or starring on the phone (me), perhaps the purpose was for the photo session only.

This place is located at Sekysen 9, shah alam, also my first time visit at this area, surprisingly, this area is where the famous Shah Alam big mosque located.

This was also my first time looking at this mosque so closely, really huge and magnificient.

Perhaps, this was the extra bonus to comfort my appetite.

Note: To be honest, i think i will turn down similar event in the future, to save my money and appetite. 

Had been quite sometime since my last cafe hopping, was thinking to cut down my cafe-hopping frequency, to save money at the same time to cut down my calories. 

Well, i also realized the moment i started to reduce the sugar, i actually had lost the temptation falling for sugary desserts.

However, everytime i saw some good dessert photo, it would still activated my urge for the sugar. 

I met up with Faeezah today, simply because I wanna visit this place - Naj and Belle.

Yea, I also would like to catch up with her, but tbh, my priority is still the food, lol.

Naj and Belle is a cafe established by the founder of Serai Group, we all knew how good was their selection of cakes, and yes, i come for the famous watermelon cake =) 

And as it was a halal cafe, of course i would love to have Faeezah with me, eating good meal at the same time shared our recent life.

Glad she is doing alright, not sure if she ok with what she having now, but i do hope she is happy with what she has. 

I have the belle breakfast, come with a panfried salmon steak, roasted cherry tomatoes, chickpea cake, poached egg, pickled onion and pita bread.

To be honest, i am quite shocked with the breakfast when it presented to me, it's just like mix and match, something like the chef did not know what to cook and simply grab a few items to make up a plate.

Overall, the combination was very dry, the salmon was overgrilled, and the pita bread/chickpea cake were too dry. 

Only thing amazed me maybe was the sweet roasted cherry tomatoes ==。 

I am not sure how Faeezah thought about her pasta, but i guess both us had a good night for chatting.

For dessert, I did not miss out the melon cake, but it was not that great that i thought.

Simply just replacing the spongy cake with a thin cut of watermelon, perhaps precisely ensuring there was no seeds remain. 

If you are looking for something less sweet, the cake is an option, but it did not fall into the healthy category because the amount of cream layer was not little.

Faeezah picked another cake too, a sweet and rich berry cheesecake, nothing fascinating about it. 

Apparently only the melon cake was the highlight among their cake selection, this also explained why the place was still so quiet after opening for more than a year.

Actually there are plenty of eateries in SS15 courtyard, but the parking fee was too pricy, I guess i would park outside the building for my next visit if there is next time.