Another 8 hrs...

... and I will be seeing my most beloved woman in my life.

Woohoo!!! Mama is coming to Raleigh when santa is coming to town. Isn't it so cool?

That explained the lack of my updating lately. A lof of work to accomplish before she comes. In fact, I've been working until 11pm for the past 2 days. Today, I need to sleep early, or else mom is going to see her "little girl" with eyebags like panda.

Talk to you all again. Muak!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is that time again, Thanksgiving meal with the boss and coworkers. We had the meal 1 week earlier as everybody will be pretty busy by this week.




*LOL* Paige took her little princess plushie as part of the decoration. Squeezed it and you would hear real turkey's talk.




By the time we gathered in the eating location, everything have nicely arrranged.




My boss and wife. My boss ia a tough guy. Very smart, capable and yet good in keeping his body shape and health. He runs two hours everyday and runs marathon every year. This year, the wife went to New Zealnd to visit the daughter and they both joined a half-marathon too. It is turning into a Marathon family. ;)

"So, when are you going to run a full-marathon?"
"Never." She replied.
Hahaha... well, at least she did the half-marathon. For fish fish? Hmmm... I would rather be tortured in a dancing room that run. Yes, I am that scared of running. But not walking, I LOVE~~~ to walk.




While waiting for the food to be ready, with hungry stomachs, some fun phototaking helped to ease the hunger. I like the expression of Yifat and Tristan in this picture.




Yippie!!! Finally time to dig those foods!




Soon, everybody got their food in a big plate and it was time to "Cheers!".

Let see what did we eat that day.




Turkey! Of course!

Paige is always the one that roast the turkey. She did a great job on this one, as usual.




For the gravy, she used turkey neck. Mmmm... turkey with gravy, simply irresistible!




The best part about this turkey, was the crispy and thin skin. Not as crispy as the Peking Duck skin, but more flavourful and very thin. It was so different from those overcooked turkey leg in the State Fair.

As Paige did an overnight brining on the turkey, it helped to retain the moisture inside the turkey meat. It was soft, juicy and flavourful. I am not a fan of turkey, but I love this one.




We have two kinds of stuffing to go with the turkey.

This is the more common nowadays stuffing. Good flavour but not as impressive as the next one.




I encountered this kind of stuffing for the 1st time. Thanks to Jo who prepared these two stuffings for us to experience.

Personally, I love this traditional stuffing more. Jo said it is more known as "dressing" in her family. She prepared this from scratch.

It is not the chunky type of stuffing. More densed, with the sweetness of cornmeal and crunchy texture of celery chunks, it gave more pleasant moments both taste and texture. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go for a second round on this one. :P




For the cranberries-themed sauce, Mallory did a great job in preparing this cranberries chutney, No cooking is required for this dish. The acidity of cranberry and orange with sugar gave a very good balance to it. I like the accent of walnut in this dish.




For side dishes, Jeab baked this wonderful sweet potato casserole. Mmmmm~~~~ the precooked and mashed potato was full of those sinful butter oozing out from it once you put it in the mouth. As Jeab baked it just before the lunch, it was even extra good.




Tristan prepared another type of casserole - greenbean casserole. It was one of the nicest greenbean casserole for me. I like the generous potion of the mushroom cream with the not overcooked greenbean. Hehe... I know greenbean is supposed to be overcooked, but as I grew up in Malaysia eating crispy sitr-fried greenbean, the texture of this greenbean casserole somehow nostalgic for me.




Neal, the only 6'6" guy (excluding my boss) although looking tough and well-built, his cooking always let us see the softer side of his. This cheesy caramelized potato dish gave a different feel to a Thanksgiving meal that the conventional mashed potato.




Jen made a Jewish bread to go with all those savory dishes.




Eh hem... the lazy fish fish's "cooking". Ok... not exactly a cooking, but I made the salad dressing, cut all the vege and grilled the mushroom. Well, my dish is an important one because people need fiber! for such a heavy meal. Don't you think so? :P

Oh my... it was one of the fullest lunch in this whole year. We were all so well-fed. But still, we need to have some dessert. In fact, we had quite a few good choice for satisfying our sweet teeth.




Too beautiful cream tart with fresh strawberry by Yvette.




Thai-style laughing doughnuts by Tookta.




Unsuccessful rice cake by Xin. She mistakenly baked it instead of steamed it. So, the rice cake was too dry. As a result, she has to bake another brownie that morning as emergency replacement.

The rice cake are very pretty, but yes, the texture was too hard. LOL Xin made it worst by "microwaved" them right before serving.

Try again Xin, we would love to be your guinea pigs. You know we can chomp down any kind of food. ;)




Esra baked her pumpkin pie a bit too late. By the time this pretty pie was baked, we were already 150% full. Although this pumpkin remained a full moon shape during the noon, it was 3/4 gone by the end of the day. LOL

Oh my... thank you everybody, for the great meal and awesome moment. I am really grateful I get such wonderful people to work with.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Be thankful with all the happiness we possess.

I am super duper dummie!!!

*cry* *CRY* *CRY OUT LOUD LOUD*

I am so sooo sooooooo ANGRY with myself now.

I accidentally deleted a group of very precious photos that I took 2 weeks ago in Lexington.

The trip have 3 excellent people that travelled with me.




It was supposed to be a great story for my blog, now they were all gone.

Those priceless photos were all gone, except a few. I am such a Super Careless fish.


I need to calm myself for a couple days.

GOMENNE~~~ Naomi, Ayumu, Eddie... Hontoni gomenne~~~ Fish Fish wa Dai Baka. Cho Aho.

At least, I still have one more person to save the situation. You all know who is that one from the photos. I'll wait until his photos come to rescue me.

I am really one very very very dumb fish.

*CRYYYYYYYYY*

First real Halloween experience

I had a very good experience on Halloween night. Went to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill to see how happenning that street could be on this special night annually.

So, today, after such a long hiatus not blogging seriously, I am compensate it tonight with more than 2 dozens of photos. ;)

Enjoy!




The houses around that area were nicely decorated with all kinds of Jack-O-Lantern.




For fish fish, I bought an invisible mask and put on my old pyjamas. Hehe... I could see people but people could not see me. In fact, managed to scare a few people and one cute toddler. ^_^




It was definitely one of the most happening street in North Carolina for Halloween. News reporters were hunting for unique costume dressers to interview with.

I was expecting people would dress spooky and voodoo... it was only partly correct.

Majority of the crowd was dressed in something pretty unexpected. The photos I am going to show are just a very few examples.




Woolala~~~ this hairy guy sure knew how to use his wife's lingerie to save his halloween's costume expenses. LOL It was a fun sight to see his whole family join in the fun.

When he saw me took the picture, he twist his butt and greet me with a high pitch tone. *cool*




Just when I was still adoring his curvy butt, suddenly a headless guy ran past me. Wooo~~~ I wonder where he was heading.

The tall guy in front him was dressing up as a pimp daddy and yelled to another pimp daddy that he past by, "Hey dude, this is my territory! Get out of here!".

Do you like tetris?




Then this might be your favorite for the night. In fact, it was a big success as there were a few reporters stopped them for interviewing. Not only that, it was a big hit among the crowd too. People just kept stopping them to take photos together.

Good one!

At this point, the Franklin Street was still not closed.




People were waiting impatiently for the road to close soon.

Around 9.30pm, the road was finally closed.




Immediately, people started to walk on the street.




Within a couple minutes, it has turned into something very different.

Show time!!




There were quite a few sweet young things dressed up as sexy Japanese high school girls. Hmmm... although it was a bit too cold for me to do, I might consider to dress up as one next year and speak in Japanese. It would be fun! Ha!




Don't worry if you don't have a real dog. You can always bring a plushie dog for a walk in such a crowd. LOL

Do you still remember Bill Clinton?

Hehe... what is the strongest thing you remember about him?




Obviously, this guy remember him as the chicky guy.

In fact, some one shouted out as him, "Hey Bill, where is Monica? Is that her kisses?" *tsk tsk tsk*




There were a few people dressed up as cute magicians. Personally, I think this one was the best. I like his smile.




Oh~~~ this couple was soooo cute. I bet coldness is not a problem for them that night with this fluffy and warm costume. I want one too!




Ah~~~ the lady lost her head somehow. But she managed to find it, but she failed to connect it back. LOL She was another focus of the night by the reporters.




For those fully charged university students, they would just enjoy dancing with there friends on the street.




In fact, a lot of people actually dressed as common commercial products that are very well-known in U.S. Such as this Mr. Peanut Butter and Miss Klondike Ice Cream. Some even dressed up as credit card, McDonald smoothie etc...




Some guys just love female undies. They took every opportunity to feel the softness of the undies. Tee hee hee...

Oh, don't want to dress the same as other people?

Get a tin of ICI...




... and you can paint yourself whatever you like.




If you think you are not good or don't have the money to dress up for the halloween, this is another good option. Get a bunch of friends to dress in your pyjamas, and acted silly on the street in a group... You will get an equal attention and these people. LOL




My favorite girl for the night has to be this bloody lady.

See the guy at her back? He was using his bedsheet as the costume. ;) Another good way to save your money yet get a good dress up for Halloween.




Oolala~~~ who would be so cruel to cut a neck of such a lovely lady?




The people only becoming more crowdy. My friends and I decided to leave at around 10.30pm...

But for many others, the night was still young. The fun was just starting.

On the way to get out of the street, suddenly we heard screaming from some guys...




What was happening??




Obviously, he was giving birth soon... The doctor was panic. He was panic.

"Wahhhhhhh~~~~" The baby head already came out.

This, I have to say was the best costume for the night. I love it! So creative.

I love Halloween. I was so much fun just to see how much effort people put for the night. It was amazing how much idea people could come up for getting the attention.

I promise, next year I will put some good effort too. ;)

Good night!

Penang restaurant in Chapel Hill

Hello folks, how are you all been doing?

Yes, Primrose, you are right sweetie, life have been so busy that I didn't get the chance to even read blogs much. I will do your tag in a few days time when I have time to think of all the answers. LOL

However, the good news is... there will be a lot of posts coming up, pretty regularly for these few weeks. I have done quite a few interesting activities lately, with fabulous people, that I must blog. ;)

Today, I want to bring you all to a "Malaysian" restaurant in North Carolina.

Oolala~~~ yes... we have a Malaysian restaurant here! 30 minutes driving from my place.




At least, the name was pretty Malaysian - PENANG.

But then, when you see those small words described it as "malaysian" "thai" and "sushi bar"... you know it might be something fishy.

No harm to try for the 1st time... so my 2 friends and me decided to give it a chance.




For appetizer, we ordered satays.

Hmmm... I couldn't really say I like it. The chicken was soft, but flavorless. The beef was too lean, definitely not a good beef part for satay. Even the way the meat on the sticks was not right. The peanut sauce lack the right thick texture and not a good nutty flavour, and not giving me a good impact to remember it. Needless to say the cucumber and red onion - they were dried both look and taste due to long time exposure to air.

The 1st dish was a disappointment.




Next, the Wa Dan Hor.

In term of portion - it was good. First impression on its outlook was pretty good. Unfortunately, the whole thing was too salty yet the Kueh Tiaw itself didn't being caramelized to the charred texture a good fried Kueh Tiaw was supposed to have. Not even using scallop able to upgrade the taste.

Although it was not impressive, this was actually one of the best dish for the whole dinner. Yes, it was that pathetic.




Nasi lemak was lack of the intense coconut fragrance. There was enough nasi, but not enough lemak. The sambal was only so-so. Too mild, too watery and too oily. A good nasi lemak's fragrance should be able to be detected even when you are a few tables away, but I put my nose 5 cm away from the rice, I hardly sensed any of it. Neither do the sambal managed to make me feel like sneezing. The chicken curry was ok, but a good nasi lemak don't really need this extra thing to cover the taste.




Although I never tried a Penang's Hokkien Mee before, I do remember very well how a good plate of KL's Hokkien Mee should be.

This one - definitely not even qualified to be called hokkien mee. Once again, I didn't see any good charred part from a well mixture of the noodle with the thick sauce. It was too watery. The gist of hokkien mee - the fatty fried pork chunk with the pork oil were absent. Well, this restaurant is not a halal restaurant, therefore to use pork is not a problem at all. This dish was so hard to swallow we only finished 1/3 of it.




Finally, this was a funny plate of Nasi Goreng. It was named Coconut Fried Rice. It was described as Chef's special fried coconut rice with shrimp and string beans & carrots topped with cucumbers and boiled egg.

Silly! First, you don't use boiled egg for nasi goreng. Boiled egg will not bring out the real flavor of a good plate of nasi goreng. Worse... this plate didn't even come with boiled egg! My mom's Fried Rice with Egg only tasted much much better than this.

Second, it was supposed to be COCONUT fried rice. We all agreed it was just a very normal plate of FRIED RICE minus the coconut. If they wrote it as simple as "Fried Rice", we would say it was pretty ok. But since it said Coconut Fried Rice and we were really looking for that rich and milky coconut flavour... I must said it was a failed plate for me.

:P Ok, I know this is such a bad review from me for a Malaysian restaurant in U.S. Hey, I grew up with Malaysia foods, only the best can impress me. Like this one.

Definitely not going to attract me to go back for a 2nd visit. Too bad.