Cameron Highlands

My friend, Evelyn brought a Vietnamese friend  to visit me, we decided to take her for a day trip to Cameron Highlands.  At the same time, we invited Agnes to come along.  We set off at about 9.30am from Ipoh, of course I was the driver, slow driver. We had our first stop at 88 Holiday Fun Garden, actually to visit our friend, Mr. Khor Thiam Peng who work there. Unfortunately he went for holiday. While wondering around the shop, I saw some of the beautiful cactus.

We stayed there for about half an hour wondering around , to see what we can get from there. Finally , Evelyn and Agnes bought some fresh corns.

We took about ten minutes to reach Kg Raja, we dropped into Ngew Kee Restaurant for our lunch.(friend recommended)

Before we can order any dishes, the waiter recommended us to try their Rozak, since all of us agree, we ordered a small plate of it.

Surprisingly the sauce was good, but too little ground groundnuts, anyway we requested for more nuts later. We were also recommended to try their steam chicken. The chicken was served with bean sprouts and vegetable.  The meats were tough and sweet, real kampong chicken.

We ordered the vegetable called dragon whisker, fried with samble belachan, the veges was very fresh and tender, we all like it very much.

The last dish the man recommended to us was ikan Kelah, we were so surprise to have the chance to taste this fish again, I remembered the last time we ate this fish was three years ago in one of the restaurant in Slim River. Actually this is a ban fish and  is near extinct.  We were lucky then.  We had half of the fish and the chef had it steamed in ginger and garlic, the flesh really sweet and tender, the scales can be eaten too!!

We really enjoyed our lunch.

We took our slow drive down to Bringchang and Tanah Rata without any stop until we reach the Bharat tea shop.  Wow!  The greenery of the tea plantations and the cool wind, so nice compare with the hot wave in low land.

We had teh tarik and tea and spent about an hour there. We drove all the way back from the way we came and dropped by to buy some flowers.

Some of the wild flowers outside the shop.

A bush of Rose Mary

Agnes and the beautiful Orchid

Ann from Vietnam with Lavender with vegetable farm at the background

Full load of flowers.

This full booth of flowers belong to Agnes, she really a very good shopper!!

We reached home at about 5p.m.  It was a very relax and enjoyable trip and it was the first time for Ann to go up Cameron Highlands,  she really love the highlands and all the beautiful flowers and not forgetting the cool breeze too.

Bayu Timor

My friend, Evelyn was requested to send some fresh fishes and Chinese New Year gifts to a distance relatives in Taman Megah,Petaling Jaya from Teluk Intan. Judy and me accompanied her to look for the suppose so called restaurant. We made a few mistakes , finally we managed to get  to the right place with the restaurant owner , Dee Tan's direction on the cell phones.

We really opened our eyes big, Bayu Timor was actually a Nyonya Restaurant cum antique shop. We had a warm welcome and the lady boss, Dee Tan wanted to us sit down while she tell us how she fell in  love and had the passion of the antiques.

Some of the antiques on ground floor.

Dee Tan with some of the antiques on the first floor.

After touring the ground and first floor admiring the antiques, we were seated at a round table laid with beautiful batik table cloth.

We  were served the popular dishes of Bayu Timor, Siam Laksa, rozak, ice kacang and nyonya kuih.

Lemak Siam Laksa. Real lemak, the sourness and taste just nice, yum.....

Rozak or Chinese salad, see the amount of ground groundnuts, the sauce and the prawn crackers. The crackers were real prawn crackers not like those sold in other places.  Good!!

Nyonya kuih, nine layers kuih, kuih talam and tapioca kuih. I like tapioca kuih the most. The texture was so smooth without any mixture of flour in it, pure tapioca, finger liking good.

Ice-kacang, full of ingredients; chengdul, maize, red beans and the sauce, real good.

Three of us really had a very interesting afternoon, learnt the story of Dee Tan and stomachs packed full with her nyonya food.

Bayu Timor Galery Sdn Bhd is located in 13, Jalan SS24/8, Taman Megah

                                                               47300, PJ 03-78406436

                                                               0123116853.

                                                               email:mymuffin@streamyx.com

The restaurant open for business daily from 10 am to 6pm only.

Fried Porridge

Last weekend, 23rd Jan,2010 went to Butterworth for a cousin's wedding dinner.  Few of us were not satisfied with the food that were served.  My cousin decided to take us; my mother, brother and sister-in-law for something special, fried porridge! Heh....what was that,? All of us were curious to hear that word (fried porridge) can we fry porridge?

She took us to Alma hawker centre in Bukit Mertajam, Jalan Rozana.  There was a big crowd when we arrive at the centre. There were many varieties for hawker food but we just wanted to try the fried porridge.
My cousin walked me to the stall to order, the boss was so kind, he allowed me  to  snap some photographs while he prepare the porridge.

He scooped up  the suitable amount of cooked porridge into a bowl.

He heat up the work, put in some cooking oil, fried some chopped onion and ginger.  Next, he poured in the prepared porridge, have a quick stir. While frying, he added some pre-fried minced pork and prawns.

Quickly he added some black soy sauce and some Chinese  chives.

Wow!  Delicious fried porridge was ready in just a few minutes. He sprinkled some pre-fried minced squid that made the porridge more fragrant.  It was really good, that was our first time ever tasted Fried Porridge.  Unforgettable!

Christmas Eve dinner

Its been a long time, we were very busy to entertain relatives and friends during Christmas season. The first visitor was sister-in-law from Johore Bahru, followed by friends from Medan, KL and my daughter and her husband flew back from Melbourne from 4th to 30th Dec. We have been eating too much from restaurant, we decided to have a change for Christmas reunion dinner.  We had home cook steamboat at home.
It was very easy then, just have to prepare the soup and all the raw materials for cooking when eating.

Ingredients for the soup.

2 lt water
10 pce of red dates
1 big onion
1 Chinese yam
2 carrots
5 tomatoes
200 g chicken bones
300 g prot cones
4 dried mushroom
Boil the water, then add in all the ingredients use slow fire boil for one hour, add salt to taste.
We bought fish and meat balls, few types of vegetables, prawns, deep sea crabs, fishes, noodles, eggs, chicken and pork slices and others.




















See the table is full of food.

We really enjoyed our steamboat rather then every year the turkey dinner.
My children were so sweet , they bought me a new hand phone as my Christmas gift.

A trip to Sauk, fresh water fish

My sister-in-law, Aderene came from Johore Bharu to visit us in Ipoh. Alfred suggested we take a drive to Sauk, a Chinese new village located in-between Kuala Kangsar and Lenggong, which was popular for fresh water fishes.  We followed the North-South highway from Ipoh and existed at Kuala Kangsar toll.  It took us only forty minutes to reach our destination.

We were looking for Ikan Kelah (banned fish because near extinct) at a few restaurants but there wasn't any of them. Finally we settled at Lau Kai Restaurant.

The lady boss of this restaurant recommended us ikan Sebarau (hampala) and ikan Hantu(marble doly).  Before they cook them ,Alfred want to make sure  that they were fresh but not frozen in the freeze,(to eat fresh water fish, always insist for fresh but not frozen fish, otherwise the flesh of the fish will be very soggy and tasteless).

Life and cooked ikan Sebarau or Hampala. This cooked fish weighed about 900grams. It will be better if it is around two kilograms. The flesh will toughfer and bones will be bigger too.(Y-shaped bones easily get stuck at our throat.)

Live and cooked ikan Hantu or Marble Goby. This fish was almost one kilogram in weight. Just nice for table .

We can see the flesh of the fishes, pure white and well shaped. Really good cook, the sauce and the fish matched well.  Ikan Sebarau have more bones, those of y-shaped bones, not advisable for young children and old peoples, but the flesh is sweeter then that of ikan Hantu though it has only the main vertebra bone.

We manage to finish both the fishes though only four of us because the fishes really taste good and delicious.

We paid only RM 150.00 for the lunch, including Chinese tea, rice and a fried bitter guord. Worth it!!

Lau Kai Air-Cond Restaurant is located at

NO. S 44, 45, Jalan Besar, 33500

Sauk, Kuala Kangsar, Perak.

Tel: 05-7511615

Operate from 12.00pm to 9.00pm

Close on altenate Thursday.

From Sauk, we took a drive to The Raja Muda Nazrin Bridge Rest area, just ten minutes  away. Surprisingly, from the view-point area, we can see the beautiful bridge and amazing scenic views at the surrounding area.

Raja Muda Nazrin Bridge. Across Perak river.

On the left side of the bridge,a  lake holiday resort at the far end and some fresh water fish farming at the front.

The quiet , fresh and beautiful scenery on the right side of the bridge.

The calm .clear water of the lake.

We left the scenic views behind and proceed to locate for Leggong Archaeological Museum. It took us ten minutes to reach the museum. It was situated two kilometer away from the main road among some oil palm plantations.

This is the first Prehistoric Museum in Malaysia and built in this area called Kota Tampan, officiated by DYMM Paduka Seri Sultan Perak Sultan Azlan Shah on the 21st, July 2003. There were Audio visual orientation, library, observation tower and geology park in the museum.

The sites of the excavation.

The excavation.

According to the record, Lenggong Valley was the ancient migration route from Africa to Australia.

Perak man is the only known prehistoric skeleton in the world born with a deformity.

After the tour inside the museum, we went to the Geology Park just behind the museum building.

Some of the rocks that found only in this part of Malaysia.

The lenggong Archaelogical Museum is located at

Kota Tampan, 33400, Lenggong, Perak.

Tel: 05-7679700/693

The museum is open daily 9.00am to 5.00pm.

Friday: from 9.00am to 12.15pm. and from 2.45pm to 5.pm.

Except: the first day of Hari Raya Aidilfiltri & Aidiladha.

Admission is free.

We had a very enjoyable trip, good lunch, beautiful sceneries and knowledge as well.