Whoops

I feel like a fool. I told almost everyone I was flying to Kota Baru this weekend for a talk. I cancelled my violin class. I stayed up late working furiously to prepare for the two talks. I got crabby and worried during my illness last weekend whether I would recover in time to fly and walk. Only to find out today that I got the dates wrong. I'll be flying next Friday and not tomorrow. For some reason, my mind was convinced it was this weekend. I checked the air ticket two nights back but checked the flying out times and flying back times rather than the date.

What a silly billy.

Go Noodle House

Dry pan mee

Have you eaten here before? Its tasty and cheap and the service is fast. There are at least two branches which I know of, the first one is at Publika and the second is at Midvalley Megamall. Both have long queues during peak period. ( By that I mean the usual lunch and dinner time).

We have tried this ( dry pan mee) where you can pick the thickness of the noodles ( I like that we have this option), the soup pan mee, which is a big potion but I remember struggling to finish it, the trio platter which is a firm favourite.

The platter comes with three different things, gold coins, fried fucuk and lobak. The fried fucuk and the gold coins are what I like best. The lobak isn't so nice. A bit chewy in the middle and not enough meat inside.  This branch in publika is located above Thai Tuk Tuk, at the exit nearer Chawan.

Puff Pastry Pizza

Now, I wonder what Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would make out of this; Domino's new pizza. It's made out of puff pastry. Multiple flaky layers of pastry with pizza topping. I had to try it. And I did. Not sure whether I actually like it enough to order it again but on day one, it was nice. And today I had the left-over pieces in the fridge so I can vouch that puff pastry is best fresh. Otherwise it tastes flat and non-flaky and sticks to your tongue and cheek and is a little bit like chewing tissue paper.

I'm going to stick to my usual order of spicy sambal with crunchy think crust. No additional cheese or any other topping. And the other one on the menu which is a favourite in the family is classified chicken. (drool)

Nice not to be sick

Tuesday's dinner at home

Health is wealth. And I am feeling pretty wealthy this evening thanks to my parting with the horrible thing called the flu bug. Bye bye bug please don't visit any more. I don't like you. At all. Symptoms of the bug ( I can't decide whether it was the flu bug or food poisoning having also had the awful luck of eating something that was off leading to multiple toilet visits and a general feeling of malaise) are:

1. a nauseous sensation with a slight bitter after-taste when you eat. Puts you off food. Making you miserable during the duration of symptoms.
2. General body aches involving every part of the body. Lying down doesn't make you feel better. What helped was a piping hot shower which distracted from the aches.
3. You may get some chills but its transient and there are other things which linger which will take your mind off the chills completely.
4. Every step is an effort. Walking a short distance is difficult. You'd rather not walk at all.
5. Toilet visits come and go. The frequency varies. And the lag time also varies making it difficult to time your talks and work.

Cathy Woodman

Picture from Amazon

I have the Big Bad Wolf book sale to thank for this book. For rm10, I had the pleasure of being introduced to yet another author. This is Woodman's 8th book. And It's my first book of hers. I finished the book in two days. Because I was too sick to get out of the house, I was left to reading what was on my bookshelf and I picked this and liked the start of it. The flow of the story opens like a nice movie, with a scene of delivery and a few characters coming into play. You don't see the obvious relationship until a few paragraphs in and that too, it's written in very subtly.

I was a big sad when I finished the book. It's always a bit sad when you're done with a good book. There's this irrational ( is it really?) fear you won't find another book you'll enjoy just as much. I'm giving this book a 8/10. And I'll be on the look out for more of her books in the next book sale at the end of the year.

The benefits of ginger

I like ginger, especially tired ginger with some sugar which you suck on and it has a fiery unique taste only ginger can give you. The heat goes through your body quite nicely leaving you feeling warm and gingery.  Ginger tea and ginger anything else is a bonus. I was tempted to get this a few weeks back. Saw this at Villar Grocer at One Kiara. If you are looking for interesting things to purchase this is the place to spend time and wander. It's bigger than BIG and to me has a bigger variety of stuff.

Just finished reading this

Yes this was a good book. Its what we call chic lit. Its about a family holiday and what happens there. A bit unfortunate they also had a food poisoning episode which was written in great detail in one of the chapters. I read what I myself was experiencing. And I felt great empathy for the characters. I read the words, completely lethargic and unable to stand up and thought yes thats what I'm feeling now. There was a scene where Ronnie ( one of the characters) rushed to the toilet to vomit and found her husband there first and then he started having diarrhoea and she was thankful at least she didnt have it, only to start having the symptoms a bit later.

The creamy buffet food possibly recycled with salmonella swimming in it was not a good image. It nearly put me off my sausages for breakfast.

I'm hoping for total recovery by Monday morning. Healthy enough to head out and face the working world once more.

Being sick...

Its terrible being sick. And whats worse is being sick and still having to go on with normal every day activities. So this weekend was needed to recuperate. I spent a large part of yesterday lying down. When I eventually got up, and headed out I actually found myself feeling a bit wobbly. I wonder how patients feel after being in bed for a whole week whilst in hospital and then told okay you're well enough go off home and do whatever it is you like. Not such good advice after all.

The other downside of being sick is not having an appetite. Or in my case not being able to eat. Totally different from not being able to think about food. The first stage of my bug was both not being able to both eat nor think about food. I progressed to being able to think about food yesterday. Which created a whirlwind in my head about all the food I would like to eat and then having to actually decide whether I could stomach all that oily creamy, soupy, spicy food. And also picking a place with clean toilet access. For the very obvious bug-related toilet visits.

I eventually settled for the breakfast shown above. San Francisco big breakfast at Publika. At 0930 there was hardly anyone around. And the public toilet was just an escalator away either way. Both above me and below me. It was a cold morning. ( I guess I was still sick ) so we sat outside in what is actually the smoking area. Thank goodness smokers get out of bed much later for their breakfast because we had the luxury of quite nice fresh air during the meal. We were joined by 5 other people. One couple decided privacy was important never mind the cold air condition, so they say inside. One other couple say outside like us and chatted away. One man who had the same big breakfast say slight away read a book and demolished his breakfast in hardly any time. He must have been angry. Towards the end of the meal, we were joined by a man who puffed away. He was kin enough to pick a table the furthest away from all of us.

I'm much better today. The diarrhoea is less frequent. And I can eat and keep myh good down. The ever has gone away and the aching body is bearable and I can have a cold shower now which makes me happy. I hate warm showers they make me feel sleepy and tired instead of fresh and upbeat.

And now let's talk about the possible culprits. I blame either the fried kuey teow which was served with cockles and prawns or the paiti from the local food court. 7 hours following this meal, I wake up with tummy cramps and torrential diarrhoea and feeling miserable.

Restoran Ban Lee

A good spread to choose from

I used to be the mayor of Ban Lee Restaurant. Don't worry I'm not crazy. Mayor in the world of swarm which is a spin off of foursquare. An app where you can find good places to eat near you and you get to see the honest comments at the bottom to decide whether this place is worth going to. Swarm also has his collect the sticker incentive and it's quite addictive when you check in with specific stickers and you get extra bonus coins.

No sambal petai. Boohoo

This nasi lemak costs rm6. Reasonable. I wish the lady still sold petai. When asked why not she answered " mahal"

Sleep lab

This is the sleep lab at work. Currently we can't use this room because the air condition has gone bust and we are waiting for funding to fix this. We made an impromptu tour of the place. Quite a nice view and if you can see pass the awful grills, the view isn't half bad.  Sadly nobody gets a chance to savour this view. Patients should be sleeping during their time here and not peeking out of the windows for a view.

As a way to generate money, we should think about renting this room out to patient's relatives when its not in use.

Paiti for dinner

It rained. (If you are a KL-ite you know rain at 4-5pm is the worst time. There will be a jam ) Luck was on my side, that and driving a slightly higher car currently, made the drive back from work in the rather heavy rain a breeze. I quite enjoyed it. Less cars presumably most folks were waiting for the rain to stop, and the swoosh of the water as you drive through is addictive. To me at least.

And so I made it for dinner. And here it is. Paiti for takeaway and it came in a cute packaging. Smart move otherwise your paiti would be soggy when you get home. Paiti is a crispy thin pastry and you get jiu hu char inside and some garnishing at the top  and of course some delicious chilli sauce to complete the whole top hat meal.

S.wine

Thai Larb Salad ( RM20)

 We had dinner here yesterday evening. A reward for surviving a harrowing Monday. Swine is located in Publika ( now so famous you don't need to explain further ). It's inside the big grocery supermarket called Ben's Independent Grocer's ( BIG for short). I like heading there, it's like walking deep into a secret corner. It's tucked near the wine area and you can either enter through there or through the place where they sell ham. The staff are quite attentive and you will be seated fast if there is an available table. Otherwise especially during the weekends, be prepared to leave your name and come back in 15 minutes to see the status of a free table.

The salad shown is our first. I'm not a salad kind of gal. But this salad was super. The leaves of green you see were crisp and crunchy a perfect marriage with the Thai inspired minced pork. Love it so much I intend to repeat the order the next time we eat here.

Chips, which came with the burger

 This other order is what I usually order. The Larb burger which isn't too much and comes with fries and a potion of coleslaw. All decently proportion. I tried the pulled meat burger once and the avocado something burger too. I remembered not liking them both very much.

Larb burger(RM28) Thai inspired pork patties

 And then of course there's the wine. ( swoon). Swine's house wine is pretty good. Better than Big Fat Joe's burger place. Wine here is delicate and depending on which you choose the effect subtle and makes the meal tastes that much better.

House red wine ( RM25 each)