wkev #4: Home taim!

So I was back in Malaysia for 10 days to sort out some wedding stuff which I wasn't able to do being here in Melbourne. I can't stress enough how maQfan planning an overseas wedding is. And it doesn't help when the bride is fussy haha. It was a 2am flight and I thought I would sleep through the journey since I flew with Emirates which is supposedly more comfy than Air Asia. Ok lah have to say it's definitely much nicer than Air Asia but I didn't manage to sleep much also, I just can never sleep well in planes, that's why I hate flying. The moment I touched down I was so tired I took a nap. And woke up with headache FML. 

The next day we were planning to drive to Ipoh and I woke up at 6am with the worst migraine ever FMLx2. It was so bad that I was nauseated and almost threw up. I have a feeling it's the hazy weather in Malaysia because I've never ever experienced this before!

I was planning to cancel the trip already. Took Panadol, went back to bed and slept for another 2 hours and woke up feeling much better although a little dizzy still. I decided to proceed with Ipoh anyway because I really don't want to screw up my entire schedule. Off we went!

Lunch at Lou Wong famous for their beansprout and chicken rice but I didn't want to eat rice so I had the rice noodle soup (hor fun). Pretty overrated. I'm not a fan of chicken rice or steamed chicken for this matter. Everything tasted so-so. If there's anything I would come back for, it's the hor fun. So silky smooth and thin! 

Drove around and sighted some street art.

So the main objective of going to Ipoh is of course not because I wanted a roadtrip - ain't no bride-to-be's got time for that ok. I wanted to try this ONE specific wedding gown and only this lady in Ipoh has it. Since we can treat it as a roadtrip on a weekend, why not? 

So after getting lost couple of times, we managed to get to her place eventually and I finally got to try on THE dress that I have been thinking about non-stop. No pictures for that because I'm saving that for another post. But here's another gown in her collection I tried that I thought was quite nice.

It's a champagne tulle gown with a really elaborate back. Some people like it, some people don't. The bestfriends saw this picture and thought this design look like a skunk HAHAHA.

Quite cute ma. Hahahaha.

I kind of like the design but didn't like how the bodice and skirt has a very awkward joint at the hip area. Also my tummy area in the front (not shown) looked quite bulky aka fat. Plus champagne wouldn't fit into the theme of my wedding anyway.

After trying the gowns it was back to more food for us. Salted chicken from Aun Kheng Lim, white coffee at Nam Heong (this is the original, real deal white coffee, not some crappy packaged stuff), and this super yummy kaya puff from Sin Eng Heong.

The pastry is so light and flakey and not too rich, it's very well balanced with the not so sweet kaya. We bought it freshly baked and they were so damn good.


While back at home...

Mom bought durians! These were devoured within minutes.

Sister just got back from Malacca with these super delicious Nyonya Chang (rice dumpling). The dumpling is filled with savoury, sweet meat filling. Chiukap nice lor!


Went to one of the venues to have a look and meet the manager to talk things through. It's actually my first time there. Yup, we booked the place without even seeing it first. Too kanjeong maybe lol.

To be honest, the first thing which came to my mind when I saw the place was "Is this it? Meh..."

Hahahah. In pictures I see online they're all nicely decorated with wedding stuff and the pictures are all professionally taken and edited. Maybe when I saw it that day it's like a blank canvas so there was nothing to be wow'ed about. Not that I will change my mind la since I've already paid the deposit. I knew there's a risk booking a place without even seeing it first. Hopefully the decoration will make it look beautiful. 

And then there's another round of gown trials...

The back look quite nice but the front... ugh. There's this really high side slit which I don't understand at all. And lace is just not my thing la.

But with the slit it was easy to walk with though. Confirm won't trip wan. If you trip then... tough luck hahaha.

Not a fan of the lace and the mesh/see-through top (Wk hates this hahaha) but I really like the tulle skirt in this! I asked the owner about custom designing a dress using tulle with simple ruched bodice and no lace/beadings. RM7k FML. Way over my budget, so didn't with it of course.

Went to Number76 MidValley with the girls to get my hair fixed. It's got this massive black roots which I cannot stand.

Please don't tell me "Nice ma it's called Ombre look" because ombre to me is gradation of colours from light to a more saturated shade (or vice versa) and what I have there I call it laziness in maintaining hair colour. Black --> blond = NOT ombre.

Actually my ends are all highlights which means they are random strands/strips of bleached hair. The stylist said it's impossible to touch up highlights :(((((

Stupid highlights damn maQfan lo! So he said the best he can do is touch up the roots with a colour that's similar to what I have at the bottom so it blends better rather than Black --> blonde. If he highlight the roots, it's gonna look brighter than what I have at the bottom and it will be super uneven also. I just agree with whatever he say la since he's the professional.

Can't really tell from this pic but I think he did a fantastic job in choosing the right colour to touch up!

Here's a better picture. This was also the day I went for a makeup trial. The makeup artist also provide kua rental so I tried some. Didn't end up with it la cos too expensive. He said since I'm taking him for my wedding he will give me a discounted price to rent the kua, RM 600. No thanks. Still more than what I'm willing to pay for for something which I will only wear for only 2 hours.

Went to Puchong for this place with steamboat using a wintermelon! My grandma was the one who kept wanting to take me there and insisted on treating me -.- , she must really like it la lol. Nothing special except for the wintermelon which is cooking as you do your steamboat in it. At the end of it you can scrape the flesh and eat it lo. The prawns were really fresh. There's not much variety of balls, only the standard fish and porkballs. The scallops were disgusting, lala was nice though. The other special thing is their dipping sauce - it's made of fried shallots, coriander, sesame seed, sesame oil, sweet sauce and I'm not sure what else. It's quite dry, more like a condiment you eat with your food but it's really good!

I don't know why there's a number carved on the wintermelon, probably it's the number of wintermelon they've used??? 

Also met up with Adelle near her workplace in SS15 for lunch. We went for Chili Pan Mee at this place, Jojo's Little Kitchen. It's actually my first time having a chili pan mee in Malaysia, I've only tried it in Pappa Rich here in Melbourne and it's so-so. This one in Jojo's so yummy! The meat sauce has so much flavour in it, and the pan mee is not too thin, cooked al-dente some more. Very impressed!

On Friday, I met up with one of the bridal gown designers and finally decided to engage her to custom make my gown. Finally, one of the most important things checked! Actually the main thing being back is to sort out my wedding gown, the rest all can do without me there but not the gown. This will be further elaborated in another post. Long story!  

And finally, food tasting in the restaurant we'll be holding the reception banquet. Also one of the worst days of all my days being back trying to plan this wedding. Haih, I can't wait till everything is over.

One of the dishes. Will do a separate post on the food tasting plus the venue in general.

Last Malaysian snack eaten was fried nian gao with sweet potato. Omg why so nice wan! Haih you can take a girl out of Malaysia but you can never take Malaysia out of her.

When I was back I didn't bring a lot of skincare with me (too damn heavy la and I'm not bothered decanting) so I curi used my sister's Shiseido White Lucent cleanser and day moisturiser hehehe. And I fell in love! I don't know why, it just makes my skin so balanced I feel. And the smell isn't too overpowering, the texture is so light and absorbs quickly. So I was planning on getting the basic range. Also because I needed to replenish some stuff too cos I ran out of my cleanser, toner and moisturiser. 

I was so busy the entire week that the only time I managed to shop for myself was in the airport before waiting to board. Good also la can get them duty free. Initially I only wanted a cleanser, toner and moisturiser. I asked if they have a boxed set of full size products and they only have it for the serum, day and night moisturiser. And then the salesgirl said if I get the box plus cleanser and toner, it'll be a perfect set already. So I was like ok lo, then get everything lo.

I tell you, I am damn easy to be persuaded wan when it comes to skincare. 

Then she said if I buy a bit more I can get 10% discount. So I added the eye cream since I ran out of eye cream too, which I almost forgot.

So now I am on the journey to achieving a more white and translucent skin. So far I haven't look like a snowman yet wtf.

I'm on Dayre!

So for the past week, Wk and I have been making our best efforts to limit eating out to a maximum of 2 meals a week. We were doing pretty good when I first came to Melbourne and haven't started working. For the past few months (or possibly year?) I have been getting more and more lazy and we were eating out quite often. I always blame it on work and feeling tired and blah de blah but truth is, it's just the lazy bitch in me taking over wtf. The harsh reality is it's a very expensive lifestyle to keep up with and with a wedding coming up plus looking for a house to buy AND all the other commitments we have to maintain, I decided that this eating out needs to stop right away.

I've recently downloaded Dayre (saw it in Dorcas's blog), it's like Twitter/Instagram but with a lot more words for you to type! By the way, it's pronounced like the word 'diary'. When I didn't know this, in my head I was reading it as "Dere" pronounced like "there" with a D hahaaha anyone else did the same??

So yah, it's like a blogging app for your smartphone. I needed something to motivate myself to cook everyday so I take a picture of every dinner I made and talk a little about it on Dayre. At the end of the week, I look back and feel so happy that I managed to accomplish it! It's also a great way for me to keep track of what I cook so I don't keep doing the same thing. Broaden my horizons a bit (wtf do aunty stuff like cooking also can try to sound intelligent hahaha).

Btw if anyone wants to follow me, my username is choieevon. (By anyone I mean the meagre 5 people who read my blog hahaha)

So here are things that I have been cooking for the past week. I try to cook dishes which incorporate veggies in it so I don't have to cook 2 separate dishes (lazy bitch syndrome lol). And I try not to cook rice everyday as well cos it can get really boring. I also prefer to use lean meats such as chicken breast and pork loin as they are obviously healthier, and try to alternate the meats everyday. I'll also do one fish day and one meatless day just to give our livers a break hahaha. 

Hokkien Mee. Incredibly easy to cook. Pork lard gives a really distinctive flavour to the dish which is what all dai chao (hawker stalls) use but I didn't have any and wasn't bothered looking for it anyway. In my opinion it still tasted good without it. No recipe for this because I skimmed through a few online recipes and winged it. I also substituted/cut out a few other ingredients as I didn't have it and it worked fine for me.

Sweet and sour pork. The pork tasted really good when it was freshly fried, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, but the moment it gets tossed in the sauce everything became a soggy mess :( so I won't recommend this recipe. I didn't quite like the sauce too.

This was the meatless day. Ok technically not 100% meatless since I used fishcake but at least it's not chicken or pork. On top is steamed eggs with salted duck egg and century egg. Wow, I just used the word 'egg' 3 times in a sentence wtf. Super simple but easy to ruin too. I overcooked the eggs slightly, you can tell from the sides that's bubbly and shrinking. Ugh so ugly, sorry I am fussy with my food. The bottom's stir fried french beans with fish cake and XO sauce which was sitting in my fridge for a while already. Guess what? The XO sauce was actually expired wtf hahahaha. But it says "Best Before" not "Use Before" so technically it's ok for consumption. Me being able to blog about this now is a testament to my theory.

Crispy skin salmon, grilled asparagus and potato salad. I found these purple potatoes in the market and was really curious about them so decided to give them a go. These aren't sweet potatoes, they're your regular waxy/starchy potatoes (Holland shu, in Cantonese) but purple. They taste more 'earthy'. Other than that, nothing special about them. 

One of my favourite chicken breast dish, 3 cups chicken. I never knew chicken breast could taste so damn good until I cooked this dish. Breast cooked well are a lot more delicious than any chicken leg in my opinion. If cooked well, they are meaty, juicy and tender. Overcooked and you'll get some stringy, dry crap.

Jap Chae - this is a Korean noodle dish which is super unhealthy if you eat outside because they are literally soaked in an insane amount of soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. When I made this I thought I've put in a scary amount of soy, sugar and oil but somehow I found the taste to be so bland if compared to the ones served in a Korean restaurant. 

Oh this one isn't dinner obviously wtf. It's one of my favourite breakfasts, one which I don't mind eating everyday. I've never had avocado before until last year. I don't really eat it on it's own as they are quite rich and creamy. I love them with toast and here I have pumpkin seed toast with Vegemite spread thinly, topped with avocado. A squeeze of lemon and some cracked black pepper to balance the flavour. And of course I can never go a day without my white coffee.

So what do we do after being so kuai and eat home every night?

Break loose (the wallet and belt wtf) and eat out of course hahahah.

Brunch at Fifty Acres in Richmond. Have seen friendlier waitresses but the food and environment's nice. Don't exactly remember what I had but the main thing was pumpkin pancakes, orange segments, walnuts, maples syrup, crispy bacon and that orange-flavoured quenelle of I-don't-rmb stuff. At the back's Wk's Fifty Acres Breakfast which is boring and not pretty wtf. Very generous portions and good coffee.

Brekkie with Michelle at Ora Cafe in Kew. I had the prawn toast (the piece of toast with lots of sesame seed) with whipped avocado, salad and a poached egg. I've never had a prawn toast before and Michelle said it's a very common yumcha/dimsum dish. Honestly, either I'm to fixed with my usual siu mai and har gao or I live in a coconut, I've never seen it before! Anyway, I quite enjoyed the prawn toast and will definitely try it the next time I have dim sum.

Ok now time to stretch your neck a bit.

Hahaha. I thought my picture editor had rotated the picture but it didn't. Whatever lah you get the picture. Just incase people forget how I look like since I haven't posted much pictures of my face. My blog has been all about food, food and food. Anybody like my new glasses? 8) They are super awesome and I love them. I've never gotten so many compliments and attention from getting a new pair of glasses, so happy I didn't pay so much for nothing hahaha. I walked into the store intending to get Ray Bans but of course being a sales rep doing his job he has to upsell, he had me try on this Tom Ford pair and the moment I put it on and looked in the mirror I knew this was The One. It's just how glasses work, you either like it or hate it, you'll know immediately if it's the right one. Of course this is 2 times the price of a Ray Ban T_T sales people are so kns. Anyway the guy who served me wasn't just a sales rep, he's the store manager, no wonder so damn good at selling la.

Ok time to go but here's something that got me LOL yesterday.

That last comment LMAO.

wkev #3: The Date, Venue & Photographer.

Let me just say one thing. Apart from compromising the family on how they want your wedding to be, planning an overseas wedding is a complete pain in the behind. Even with a wedding planner I'm struggling with so many things.

The Date

February the 14th and 15th 2015. Yes, it's Valentine's Day which is a pain. I'll explain why later. It's going to be only a morning-afternoon event on the 14th so all couples can still go out paktoh candlelight dinner that evening. See we so thoughtful right, you're very welcome wtf. 

The Venue

So there is going to be 2 events which obviously needed 2 venues. For the first venue, we were unable to secure it with a deposit early this year because they do not take deposit until mid year where they review the wedding packages. In other words, up the prices. Sigh. We will be receiving the reviewed package and fingers-crossed it won't be too much of a difference. 

We've managed to secure our second venue which is this Chinese restaurant back in Klang, this would be for our reception. I was talking to my dad a few days back and he said he went there for a family friend's wedding dinner recently and... wait for it... the food sucked real bad. Hohoho can things get anymore worse? Wtf. I guess the only thing to do now is to grill and pressure the manager kaokao during tasting making sure everything is good during the day. 

Since we haven't managed to officially secure Venue 1 I won't reveal where it is - never underestimate the power of The Jinx wtf. But second one ok :D

Source

It didn't take us long to decide as there's only a handful of restaurants in Klang that you can hold a wedding reception in. I've had dimsum in this place once and thought the food was pretty good, so was the way the interior looked. But of course serving dishes on a normal business hour and serving banquet for 500 people is completely different so it's no surprise if they only do better in one of it. Haih can only hope for the best.

The Photographer

With so many options out there obviously I didn't have a clue who to go for. Pictures alone don't describe how well the photographers work during the day. So the wedding planner asked me to send her a few  wedding pictures I like and from there she quickly concluded with the style of photography I like and suggested 4 that are good in that sort of photography. I have to say that it was extremely helpful because photographs are really the only memory of the day you can keep so it's best to go with one that are good at capturing moments the way you like. You don't want to look at your album 5-10 years later and cringe at it.

Wk and I really liked this one particular photographer but unfortunately, for 2 days his rate was out of our budget. So the plan was to get him to do a half day shoot on the 14th since the event is going to be only half the day anyway and I'll get someone cheaper to do the 15th which is going to be a full day event. The event on 14th is the only one which means the most to me so it only makes sense to go for my favourite.

Well guess what? Photographer got back to me saying because Valentine's Day is a "hot day", he doesn't do half day, only full day. Unless I take him to do full day on 15th, he won't agree to only do half day on the 14th.

I'm not a Valentine's Day person to start with. This only made me detest the day 3765249x more because it gives everyone the one and only fucking reason to add unnecessary charges to everything on a completely insignificant day where nothing historic happened, or nobody important died. It's just a stupid day where restaurant and florist owners (and photographers for this matter) are laughing heinously behind their cash counter because they can overcharge everything and everyone stupidly ignores the fact that everything is overpriced and pays for it anyway.

*takes a deep breath*

Ok. Sorry I digress. So after much consideration, even though it's not what we wanted, we decided to readjust our budget so that we can still afford him to do both days because the last thing I need, is to regret not going for the photographer I wanted right from the start. Again, we haven't secured him officially (getting my sister to do it for me) so I won't say who's this babai photographer. 

And apparently, I live in the stone age.

Sorry la when I left Malaysia 3 years ago there was no internet banking lor. Back in my time to do any transaction everyone still goes to the bank while clutching their bags tightly and look front back left right making sure no motorbikes around you wtf.

Thank goodness we're not doing any pre-wedding shoot anyway so that sort of allowed us to extend the budget for the photographer. I wasn't bothered to do it because I personally don't think they're nice. Why do we need to dress up in exaggerated gowns and suits and stand in the middle of a place which means nothing to us? Not forgetting posing awkwardly for it. I really don't get it. At the end of the day the album gets stashed somewhere and completely forgotten about. And this is quoting from a married woman who's been there done that - my mom.

I think the best wedding pictures are the ones you look genuinely happy in, like the ones taken on the actual day of the wedding? No need to think about posing and all that. And you get to share the moment with your family and friends and all these real emotions are captured which is so much more meaningful and memorable when you look back at it.

--

Ok this post is getting way too long so had to leave The Dress to the next post. This wedding business is like money-making scheme. So much cost for just a day. 

The Premises

The Premises is this cafe situated about 10 minutes walk from where we live. I was looking through my collection of food pictures and to my surprise, I didn't even realize we've visited this place so many times! And this is not even counting the other many times I've been there and did not take any pictures of my food.

To be honest I don't even find this to be the best cafe anyway. Most of the times the coffee is good but at times it's forgettable, the menu doesn't change much and the variety is nothing to shout about except for some occasional specials. I guess because it's just too convenient when you want to have breakfast and not bothered to go too far away.

Some of these pictures were taken as long as a year ago and they're not on the menu anymore. Some were specials of the day. 

They would have a sweet dish and it's usually french toast. I can't remember what this one had. Looking at it it looks like pear, praline/crumble and some kind of flavoured mascarpone. They don't change much with this dish, usually it's a different fruit and maybe a different crunchy element.

Absolutely not a fan of this sort of dish - cold, cured fish. I don't know how people can eat this for breakfast/brunch. For me, give me toast, eggs, and something protein (smoked salmon, ham, bacon) and I'm a happy woman.

Can anyone guess what kind of coffee drinker we are already? Wk is a latte man, I'm a cappuccino girl.

Out of everything we've tried, this is my favourite. Premises Eggs Benedict with Newmarket smoked ham, free range poached eggs and pink peppercorn hollandaise. Sadly, this isn't in their menu, it was one of the specials of that day.

Corned beef and potato hash with sauerkraut, mustard aioli and a poached egg.

Another unappetizing looking cold dish. Uek. And of course, it's usually something Wk would order and ended up not liking it lol. Tsk tsk, man just never learn their lesson.



Will I go back? Yes, why not? I can't really complain if it's only a stone's throw away can I?