Look Ma, I’m A Cook! Part Deux

When I announced my impending foray into the world of cookery, I had done so with the brilliant idea of doing a series of posts leading up to my cooking class end of this month. You know, to keep readers in mad suspense (“will she or won’t she?” – screw up the tarragon chicken, that is) and on the edge of their frayed, moth-eaten swivel chairs, but now that it’s been a couple of days since my first post – see Part Un – I’m feeling the pressure to follow it up with Part Deux. The problem is, I haven’t actually cooked anything yet and I have no clue what I can possibly talk about, so I’m going to do the next best thing: post loads and loads of pictures of food with minimal text. Heck, I’ve done it before and had gotten away with it too – just look at this beauty.

So today, I’m posting pics of some of the food I ate on my trip to Cognac and Champagne, France, last month. Words cannot express how incredible the food on that trip was (read: I spent 90% of the time in a blissful food-induced stupor wonderfully worsened, no doubt, by the endless rounds of champagne), so I’m going to let my pictures, amateur as they are, do all the talking.

LE PEU DISTILLERY, COGNAC

Sea snails, duck pasta, fish salad, slices of buttery salmon, the most delectable oysters ever – no wonder because we were near Marennes-Oleron, the most famous, biggest oyster-cultivating region in all of Europe. It was a seafood-laden buffet lunch at the distillery and I’m not ashamed to announce that I had three (heaped) rounds of mains. I had so much oyster here I nearly died. And went to heaven.

But no matter how stuffed you are, there’s always room for dessert … especially if it’s the chocolate variety

… and the grape variety and oh, while we’re at it, the bread variety … you can never be too thin, too rich or have too much bread.

Dinner in Cognac was at a restaurant just minutes from where we were staying - Chateau de Bagnolet, a quasi-colonial estate, over two centuries old, that used to be the private home of the Hennessy family. While I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, save for the fact that it sounded somewhat English, I do remember the proprietor – a friendly, gangly Frenchman clad in a bright orange shirt with wire-framed glasses and an Einstein mop of hair who scurried over when we arrived, unleashed a flurry of French (explaining the menu, I presume) and then whirled away. Minutes later, our tables are filled with plates of … oysters, oysters and more oysters! Except this time, they were eaten with slightly spicy fried sausage. I still dream of those sausages. And oysters. And later, perfectly cooked venison and creme brulee.

MAISON HENNESSY, COGNAC

Lunch at the Hennessy Maison began with this dish - comfort food at its best, chicken soup for the soul. It’s a bowl of warm noodles with chicken cheeks, truffles and leek …

… then, monk fish with green peas, zucchini and bell peppers … and ended with crème brulee made with Hennessy V.S.O.P with spongy golden Madeleines …

CHATEAU DE BAGNOLET, COGNAC

The perfect start to dinner that night at the Chateau de Bagnolet: oysters, lime and ze best beurre in ze world! We wolfed down oysters (or rather, I wolfed down the oysters; I have no idea what the others were doing) … and then came dainty spoons of amuse bouche. There was so much I can’t remember them all but I do remember the wild boar, salmon and the black truffles. By this time, I was pretty stuffed and dinner hadn’t even started.  

But not stuffed enough to miss dinner. Dinner was served French-style, meaning the waiters come to you with each course, hover beside you, knees bent, arms balancing the heavy silver trays upon which the food sits and remain in this awkward position while you spoon the food onto your plate in as sophisticated and un-clumsy a way as possible (you’re dining in France, not walloping BKT in Klang). We began with  a vegetable soup, or rather, a farmer’s soup made with local vegetables. I prefer farmer’s soup – it’s got a more rustic sound to it …

… then, we had cognac-marinated sea bass sitting in a pool of Hennessy V.S.O.P sauce and topped with candy-sweet ribbons of onion confit …

… and then, chunks of tender, melt-in-your-mouth pork cheeks with ginger, pan-fried shiitake mushrooms and balls of potato. It was challenging to spoon this particular dish onto my plate. How much could I spoon without looking like a greedy pork cheek-obsessed gorb? I have no idea what a gorb is, btw.

And then, a slice of creamy white chocolate cake in red berry sauce. It’s one of those desserts that’s so calorific that you get a mad urge to run up and down the length of the Charente river right outside the chateau. In the middle of winter.

HOSTELLERIE LA BRIQUETERIE, CHAMPAGNE

In Champagne, we stayed at La Briqueterie in Vinay, a town in the Champagne region. Loved, loved, loved the place! It was the most adorable room … but wait, I’m not here to talk accommodation. So anyways, on our first night there, we had dinner … which began with oyster! That’s it. I’m packing my bags and moving here.

… then, sea urchin – rich, creamy, gooey, delicious … and a scallop main. Omg, see, told you I need to pack up and move here!

MOET & CHANDON MAISON, EPERNAY, CHAMPAGNE

After a full morning visiting the cellars of Moet & Chandon, we had lunch in the maison’s gorgeous dining room. I particularly loved this meal. Every dish was paired with a Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage – 1975, 1992, 2002 and the 2002 rosé. You know what they say: you can’t be too thin, too rich, have too much bread or drink too much champagne. First up, scallop and lobster couli with curry sauce …

… popcorn with chestnut soup, accompanied with truffle on crouton. Move aside, chicken soup! This chestnut soup is for the soul!

… then fish with slices of mandarin oranges and mushrooms …

… and the dessert – cake with red berry fruit coulis infused with mint, topped with a little Tagada …

… and an ultra close-up: that bit on the fork is Tagada, a very famous French strawberry candy that everybody is apparently crazy about.

58 TOUR EIFFEL, PARIS

We also dined at the 58 Tour Eiffel which – needless to say but I’m going to say it anyway – is a restaurant at the Eiffel Tower. But ah, here’s the dastardly twist: it’s on the first floor. We started with a prawn salad on avocado cream sauce …

… salmon with a pouf of culinary foam …

… and lemon meringue dessert … at this point in my post, you can tell I’m suffering serious food fatigue – not from eating but from blabbing somewhat incoherently about what I’d eaten. I guess my prologue about letting my pictures do the talking was nothing but major waffling on my part – looks like I did more talking than my pictures

Look Ma, I’m A Cook! Part Un

I’m going for my first-ever cooking class end of this month. You heard right: First. Ever. Normally, I only brag about things I have already done, not something I have yet to do because I might not do it and then, I will have ‘no face’ because I’d bragged about doing it to so many people. In this case, however, I reckon I’m pretty safe because I have registered for the class and to make sure I go through with it, have even convinced a friend to do it with me.

When I tell people I’ve signed up for cooking class, I get all kinds of responses. The range is staggering, from high-pitched mocking laughter to the incredulous “You? Cook???” punctuated with, what else, more high-pitched mocking laughter, all the way to the more perky “That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!” I can’t tell if this last group of people are making fun of me but I do know one thing: they are very brave. Some might even say they have a death wish but that isn’t a point I wish to mull over.

I now have two weeks until my first cooking class (whether it’s also my last will depend totally on how my food turns out. That, and how hot I look in an apron), and I shall spend this time doing two things. One is pondering my impending foray into the world of cookery and the other, formulating snappy retorts to some of your tactless responses:

“You? Cook???”
Yes, I don’t cook. It’s not something I’m proud of but in my defence, it’s all my mother’s fault.  Let’s put it this way: my dear mother, God bless her, will never survive on a show like Masterchef. She’s done all right by my brother and me (by this, I mean we didn’t die from malnutrition, if that means anything) but she was never the doting mother who’d welcome you home after a day of school with cream-laden cakes dripping with chocolate syrup, golden pastries, buttery homemade bread or an enormous plate of delicious char siew. Instead, it was lots of rice, vegetables and always something that bore some sort of resemblance to chicken. But then again, everything resembled chicken.

“Are you sure? You’re not the cooking type.”
What exactly is this cooking ‘type’ I keep hearing about? Just because I’m not joined at the hip to a stove (that’s the thing you cook the food with, right?) or don’t tremble with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, does not mean I’m not the cooking type. It just means that I’m not the type who’s um … joined at the hip to a stove or the sort who trembles with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, that’s all.

“But you don’t even eat!”
Contrary to popular belief, I do – on occasion – eat. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here, alive, and writing this blog. I wish you would stop being so dramatic.

“But you’ve never cooked before!”
That’s precisely why I’m taking the class. Duh.

“Do you even know what a kitchen looks like?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know what a kitchen looks like. I have seen plenty in magazines and on TV. It’s the room in the house with the refrigerator.

“Hey, you never know – you might discover you have a real talent for it!”
Damn right!

“That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!” 
I wouldn’t say this if I were you.

Skeletons, Sliced Ham, Grandma & Barbecued Chicken

My mother screwed me up the other day for missing breakfast, lunch and eating dinner right before midnight. She launches into mother mode and tells me I must have regular meals, otherwise I won’t have energy to work. I tell her, on the contrary, I feel absolutely fabulous and full of energy. And no, I am not being sarcastic. I wasn’t denying myself nourishment; I was just too busy to eat. She doesn’t buy it. I accuse her of not eating too. How is this different from fasting, I ask. It’s true: you fast for days, eating no food, sometimes not even drinking water. That’s different, she says. How so? That is ‘starvation’ with a purpose. Such double standards. So ‘starvation’ is okay only if you’re doing it in the name of world peace, an end to poverty and other ‘noble’ goody-goody causes? Well, I have a purpose too. It’s called meeting-my-deadlines-otherwise-I-get-screwed. She warns me to knock it off or I’ll wind up all shriveled and skeleton-looking and people don’t like skeletons.

Speaking of skeletons, my uncle came by for a visit the other day. His first comment when he sees me is, you’ve lost so much weight! (He makes it sound like I used to be a two-ton truck). Better eat more rice, he says. Too skinny, not nice. He pokes at my collarbone. So bony, he says. Um yeah, if I didn’t have bones, I’d collapse into the ground like a packet of sliced ham.

Speaking of sliced ham, my grandmother used to chide me for not eating enough rice. Her definition of “enough” was two full bowls. I could eat a truckload of vegetables, meat and lotus root but as long as I didn’t chug down two full bowls of rice, she’d wonder why I was ‘starving’ myself. She was really old and aneroxia hadn’t been invented yet, so she couldn’t accuse me of not eating to be thin. She just thought I was a crazy person who wouldn’t eat rice. She warned me that I was getting too thin on the face. She thought I should have a nice round face, like the moon. Look at her (she pointed to my fat cousin). See how nice and round her face is? You should look like that. Uh sure, grandma, whatever you say.

Speaking of grandma, I was talking to a friend the other day. She is really skinny and I’m talking really skinny (italics all mine) even by anorexic supermodel standards. She tells me to eat more cos I’m “very thin”. I look at her in disbelief and wonder if she’d looked at herself in a mirror lately. I wonder if all anorexics suffer from body dysmorphia. Meanwhile I’m shoveling barbecued chicken down my throat as she slices the two peas on her plate with a knife.

Speaking of barbecued chicken, I got myself weighed after completing the 10K at the Singapore Marathon. As I was standing there waiting for my turn to tip the scales, I wondered why the organisers decided to have a weighing station. It would be so de-motivating to discover that you’d gained weight or hadn’t lost an ounce despite all that hard work earlier. I spoke too soon. I had gained 2.5kg. Sure, I was wearing my running shoes which were caked in mud (could’ve contributed a hefty pound or two), I had guzzled five paper cups of water and 100PLUS (sugar is heavy) and I was still wearing my running bib (it wasn’t made of feathers, you know), so the numbers were probably inaccurate.

Speaking of feathers … um, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, skeletons, sliced ham, grandma and barbecued chicken. I did have a point somewhere. If only I can remember what it was.

Swooning In Ronald’s Greasy Grip

I was digging in my purse to pay the McDonald’s delivery guy when it dawned on me (gently like a sledgehammer) that I may very well be certifiably nuts. Here I am, paying RM15.25 for a lunch of greasy, artery-clogging fries and 9 pieces of McNuggets, which are essentially chunks of god-knows-what ground up and shaped to resemble something that fell off a chicken. Holy moly and I’m paying RM15.25 for this? A bowl of noodles at the coffee shop will set me back only RM4, less than a third of what Ronald charges me. And yet, I succumb.

I know Ronald’s unhealthy (I don’t care what their ad campaigns say or how loudly they trumpet their menu additions of salads or porridges) … I know he’s evil (Eric Schlosser’s book and Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me scream it loud and clear) … I know he doesn’t care about my health, only his bottomline (eat more sundaes, they’re good for you) … I know that to him, I will never be anything more than just another pawn in his diabolical scheme … I know he ages me and fattens me up …

… I know all these things, which is why I figured now that I’m older and coming to grips with a less-than-robust metabolism, I would have wisened up and gotten over my Ronald fixation. He would’ve been relegated to the back of my mind as nothing more than a hazy memory, a dusty old love affair that will never be resurrected.

But today, I am once again a weak, lovesick schmuck who may be old enough to know better, but apparently not wise enough to avoid the all-too-familiar pitfalls of this toxic relationship. I eat a French fry and fall in love all over again.

If I Am What I Eat, I Think I’m Screwed

They say keeping a food journal will help you lose weight. It will open up your eyes to understand why you’re so fat / skinny / ugly / emotionally unstable. It’s a pound-dropping, eye-opening, soul-baring exercise. I’m all for soul-baring, so I thought I’d give it a go. So here goes:

MONDAY

Morning: Have one coffee and one banana. For me, coffee comes from a 3-in-1 sachet. Oh well, what can I say? I’ve never been a coffee connoisseur. Get to office. First day of the week, lots of things to get in order. A meeting here, an impromptu discussion there, a minor ‘crisis’ which requires immediate intervention here … and very quickly, it’s past noon.

Afternoon: For lunch, I have meehoon soup with fresh fish chunks and four miserable leaves of green vegetables. I don’t understand why hawkers are so kiamsiap with their vegetables. They’re so cheap (the hawkers and the vegetables). I request for more, they give me two more leaves. I’m reminded how tough it is to get vegetables with your meals here in KL. For most, it’s hawker fare for a quick lunch and here, all dishes are either noodle-based or rice-based, come with meat and a few leaves of veggy. Oh well.

Night: I get home late, so I have dinner late. Dinner is economy rice (sans rice) with omelette, tofu, spinach and sweet sour pork. What can I say? I’m still nursing a fixation on pork.

Fried noodles in Phnom Penh, Cambodia plus a side dish of mozzie repellent

TUESDAY

Morning: Have one coffee and a pack of Anlene calcium concentrate. My friend introduced Anlene to me recently and I love it, not so much for the high calcium content but for the fact that it tastes like McDonald’s sundae in liquid form. Yum! I go for a short 30-minute run before heading to work.

Afternoon: It’s a bit mad at the office. Drafts are streaming in, proofs are streaming in, emails are streaming in. My eyes are going wonky. Clients are challenging our … sanity. Lunch time rolls round and I’m too lazy to go out. Besides, it’s scorching outside. I eat the mango yoghurt sitting on my desk. Half hour later, I make a Nestum cereal and Milo drink which fills me up for a while. Sometimes, to bulk it up, I add oats to pacify my brain that I’m not starving myself. At a discussion later, I polish off four sour gummies and a pack of prawn crackers.

Night: I get home by about 9pm and have ABC soup, which is simply a soup where anything goes. You can toss in whatever you want. For me, it’s chicken, potato, carrots, cabbage and a hard-boiled egg. It’s genius. Even lazy people devoid of even the slightest smidgen of talent in the kitchen can make it.

Organic fried rice in Bali in a restaurant on stilts in the middle of a rice field

WEDNESDAY

Morning: I worship at the altar of the great 3-in-1 coffee again this morning. I also have a banana and a cup of yoghurt while scanning the papers, reading silly stories about our silly ministers and the foolishness they’re up to. Feel sufficiently depressed at all the foolishness and head to work. There’s a photo shoot today.

Afternoon: It’s common at a shoot to forget to order lunch until late. The lunch menu comes to me and I scan it. Nothing looks particularly appetising, so I pick the hakka mee – dry noodles topped with minced pork bits. I choose it not because I like it, but because it’s quick and easy to eat. Last thing I want is to fumble with chicken rendang or some complicated kway teow soup.

Night: I go home to leftover ABC soup. I have two huge two bowls. That’s another great thing about soup – you can make one humongous cauldron that’s enough to last for a couple or more days! I then have two oranges, two chicken biscuits and two slices of Japanese sponge cake. Have you ever tried Japanese sponge cake? Me neither … until now and I tell you, it’s heaven.

Fried noodles in a restaurant overlooking the sea in Bali

THURSDAY

Morning: I have a coffee and an Anlene calcium concentrate. I’m going through an Anlene phase right now. I’ve been through many other phases – the Kellogg’s cornflakes addiction, the Marigold yoghurt fetish, the Gardenia Butterscotch fixation, the siew pau madness, the list is endless. So don’t worry; this Anlene thing will die soon enough. I do a quick 30-minute run before heading to work.

Afternoon: For lunch, I’m again too lazy to go out to eat. I make my Nestum cereal and Milo and get my colleague to tapau something for me. She asks me what to buy. I tell her to surprise me. I wind up with konlo panmee. Not bad. I’m a big fan of pan mee. I’m halfway through the noodles when I have to leave for a meeting. By the time I get back, the noodles are cold, dry and all clumped together. Yuk. So I toss them into the trash.

Night: For dinner, I have noodle soup with carrots, broccoli and egg. Later that night, I’m surfing the net and itching for something to eat. So I have pineapple rubbed with salt.

Udon in Tokyo, which - strangely - nearly killed me.

FRIDAY

Morning: I wake up late. Rush through two cups of coffee (haha, late but still have time for coffee). Today’s another photo shoot.

Afternoon: Like I said, photo shoots are always a license either for a delayed lunch or simply a horrendous one. For lunch today, it’s three slices of gooey cheesy pizza and two slices of garlic bread. When you work through lunch, you always eat mindlessly. Which is bad. And you almost always end up eating more than you usually do. It’s evening by the time I get back to office. I’m checking emails when my colleague offers me a small Shanghai mooncake. Of course I eat it.

Night: I go home to a bowl of noodle soup swimming with carrots, Chinese lettuce, broccoli and fish balls. Nice, light and hot. Have a big mug of coffee right before bed. I do that sometimes for fun. I sleep like a baby.

A delicious meal cooked by Slugabed - salute!

SATURDAY

Morning: I have a mango yoghurt and a banana. Can’t eat too much before working out or I’ll barf. I go for my run and after that, have two glasses of limau ais and a dosai. It’s practically a tradition.

Afternoon: I have a late lunch of dim sum. When it comes to dim sum, I’m a creature of habit. I rarely steer far away from century egg porridge, char siew chee cheong fun, stuffed green peppers, fried radish cake and fried char siew pastry. Yum. Later that afternoon, I make an error in judgement and purchase a pack of frozen mantous. I wind up eating three, just for fun.

Night: A small bowl of spaghetti with minced beef. Smaller than what I’d normally have cos I’m still stuffed from the mantous. I have a sick fondness of processed foods even though I know it tastes pretty lousy. I don’t seem to respect my poor stomach very much, do I?

Snack on Japan Airlines on the way home from Tokyo

SUNDAY

Morning: I have two packs of Anlene, no coffee. For some reason, coffee is a weekday work thing. I hardly do coffee in the weekends, which means technically, I’m not addicted to caffeine and working is hazardous to my health. I go for my run except that I swap the dosai with a full American breakfast. I even eat the toast – gasp.

Afternoon: Feeling gooey – and not in a good way – all day thanks to the heavy breakfast. Hate the feeling of having over-eaten. Yuk. So when lunch time comes, the last thing I want to do is eat. Wind up having ‘lunch’ at a late 4pm: sar hor fun. I don’t know how to translate this. It’s like kway teow soup with prawns and chicken shreds.

Night: It’s Thai tonight. I’m not terribly hungry, so I order a papaya salad. Should’ve paid attention to the chili icon cos the salad is freaking spicy. I nearly pass out. I go home and have three oranges and a few slices of jackfruit.

And that wraps up my food journal for the week. I wonder what good will come out of this?

Food Addictions Of A Non-Foodie

This may be news to some of you but yes, I do eat. Food la, what else? And quite regularly too *gasp*. Contrary to what you may think, I am NOT a chronic dieter and I do NOT have willpower of steel – more like willpower of mee suah. The sordid truth is, I’m an unrepentant snacker, have a sweet tooth and am embroiled in several toxic relationships. With food. And I’m gonna talk about some of them. Yup, you heard right: welcome to my very first bona fide “food” post!

But before I start, let me clarify that I am no gourmand, so my relationships are with some pretty unsophisticated foods. You’re not about to get any fancy-schmancy food descriptions or learn anything of any value here either. Just thought I’d set expectations straight So anyway, on with my “food” post!

1. Barbecued pork [char-seoh-bak in Hokkien; char-siew-yuk in Cantonese; babi in Malay]

Okay, first up: I’m not a pork-lover. In fact, I’m rather picky with pork (that sounds almost poetic). The only pork I can never say no to, is a plate of char siew. I love them in thick chunks (not thinly sliced), all lean meat (no fatty bits) and doused in that beautiful brown gooey sweet sauce (the teen-cheong). The slices must be burnt along the edges so that the meat is encircled by a crumbly charcoal trim that’s almost black in colour. The contrast between the chewy lean meat and the sugary crunch of the charcoal-laced edge is divine.

2. Chinese barbecued pork jerky [bak-kwa in Hokkien; chi-yuk-kon in Cantonese; daging salai in Malay]

Technically, when it comes to chi-yuk-kon, I only go for chicken so it’s really kai-yuk-kon. My love for yuk-kon is undeniable. It’s a drug. I love the saccharine scent. I love the sight of flat square paper-like slices all piled up high in the glass case, the bright yellow spotlights honing in on them, highlighting their uneven surface, which isn’t unlike that of a teenager’s crater-filled, acne-riddled skin. I love it when yuk-kon is juicy (not dripping in oil), finely sliced or better yet, cut into cute little circles. It’s the food of the gods.

3. Barbecued chicken bun [seoh pau in Hokkien; siew pau in Cantonese]

I’ve developed an unhealthy addiction to Mr Siew Bao. Yup, that little kiosk in Sunway Pyramid (which also sells mooncakes and tambun biscuits). It’s halal, so it’s really chicken inside the siew pau, but it’s so-o-o-o good that you can hardly tell the difference (and no, I’m not having a Jessica Simpson moment here). The siew pau is round and its soft, not-too-crumbly pastry is baked to crispy perfection. Bite into it and out oozes tiny chicken chunks mixed in with that brown gooey sweet sauce that I love. I can easily eat three at one go, but no more than that la – what am I, a pig?

4. French fries [kentang goreng in Malay]

I love McDonald’s fries. They’re long, slim (but not too skinny), fried to a perfect state of crispiness, has that gorgeous golden yellow hue that just glistens in the sunlight. The best part is when they are a teensy weensy bit soft (which is how they get if you leave them alone for a few minutes). I don’t add salt or pepper, but I’m a ketchup fiend and can’t eat them without a tub of ketchup. Sometimes, I dip the fries in ice-cream. Yum.

5. Bread [lo-ti in Hokkien; mim-pau in Cantonese; roti in Malay]

I know that I’ve waxed lyrical about bread a couple of times before but this relationship is one that cannot be swept under the carpet. I just love bread, especially the sweet ones with raisins, butter and sugar, that’s a little bit moist and heavy in weight. I don’t fancy the fluffy variety that makes you feel like you’re eating nothing but air. I’m not a fan of busy bread though – you know, those with too much going on. For instance, the ones with 101 different types of grains and seeds and god knows what else, or the half-breed variety like those horrible pizza breads or half-cake-half-breads –somebody please explain to me what’s up with that??

6. Donut kebab [I have no idea!]

I love bite-sized foods cos they’re easy to eat and look absolutely adorable (which is why I’m so obsessed with sushi), so I’m a big fan of donut balls – small and round, lightly coated with powder sugar and all nicely lined up on a stick. You can get them at any bakery and most of the time, they taste good no matter where they’re from. You’ve gotta be a real moron to get donut kebabs wrong.

7. Preserved mango [lou-suain in Hokkien; yip mong-kuo in Cantonese; jeruk in Malay]

It was only in the past couple of years that I’ve become totally possessed by jeruk – particularly the preserved mango from AZ Jeruk. I’ll fill up the tub with ten bucks worth of pale yellow mango swimming in a sea of sugary syrup and tiny chili slices, then go watch a movie – sure beats popcorn anytime!

8. Calamari [char-jiu-he in Hokkien; chau-yau-yi in Cantonese, which also means ‘kena fired from your job’; sotong goreng in Malay]

I love deep-fried sotong – my favourite is the one you can get in Paris Restaurant in SS2. I can eat nothing but that, three meals a day. They’re ginormous with their little tentacles all gnarly and coated in yellow batter. It’s delicious when dipped in sweet chili sauce. Unfortunately, eating too much of this is begging for a heart attack. Why must bad things taste so good la?

9. Durian [liu-liang in Hokkien; lau-lin in Cantonese; also durian in Malay]

Of all the “foods” on my list, this is the only one that can be classified as a real food. Real as in natural and not processed until the mother also cannot recognise. I disagree with people who say the durian is stinky or tastes bad. Hello, chau-tau-foo is stinky; durian is not stinky. Bittergourd tastes bad; durian does not taste bad. What can I say, durian isn’t for weaklings. And if you think you want to acclimatise your tastebuds by first trying out one of ‘em durian cake, durian milkshake or durian whatever, don’t bother.

Cambodia: Home Sweet Home (4/4)

… continued from Cambodia: Phnom Penh (3/4)

Morning’s he-e-e-e-e-re!! The sun is up and I can’t tell you the relief (and thrill) we feel packing up to leave this guesthouse and go back to Jasmine Lodge in Siem Reap. Yippy!

We head downstairs for the breakfast (inclusive, of course) and feast amongst the house flies and mosquitoes under the table.

After breakfast, we visit the Royal Palace. Built over a century ago, it serves as the King’s residence as well as the venue for official and religious ceremonies. Entrance fee is USD3 and there are multi-lingual guides available. You must be respectfully clothed when you’re here – nothing above the knee, no sleeveless tops, no shawls even.

Unfortunately, palace grounds are off-limits today cos the King is expecting some important foreign diplomats the day after.

This is the Napoleon III Pavilion – yeah, kinda sticks out like a sore thumb among all the Khmer-style architecture huh? Looks more like an iron dollhouse than anything else. Apparently, this building was transported to Cambodia all the way from France.

The Silver Pagoda … you can’t pics inside, but it’s named Silver Pagoda cos of the over 5,000 silver tiles that cover the floor. Each tile weighs over 1kg.The Buddha statues in there are … lavish, to say the least. The main Buddha in there is made from emerald … another is made from gold and adorned with over 2,000 precious diamonds, including a 25-carat diamond in the centre of its crown and a 20-carat one embedded in the chest!!

This is the Buddha Tree. It’s an odd-looking tree: its leaves are all huddled at the top while its flowers are dangling on twisted vines around its trunk.

Apparently, these flowers bloom every morning and fall off later in the day. That’s when women – particularly those who are pregnant – will gather the fallen flowers cos they’re believed to alleviate the pain of childbirth. Take the flower and rub it over the belly, I think.

Later that day, I purchase this book ‘Stay Alive, My Son‘ (USD16) – an account of the Khmer Rouge regime by Pin Vathay, a successful, highly educated professional who’s the only one out of his family of 17 who survived the terrible time. I plan to read it on the plane on the way home.

We go for lunch in this little restaurant by the roadside, kinda like a hawker stall. One thing you’ll notice here is that food isn’t entirely cheap. I can’t help it – being Malaysian, I’ve been totally spoilt with dirt-cheap delicious food available at every corner. Compared to what we have back home, of course everything macam damn expensive.

In Cambodia, the average price for a dish at a regular restaurant is USD5. Ask for a cheaper option and you’ll be steered to a roadside coffee shop-style restaurant where each dish costs around USD2 to 2.50. Even the hawker guys also selling things at USD1 and above for each, say, stick of meat or something!

And now, it’s back to take a bus back to Siem Reap. I’m really impressed with the bus service here – they’re not kidding when they say good service and clean toilet.

Speaking of clean toilets, I’m ashamed to say this but the public toilets here beat ours back home anytime. Can you believe it?? Even the ones at the wet market also better. We should be ashamed that after so many years of progress, we still can’t find a way to maintain our public restrooms in a decent state. Why people can but we can’t???

The bus ride is about 5 hours and we’re subjected to Khmer pop karaoke the whole time. It’s a bit depressing the first hour or so but after a while, you grow numb to it. The ironic thing is, 20 minutes before reaching our destination, the driver turns off the karaoke machine and puts on Flo Rida. Amah!

We reach Jasmine Lodge for dinner, then hop back onto the tuk-tuk immediately to go to the Noon Night Market. Must buy myself some more headbands and clutches before flying back home tomorrow.

At USD1 each, they’re a steal, so now, I’m the proud owner of five headbands!

And at USD3 each, I’m the proud owner of four clutches!

And of course, I get myself some more shawls … muahahhahaaa!!

The next morning, we leave for the airport at 6.30am to catch our flight back to KL. Usually on holidays, I dread leaving to go home but in this case, it’s different. I look forward to going back cos I really miss the comforts of home: my nice air-conditioned bedroom, my nice shower, my nice car, my nice office (what the hell did I just say??!!).

While the people in Cambodia are very warm, very hospitable and humble, they’re also really poor and have so little. It makes me feel guilty that I have so much and yet, I’m never satisfied. Couple that with the devastating events they’d recently gone through just a short 30 years ago … it just really disturbs you. Did you know that until today, I haven’t worked up the nerve to watch Schindler’s List cos I’m scared I’ll wind up depressed? Yes, that’s how emo I can get.

All the way home on the plane, I’m glued to my new book ‘Stay Alive, My Son‘. It’s heart-wrenching. Maybe I shouldn’t have read it so soon after the trip but I couldn’t help it … I’m not going to go into a whole book review here but suffice to say, it left me sufficiently depressed for the next few days.

I’m still in a bit of a funk right now as I’m typing this entry. Sigh. I’m thinking I’d better opt for a happier destination for my next holiday.

I NEED TO GO TO A BEACH.