Monday 12 November 2018

Mexican Creeper, Coral Vine or Air Mata Pengantin

We planted the Air Mata Pengantin (translation :  The tears of the bride) for our stingless bees because they love this flowers.  This plant is famously known as Mexican Creeper or Coral Vine.  

The seedling of this Coral Vine is not cheap.  It is being sold up to RM30.00 (Approx. USD7.00) per plant in polibeg or small pot.  Though the flowers are small, they are very beautiful, no wonder the stingless bees love them.

It is easier to plant them by cuttings then using seeds.  Once they start growing, they will start to creep and grow wild.  We have got both the white and pink flowers Carol Vine or Mexican Creeper planted in the pots.  Let's have a more close-up look at these flowers.     

Monday 15 October 2018

Domino's new branch

I believe it's Domino's first time step its foot into Sabah last month, opening its branch at a new shop lots in Bundusan right opposite Beverly Hill Plaza.

We went to try a few weeks ago.  As it's still new in town, the queues are long and basically it's self service, meaning that we have to collect our drinks and pizza after ordering.  The seats are all outside the corridor without aircon, I think there are meant for customers waiting for their take away orders.  


The taste of this cheese pizza is tasty but if you want to enjoy a cozy place to dine in with family and friends for a nice pizza meal, this is not the place, you might want to try their delivery service.  I have not tried their delivery service yet so too early to comment.   Great to have more food outlet chains venturing their businesses in this part of Malaysia to cater for the increasing demand from the tourists and locals.

Sunday 14 October 2018

Farewell Gift - Swarovski Jewelry Set

One of my subordinates resigned last month to further her Master Degree course in one of the state in Peninsular Malaysia.  My immediate boss suggested that we should present her a farewell token as she has more than 5 years service in the company.  He had passed this responsibility to me to work it out.  I thought high and low, and came to a decision not to give her any souvenir that will collect dust.  With the given budget, I went shopping online and bought this from Zalora.
Swarovski Crystals Necklace and Earrings set in a gift box, it is very handy for my colleague to bring it along with her.

Tuesday 9 October 2018

Big Fish Meals

Fish is my first choice when comes to having dishes, I will only opt it out when the shops that we dine in are overpriced for their fish dishes.  

My better half saw a youtube introduction of a newly opened fish shop named "大鱼 Big Fish " in the city.  We went to check it out after church last Sunday.  

It is located just opposite the new railway terminal at Aeropod Commerical Centre.  After checking on the menu, my daughters prefer to order other stuff instead of the centre piece big bowl fish soup.  I was having bad flu and cough that day (still at the time of writing this post), I ordered a bowl of fish porridge to soothe my throat.   Let us bring you along to the Big Fish Restaurant in KK, there is no MSG in their ingredient.  


Address : Aeropod Commercial Center, Bloak H-1-10, Lower Ground, Off Jalan Highway, Tanjung Aru, Kepayan, 88300 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
Hours :  Open ⋅ Closes 3PM ⋅ Reopens 6PM
Phone : 088 203911

Wednesday 3 October 2018

New Kitchen Appliance - Butterfly Air Fryer BAF601D

After searching around the local electrical shops and online shops, finally I am happily settled in with this Butterfly brand Air Fryer,  it is like a small oven.  If you are a person like me, looking for a way to enjoy fried / grilled food without using oil, air fryer is a solution. 

Bought this brand new Butterfly Air Fryer with a real bargain from a private online seller.  It's was only RM230.00 including postage to Sabah

We have been using it to fry/roast chicken, pork, lamb, potatoes fries.  It cooks real fast, without having oil spill all over the place (cook with no oil needed), and food taste real good and healthier.  

You may check out the video below when I unpacked the cooking accessories for this air fryer.










Friday 27 April 2018

Figs varieties Col De Dame Negra (CDDN), Bight Dame (BD), Purple Jordan (PJ)

3 types of figs we plucked from our home garden 2 days ago.  The best ever among many of the figs we have planted.  

Tuesday 10 April 2018

Lunch on a working day

I usually prepacked my lunch to the office.  There are seriously lack of places to have food in the Plaza that I work and I am not willing to go under the hot sun and cross the busy road just to find lunch and come back to the office with sweat to continue my another half day of work in the office.

On  the days that I do not prepack my lunch, I would go to find food at the staircase stall (this stall is literally under the staircase with slanting roof just on top of their heads), it is operated by a pakcik, I guest the rental is very minimal.  But the stall was closed.  Another eatery shop nearby was also closed.  I ended up at 7-Eleven to find my lunch and settled with these buns (RM3.90 in total) with a mug of Min Kaffe.


Vanilla filling bun from Gardenia
Jagung Sweetcorn filling from Gardenia


 Can't really see the sweetcorn filling paste in the bun because its colour is similar to the bun.  Very sweet.

Red Beans paste filling from BTC Bakery
The red bean paste filling is just alright, prefer it to be less sweet too.

I couldn't take in the vanilla bun anymore after finishing the red beans and sweetcorn buns.  I took home and stored in the fridge and I totally forgotten about it over the weekend.  Got to check on its expiry date when I get home this evening.

Thursday 5 April 2018

Purchase Books online from Bookurve

After a few visits to the local bookstores to look for books related to swiftlet with no avail.  I suggested to my better half that we could actually try to find online.  I came across this site called Bookurve, we found a few books on the topic of swiftlet but they are not quite the type of contents we are looking for.  Since I was browsing through the collection of books for sell on Bookurve, I found a  couple of books (in fact more and I have put them on my wish list) which I like from Bookurve.  I bought 2 books and get 1 book for free (randomly chosen by Bookurve) and came with 2 free book marks too.  I have also earned 30 points (RM3.00) through this purchases, the points can be redeemed towards my next purchase.

The books arrived after about 2 weeks, these books that I bought were not on ready stock.  They have to order them from overseas then poslaju to me thus took a longer time.  
A big word of Bible on the book title..please don't be deceived by its title, it is not the Holy Bible that I already have.  This book is about Cryptocurrency by Alan T. Norman.  Priced at RM54.00.    Bought this book for me to get to know more about this emerging currency.

The 2nd book which I really like is on sewing and coincidentally it is another Bible on the title.  Price is RM126.00

 Enclosed with this book is a sewing pattern.  I have not used it yet, hope the pattern will help me in my next sewing project, a tunic blouse or dress.
 Meantime, I put my tunic bible in my sewing accessories box till I have got the right material and time to start sewing.

With buy 2 free 1 promotion, this novel was picked randomly by Bookurve for me.  I like the cover design of this book though.
I do not read novel and it is not my daughters' preference so I just to have to find a place on the book shelf to keep this book for now.  Will read it when I am retired from work. 

I am happy with my purchase experience with Bookurve.  The whatsapp communications has made the whole transaction pleasant and smooth.  I have also taken up a book reading challenge of reading 4 books this year hope I can fulfill it.

{Note : This is not a paid post, this is merely my personal online books purchasing experience with Bookurve.} 

Wednesday 4 April 2018

Fresh Figs from garden to table

After about 2 years of planting fig trees, I have collected up to 20 varieties of fig trees in my house compound.  We have sold some of the small fig trees which we did air layered from our existing trees.  

We have not been able to sale our figs just yet as the figs that we harvested are just about enough for our own consumption probably because we let them grow organic way, we only fertilise our trees once in a while with organic fertiliser, no green house nor spraying chemical.  We have also lost many of our beautiful half ripen figs to the birds all the time, many figs stop growing half way through and countless of them got spoiled by fruits intruders.

We always get very excited when we see our figs fully ripen on the trees and make it to our table.  This week alone we are able to pluck up to 10 different sizes and varieties of figs, we gave away 3 to my sister in law who is trying to grow figs in pots as well.

sending them to my sister in law

enjoying some at home 
Me in action plucking the figs, weighing them and serving them as dessert


Monday 2 April 2018

Bacon Cheese Burger at Burger King

In comparison, meals at Burger King are slightly more expensive than other fast food chain.  We are more frequent to McD because they have more outlets than BK.  We do have our favourite choices at BK thus we returned for more at their Imago outlet.  My favourite is the mushroom burger but I did not see it on the display board that day.  I must have skipped it when I saw black pepper mushrooms burger, I do not like my burger to be hot and spicy.   
 Cheesy French Fries 
 the size of the french fries are bigger and real potatoes at every bites 
 A typical hamburger with slices of onion and cheese sandwiched in the burger just enough for a light meal.
 A double cheese burger
Bacon Cheese Burger is the one we came for.  My better half and my youngest simply love this burger.  

Sunday 1 April 2018

A School Holiday Saturday

On the one week school holiday, instead of letting our girls to have their beauty sleep on Saturday, we woke them up to accompany us to the tamu (open air market) at Giant Kolombong parking lots. The only things that made them willing to follow us are the puppies and cats for sale at the tamu.  We bought our puppies there too some 3 years ago.  

Before going round the tamu, we had our breakfast on the 1st floor food court. Our breakfast preferences were different that day, we walked stall by stall to choose our food and ended up with these on our table.
 Rojak
 Watan Hor
 yes my girl chose chicken rice for her breakfast
my signature breakfast, the meehoon soup.  I was happy to be given 6 different types of stuffed vegetable as toppings.

the name of the food court is Anjung Selera.  This food court had survived, plentiful of food to choose from and air-conditioned.  A few stalls only start their businesses around noon time.  Besides the choices of food, another thing I like about this food court is its high roofing, there is no cooking smell "stick" on our clothing or hair when we walk out of this food court.

With full tummy we can have a more relax and enjoyable shopping at the tamu for fresh local produces for the week.  

Wednesday 28 March 2018

Flower Seeds

To my surprise flower seeds are hard to find at the hypermarkets here, most of the seeds for sale are vegetables.  After visited the stingless bees farm, we decided to plant some flowers to attract the stingless bees to our backyard, our intention is to provide a pleasant home for the stingless bees if we were to put a beehive log at our backyard, the bees will stay if there are flowers around.  

Since I could not buy the flower seeds on the days I looked for them, I searched online hoping to buy  some seeds to be sent to my door steps.  Again to my surprise, a shop that is selling flower seeds online is only a few minutes drive from my house.  

My better half went to this shop the next day morning, he sent me the photos with packets of flower seeds on the display racks. 


 and they also sell something new--- the ready to germinate potted flower seeds. 

After picked and chose, my better half bought 4 packets of flower seeds and he got a free gift from the shop owner too..

 I opened the little paper packet and I found these 2 seeds, engraved with {I Love you 4 Ever}.  My immediate question was "Are these real seeds or souvenir?",  "The shop owner said Yes, they are real seeds, she is giving them free to all her customers." answered my better half. 
But we have not tried to germinate these 2 seeds yet.   That would be an interesting post if these seeds can ever be germinated and produce flowers. [Update : I failed to germinate these seeds, they were covered with fungal after 3 days I planted them in the soil].

Meanwhile, please visit my humble backyard garden which we are working on to add more flowers.

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Banana Cheese Puff Pastry

Could not remember when did I buy a pack of the puff pastry sheets.  Though I noticed it whenever I opened my fridge, I kept giving myself all sort of reasons to postpone my plan to bake some puffs which I planned to do so at the time I bought these pastry sheets.  Without further procrastination, I finally used them to make some banana cheese puff pastry, with my self created recipe.   

Unlike the self made from scratch pastry, the store bought puff pastry sheets always give the 100% result and less work.   

My fresh from oven Banana Cheese Puff Pastry 

The simple method in making the Banana Cheese Puff Pastry :
 Place half slice of cheese on the pastry cheese

 Place your favourite type of banana (I used Pisang Saba cut into half for each puff) and wrap it up.  Seal the edges, egg wash each of them and bake in the oven till the pastries turn brown like this.

 and serve when the pastries have cooled down to room temperature.  
 My afternoon tea : The Banana Cheese puff pastry & hot Sabah Tea

Tuesday 20 March 2018

Bubble C Orange Drink

Bubble C, its name sounds like some kind of a drink for the kids, it is actually a Vitamin C & Calcium drink from Edmark for young and old.  My friend is a member, I am her occasional customer buying Red Yeast Coffee of Edmark's brand, red yeast is said to be able to lower the bad cholesterol, healthy coffee why not.  Few weeks ago, while ordering the red yeast coffee at the same time I ordered this Bubble C orange vitamin C & Calcium drinks meant for my girls, after trying a sachet, I like its fizzy and refreshing taste.  I hardly take cold drinks but for this I like it to be served cold.
Bubble C is suitable for young and old..it is sweetened by natural fructose so it is safe for those with diabetes.


There are 20 sachets in a box, every sachet is equivalent to 3 oranges, I personally do not get the sufficient amount of vitamin C and Calcium from my daily food intakes, this will at least be a supplement for me. 

Like any other sachet drinks, just add lukewarm or cold water, stir till dissolve 

and enjoy a mug of Vitamin C and Calcium goodness!!

[Note : this is not a paid post, merely my own opinions and sharing of one of many products I have tried, however, sincere sponsors are most welcome :D].