Here's My Story

Me: *Looked at Ban's grey attire* What's this colour combo? Trying to camouflage among rocks? Ban: *Did a pose* Jeng Jeng! I am rock ninja! 😂

It all started with Ban complaining about blocked nose and phelgm. He had this before and normally it just naturally goes away or at most he takes antihistamine once. However, this time, high fever came later! Since it persisted despite taking 1000mg paracetamol twice, I urged him to see doctor. Normally at this particular clinic, they would inisist on performing RTK (rapid antigen test kit) test on patient who exhibits Covid-19 symptoms even if the patient has already self-tested. Hence, I suggested to Ban not to do it at home. To my surprise, the clinic changed its protocol: they didn't insist or even suggest. Ban was prescribed medicines to treat his symptoms and was advised to do a self-test for Covid-19. He tested it once home and it was positive. This was on Saturday. I tested mine immediately thereafter and it was negative. I felt fine too. So quickly got him isolated in the master room (that has attached bathroom). However, at night, my throat felt scratchy an

While I was doing physio exercises and Ban came to kaypoh... Me: Honey, tomorrow is public holilday. Ban: Ok. Me: Tomorrow is also Monday. Ban: Ok. Me: Do you know what that means? Ban: No. Me: *paused exercise while giggling* Ban: *laughed* Me: What do you usually do on Monday, Wednesday and Friday? Ban: Oh! I would have to go to gym during the day (gym close early at night on public holiday) This kind of conversation happens regularly. It would be great if all of them are in this kind of mood.  😅

Whenever we have prawns and there are shells, I always use them to make prawn broth and then freeze it until it's used to make a soup dish that consisted (thrown in sequence) onion, enoki mushroom and mock snow crab leg meat. As with all broth, Ban can't stand the smell when I'm making it but he's more than fine to have the soup in the end. He especially loves watercress soup and ABC soup (with slightly more tomato) where I use homemade chicken broth. There was this time, though, where his mum gave us some very fresh prawns. She bought them live and concussed them in freezer before passing some to us. These prawns emitted stronger smell. I didn't mind but not Ban. I thought that as usual the end product, the soup, would be fine for him but he complained about it. First time. So the next time I cooked broth from shells of these prawns, I asked my family for advice on how to lessen the 'prawn-y' smell. Mum suggested ginger but we didn't have any that time.

Despite the delicious deep fried prawns we made, we still didn't know how to make them closer to the typical Japanese prawn tempura. One day, after Ban ordered soba with prawn tempura as a side, I jokingly asked the waiter (he recognised us as regular customers) at Sushi Tei for permission to watch the chef cook the prawn dish for a nominal fee of RM 1 😁 Quite surprisingly, a few minutes later, he returned to us and gave us a tip: drizzle the batter on top of the prawns while frying them. This method was validated when we examined the prawn tempura that was served: the thicker 'fluffy' flour was only on one side. Later, Ban watched a couple of videos on how chefs do it. One of them did drizzle the batter while frying. Furthermore, a tip from her was to make a few small incisions at the top and bottom of the prawns. So the next time we cook, we incorporated both tips and here's the result: Yes, they still curled up because we didn't bother to remove their spines. T

One day, as we were about to leave our capark lot, a couple of strangers, with masks on, walked past. Not sure who initiated it: the result was a spontaneous waving and greeting between them and I. When we were in the car... Ban: Who are they? Me: Oh, I thought that guy was SF but I don't who the gal is. Ban: SF? Doesn't look like him. Me: Oh?......Wait: ya hor, he lives in a different block. Alamak, then why they waved at me. Ban: ......   The next time we bumped into them, after the exchange of waves... Me: Maybe they're that couple with the talkative child. Ban: No lah. Me: The woman's figure seems to be the same. The man, though, is a little different.   After the third encounter... Me: Alamak, it's not the woman. She's not wearing mask and so I can tell she's not the mum of that child. Then who on earth are they? Ban: I don't know. Me: *laughs* One day, we might need to confesss. "Errr, sorry ar, who are you? How do you know us? Ban: *laughs*

My sister's former house had lots of mosquitos from late evening onward. Their presence was obvious especially in bathroom. One day, Ban randomly bought this to deal with it: It worked well! We sometimes used it at our home as well, especially at where we're using our laptops. It's quite expensive compared to conventional insecticide because of its much smaller size but it's worth it to deter pesky mosquitos.

Me: Let's go to Centrepoint to get dinner. We then can go to Jaya Grocer to get gas lighter and your Weetbix. Bla bla bla ...... Ban: Huh? Me: Let's go to Centrepoint. Think that's all you need to know. Ban: Yeah! Bagus! 👍 😂

Ban's experiment with prawn tempura wasn't done yet. There was one more step: mixing in yuzu & chilli pepper paste into the tempura flour batter.  There's a funny story to this: he wanted to infuse tempura prawn with black pepper and flavour the soba sauce/soup with yuzu but since he couldn't get yuzu, he bought this yuzu & chilli pepper sauce only for the prawn. Yes, that's the reason. Don't ask me why 😆 So one day, we continued with this experiment: It was so delicious that I didn't need to dip it into the tempura sauce. So addictive too! Definitely different than any deep fried prawns I had before. However, given that it's a lot of work in preparing this meal, we weren't be having this often.

Happy anniversary my dearest Ban :) May we grow old together with much joy and happiness. Like previous year , we celebrated twice but this time the first one was unintentional: for the first time, I mixed up the dates 😅  Both times we ate at Kinpachi. During this Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan, the restaurant is open for dine-in, subject to following conditions: 1. Reservation is a must 2. Need to choose one of three available hourly timeslots and, yes, dining time is restricted to an hour On our first dinner, we shared an oden and four pieces of hanpen. Ban also had soba with mixed tempura whereas I had four pieces of salmon sushi and a stick of scallop yakitori. We were happy with the food but I was so full! On our second dinner, Ban had one of his favourite set meals there i.e. teppanyaki seafood, which I had 6 pieces of salmon sushi (they serve the best salmon sushi imo) and 2 pieces of bachi maguro sushi. Forgot to take photos, once again. All good!

Ban's attempt at cooking prawn tempura sort of failed twice. The main problem was that almost no flour stuck to the prawns. He researched and the only difference he could have done was to make sure the prawns were not wet, Upon speaking with my sister, I learned two other things we could do differently: make sure there are bubbles in the oil before frying the prawns (it's an indicator that it's hot enough for deep frying) and mix the flour and (cold) water to make it into a paste for better coating. Here's the result: Much better than previously, with flour wholly coating the prawns but still not like those served in Japanese restaurants. Curiously, the ones in restaurants are straightened. Maybe that will make the difference? Although delicious, with tempura sauce, I cautioned Ban that we shouldn't do this often because there was too much cleaning to do due to oil splat on stove and some on the floor, quite difficult to scrub the pot that was used for deep frying,

I'm sure many by now are familiar with Uncle Roger and his egg fried rice :) He reveiwed and commented on this dish made by others, as a lay person (Nigel Ng, a stand up comedian, acts as Uncle Roger). Finally, possibily due to request from many, he cooked this dish too: At 7:25 mark, he was telling viewers to use 'feelings' to know how much soy sauce to use. "We put soy sauce in until our ancestors tell us it's enough." Meanwhile, Ban had twice tried cooking prawn tempura but somehow the flour mix consistency wasn't right, despite following the measurements on the packages (tried two different brand). My sister coincidentally had a packet of tempura flour lying around for sometime already and so upon hearing Daniel's problem, she tried to make the dish. The dish looked ok, much better than Ban's but nowhere like those typical ones served in Japanese restaurants. She didn't read the package's instruction and used 'feelings' to make

Me: Why did you close the window? Ban: I don't know. I just closed it. 😑

One of our choices for Tuesday dinner is Domino's Pizza because of their Tuesday special deals online. We collect them at Damansara Jaya. In one of our trips, I noticed the dim sum restaurant Jin Xuan Hong Kong. I tried and loved their shrimp rice roll, which is a must-have dim sum for me.  Ban doesn't like dim sum in general but he was willing to have it once a while because of me :) and so we did just that when dine-in was allowed. It was also an opportunity for him to have his favourite Chinese tea i.e. Jasmine tea. Since then, we usually order exclusively shrimp rice rolls haha. During this latest dine-in ban, we would order 5 plates of it: 3 for him. Yes, it's delicious: smooth, good amount of prawn, and absolutely tasty fragrant sauce.

One day, I requested to clean the ceiling fan. So while I got ready pail of water and cloth, I asked Ban to switch off the fan Me: *Hearing clicking noises* Honey, are you play with switches? (fyi, I know he was just figuring out the correct switch haha) Daniel: I'm trying to find the right switch. Me: *Laughs* Ok, please get the ladle. Daniel: What?? Me: *Laughs* I meant the ladder. You can get the ladle too, if you want, but I don't know what you're going to do with it

Ban has taken up to paying parking ticket in Selangor using Smart Selangor app and to use the physical tickets, purchased earlier, as backup. (This reminds me: I want to check the expiry date of the physical tickets) One day, as we were looking for parking space during lunch time, I noticed an MBPJ officer checking parking validity of cars and so I reminded Ban to pay for parking, after we got a space. Yes, there were parking summons on some cars that we walked passed later. However, we were shocked to discover a parking summon on Ban's car, after we were done with lunch. An upset Ban called Smart Selangor. One good thing about Ban is that he never sound upset when seeking redress. To his horror, during the conversation with Smart Selangor, he realised that he keyed in his car plate number in the app with one wrong letter. Eeek. He promptly corrected it but of course the summon remained because the ticket was paid for the wrong car. Smart Selangor advised him to contact MBPJ to ask

One night, just when we were about to sleep, Ban went out to do one last thing on his computer (quite important). After quite sometime, I went out to get him. Turned out that he was doing one more thing, as I guessed. Me: You are like a sheep. Have to shepherd you. Ban: But I'm a sheep who loves you. Baaaaa. 😂💓

   " The series follows the adventures of two soulmate cultivators who travel to solve a series of mysteries that link to a tragic event in the past. " (from Wikipedia). The Untamed was a series that Ban came across and thought it something we could watch together. This live action version is, to me, technically a bromance but it's based on a BL web novel. It seems that Ban had never watched a proper Chinese drama series i.e. the kind that runs for like 40+ episodes. So watching The Untamed was a first for him. Around halfway through, he did complain a little (e.g. "Too many named characters.") but surprisingly stuck with it till the end, a total of 50 episodes! We both loved it :)

Eleven years of many ups and few downs. Love this man to bits! Muaccccck! We went out twice to celebrate. Firstly, we had lunch at Jyu Raku. I was pleasantly surprised that their lunch sets were avaialble during weekend too. The sets were exactly the same as their dinner sets but RM 3 cheaper.     However, the set I tried before, and still the preferred one, was too much for me and so I ordered this instead. The photo is missing a piece of salmon belly sushi because I forgot to snap a picture of it before eating :P I like this dish. First time I came across coffee jelly in a restaurant. The texture was just right and it wasn't too sweet. I would have preferred coffee with milk though. Later we had dinner at Dilmah Tea Restaurant. Just kidding :P It was at Three Little Pigs & The Big Bad Wolf. We qualified for this free gift, unintentionally, when Ban ordered I Am So Hungry I Could Eat A Wolf. They had a promotion of buy a drink and get another drink of the same type for free. D

Kinpachi remains one of our favourite haunts for special occassions. Not economically viable to have it frequently :) I usually order salmon sushi and....salmon sushi hahaha. This time (we were there to celebrate Ban's birthday) I tried something that caught my eye: softest fishcake. It was truly soft, so much so that it almost melted in my mouth once I bit into it. It was like a mix of tofu and fishcake but much softer than the common ones.  There were four pieces on a plate and that turned out to be too much for me. Would have preferred to have two pieces. Hopefully someone would share a plate with me in future