Happy Chinese New Year

HarKau SiewMai wish all readers Gong Xi Fa Cai,



May the year of Tiger bring luck, fortune, wealth, health and happiness to you and your family.

Happy Chinese New Year

~~~Say No to TIGER skin and TIGER meat~~~

CNY lucky food

Ever heard of people complaining that they gain weight a lot during Chinese New Year?

Well, why not? the whole 15 days is full of eat and eat and eat....drink, drink and drink....

Remember traditionally people used to cook for whole day just for the reunion dinner? Nowadays most people no longer do that and simply have a good 8 course meal in restaurant or go for steamboat. Well, for me, my mom will still cook the traditional Teochew and mixed Hokkien food to usher Chinese New Year. Anyway, let us see what do certain food mean in Chinese New Year whether it was serve as food or an offering to the goddess.

Mandarin Oranges = Gold (Kam)
Nian Gou/Sticky Cake = Growing perfectly (Poo Poo Kau Shen)
Pineapple = Inviting good fortune (Ong Lai Ong Lai)
Apple = Harmony and Safe (Peng Peng Ann Ann)

Fish = Plentiful of wealth (Nian Nian You Tu)
Prawn = Happiness (hee hee haa haa)
Steamboat / Dumpling / Rice Flour ball = Tuan Yuan

Osyter = Good things (Ho Sie)
Fatt Choi = Good Wealth
Low Sang / Yee Sang - Life of fullness
Yam Basket = Abundance / Plentiful fortune
Fish Maw / Pig Stomach = Place to keep money
Abalone = Luxury
Choi Sam = Wealth
Poon Choi / Fortune Pot = Choices, Abundance, Wealth

Strawberry Field @ PJ uptown

This is another long overdue posting...

During Christmas eve last year, I decided to have a simple dinner together with Nick, George, Yap, CL and YT. As we are all auditing at different area I decided to gather at the middle point which would be around PJ town. Bored about Jaya 1 and SS2, I decided to try out some new food in PJ uptown...

I search online and saw some recommendation for a cafe name Strawberry Field, located in PJ uptown just a step walk from Menara MPPJ...

YT and CL order the Christmas set which come with a spagetti, brownies, soup and drinks. As both of them arrive early, they have almost finish their meal when I am there together with George. Before I even have my seat, YT shake his hand indicating the food wasn't up to his expectation.

The spagetti is not good at all. No taste of cheese at all and it seem like a fried noodle in 'tai chow' stall...The brownies is actually chocolate moist cake topped with ice- cream and chocolate

I settle down and decided to have meal here while deciding where to go for second round later. I order grilled fish with lemon sauce while fook weng order his seafood platter. Again the food was so so only. The lemon sauce seem to be done in Chinese style. The seafood platter is just like sotong goreng and udang goreng at nasi kandar stall...

Ken Yap arrive later and order his steak. He say is quite tender but the sauce do not have the 'kick' to make the steak taste good....

Nick arrive the last and after we warn him about the quality of western food, he decided to go for asian food. He order tom yam fried noodles and it was proven that asian food taste much much better here.....The tom yam paste is really a kick off....Spicy, Sour, Salty....just nice for the fried noodles.

Quality and taste wise it was not good and not up to my expectation but for the ambience and price I would say it was reasonable. Just have a look at my honey lemon....They chunck the whole lemon in it and not nicely sliced it.....Sweat!!!