Short Post: Grandpa Wong's Passing

Grandpa Wong passed away peacefully yesterday. Nee is now in Sibu with her family for the funeral. The carriage will leave the house early tomorrow morning.

Chap Goh Mei @ Toh Yuen Hilton

Greg and I have been feeling very under the weather for the past week. Somehow, our flu decided not to go full bloom but instead gave us very annoying bouts of minor fevers (small headaches with slight temperature and shivers), throat irritations and little coughs. Those little buggers! They're smart enough to stay cunningly low so that the doctors didn't see the need to give us flu medication or antibiotics but enough to make us feel like we have to drag our feet to places.

I think we have been binging helplessly on unhealthy food & soda drinks and I now carry 2kg of CNY around my waistline. I don't know if that is a figment of my imagination but my pants are telling me that it's real. I think our whole body is trying to get rid of the sudden influx of fats, oils, cholestrols and anything unhealthy you can think of. Greg's zits have been popping like popcorn. And you know what, after 15 days of gross-out binging, we capped it off with another big one last night.

We celebrated my MIL's birthday plus Chap Goh Mei last Saturday with Greg's family at Sin Chui Siang in Petanak. Can you believe it, we actually forgot our camera completely. Shows you how tired we were feeling. So there will be no posts on that. With half our taste buds disarrayed from flu, we'd probably have not done the place justice anyway. But we do want to go back there and eat and write a proper review as we heard that the dim sum there is good.

Last night, with Raymond, we took my parents to Hilton Toh Yuen for our little Chap Goh Mei dinner to mark the end of othe lunar Chinese New Year celebrations. And of course, it also marks the end of our binging marathon. We need to detox from today onwards.

Toh Yuen is not a new restaurant. It has been around for a long time now and we really cant remember when was the last time we were there. It is probably due to it's price, it's not everyday that any Ah Seng or Ah Khiong would eat here.

With Hilton being the only 5-star (remotely like) hotel in Kuching, you can expect quality atmosphere, service & food.

We found this painting interesting. It depicts the Chinese zodiac animals.



Ambience is definetely good! Waitresses very inconspicous but attentive.

Toh Yuen had set meals for the occasion but we decided to order from their menu as there were only 5 of us.

Double boiled chicken soup. Sweet!

Szechuan Duck ~ The duck was excellent because it was just nicely done, succulent with enough flavour, but not too salty.

This is our favourite ~ Stir Fried baby kailan with garlic and they topped it off with little strips of cuttlefish, which really brought out the flavour of this simple dish.

The butter prawn balls were the most expensive dish for the night. RM65. We were eating gold. Absolutely delicious! So nicely cooked and still piping hot when served!

Brocolli with mushrooms & pacific clams ~ No comments.

Raymond ordered the mango pudding desert which I didn't think worked for me cos they used mango syrup instead of the real thing.

Toh Yuen is definitely a 5-star Chinese restaurant. 5 out of 5 of the dishes were good. All nicely done and just right but pricing also 5 star which means you could probably get the same dish at 2/3 of the price out there. Guess the other 1/3 is for services, ambience and the view. Well, we need to indulge once in a while. Oops that is what we have been doing for the past 15 days!

Something for Chap Goh Meh: Mushroom & Brocolli Platter

Greg and I have been trying to eat healthy and that means good stuff and lots of vegies after all those CNY binging and over eating of junk and junk and more junk. So we're trying to do more stir fries, soup and fishes at home.

One of the dishes I cooked in the last few days was this ~ the Mushroom Platter with Brocolli. I think it will make a very good dish for parties, chap goh meh and other festivities. Normally I would include fresh oyster and shitake on top of the abalone mushrooms. You can also add champignon as well. But this one was just plain abalone mushrooms with some pacific clams.

Serve 5-6

350-400 ml of good healthy chicken stock. Dried scallops or dried oysters can be added to chicken stock to enhance flavour.

1-2 stalks of abalone mushrooms, sliced

1 packet or approximately 8-10 pieces of oyster mushrooms

6-8 pieces of nice, big juicy shitake mushrooms, soaked in room temperature water till soft.

1 can of pacific clams (optional)

1 stalk of brocolli, cut into smaller stalks

2 tbsp of light soya

1 tbsp of oyster sauce

2 tbsp of hua tiaw wine

add salt & pepper to taste**

1) Chicken stock can be prepared well in advanced. In a wok, heat up the stock. Add all the above seasoning except hua tiaw cooking wine, salt and pepper. When boiling, add mushrooms, one type at a time, to blanch them in the stock. Starting with oyster mushrooms, dish out and place them in the centre of your plate. Then the abalone mushrooms, to be placed around or on top of the oyster mushrooms. Shitake can go around or if you have really nice big ones, they can cover the entire top of the platter.

2) Blanch pacific clams in the stock next and finally the brocolli. Dish out and place them around the mushrooms.

3) With one tbsp of potato or corn starch, thicken the stock. Add hua tiaw wine. Pour sauce on top of platter and serve.

** Add extra salt and pepper if you wish but we like it on the light side.