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My hubby and I went to have breakfast this morning. Just the two of us spent RM28 on one plate of fish head fried beehon and a single portion of bak kut teh! Ouch! It is ridiculous to pay RM12 for a single portion of bak kut teh which contains only a few pieces of meat. No rice, no yau char kuay, no nothing.

The fried beehon meanwhile is enough to feed only one big eater and it costs RM12 too. Never again will I go to Gurney Drive for breakfast.

Anyway, I have to be home to prepare meals for a relative. Since I am already all sweaty in the kitchen, I have been cooking the family meals more often.

Dishes are nothing elaborate but simple dishes. I see so many people suffering in the hospitals and I guess their diet have a lot to do with their health too. So many have diabetes and their huge, blackened swollen foot are enough to warn me to eat healthily. Hahaha, food blogs aren’t suppose to contain gory stuffs like these but it is true.

Deep fried white pomfret which my kids love. The older ones will chew away the crispy tails and fins while I like the crispy heads. What’s left will be just the middle piece of bone.

Some potato, leek, tomato and carrot stew. Really easy to prepare and the gravy is delicous with white rice.

Spinach soup I made with yoke-chok (a kind of bark), red dates, ikan bilis and century eggs. Refreshing and easy to eat.

Start learning to cook now before the price of foods get ridiculously high. Learn from my blog.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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I have not been able to update much because right now, my ’speciality’ is to prepare meals and drinks for a cancer patient. So, most days I only prepare the regular dishes and I have very little mood to blog.

However, I found this wonderful food blog and wish to share with readers. I do not know the blog owner but I think they have three bloggers. Penang Tua Pui means Penang Fat Guy. I like the blog because they featured many of the hawker areas which I have not been too. I usually eat within a certain radius from home and do not go far. So, it is good to check out Penang Tua Pui and see which foods I have missed blogging here.

They have also include a road map on each post, making it easy for people to find the location. Nice job, Penang Tua Pui!

Popularity: 6% [?]

On Mother’s Day, I didn’t wish to go anywhere for dinner because it seems so corny to join those bunches of people celebrating it. So, my sons said they want pizza from the only outlet they like - Pizza Hut Gurney. I hate pizza so I thought of eating something else first before I order and takeaway the pizza for them (who are at home).

When we got there, I remember reading the review of Kenribbean in the papers a few days ago. So, we decided to check out the place. It is Mother’s Day and you know what? There is not a single patron at dinner time. So, I was a bit apprehensive because it is a sign that something is wrong. But if the papers write about it, I guess it cannot be that bad.

We were greeted by a friendly waiting staff who speaks Bahasa Malaysia. (not sure if the place is halal or serves no-pork but it is bar). We checked out the menu and the foods look decently priced with pastas around RM12, steaks around RM30 and fish dishes around RM16. Moreover, it was dusk and breezy. So, we went upstairs to enjoy the view, the breeze and test out the place.

My son ordered the spaghetti carbonara and it is served with a raw egg. I like that already because that’s how carbonara is supposed to be prepared. The dish and the pasta is very hot so the egg will cooked with the heat. Taste wise, not bad. Knowing how horrible the dairy products prices increased, I shall overlook the lack of cream in the dish.

My hubby ordered the fish, not sure of the name but it does have some nice balance taste of sourish and spicy gravy together with creamy sauce.

The huge mug of fresh orange is only RM6.50 (if I remember correctly) and is enough for two person. Their drinks are all rather cheap, costing only RM2.50 for a can of coke. I hate food outlets with overpriced drinks. That’s why I do not mind featuring Kenribbean.

I ordered the spareribs and you know what? The taste is almost as good as TGIF. I like the barbeque sauce. I think it is RM29.90.

The name is KenRibBean and is right smack at where the Gurney Drive hawkers are. It is sparsely decorated so you can forget about any cosy, romantic dinner. But it is a nice place to chill out with beer, while you sit at the balcony, watching the world goes by. Then again, Penang people probably prefer the hustle and bustle of the hawker centres. It is a pity that their business is slow. Food wise, it is not bad. Price is very reasonable and service staff is good.

Oh did I tell you that I surfed with my Sony Ericsson P1i phone before I decided to eat there? I checked it on my handphone before I walked in. It is good how we can find unbiased food reviews online and make our decision. Of course, you need to have internet access from everywhere. I read the review from YummyBites.

With the drastic price increases, I think restaurants will find it hard to survive in the coming months. I wish KenRibBean success.

Popularity: 15% [?]

The above is a photo of the flower of the banana. Usually, after the bananas have formed, it will still have a purplish watchacallit thingie. The Malays call it jantung pisang or heart of the banana. It is the part of the flowers which did not form into banana. The purplish layers will drop off layer by layer, revealing tiny yellow flower which is full of nectar. The nector is gel like and sweet. I know ‘coz I ate those when I was a kid. There wasn’t pesticides and toxic chemicals then. Don’t do it now ‘cos you may die of poison chemicals. The above are honey bees and not flies, ok?

Back in the kampung, my mom would pluck on of these banana flowers, peel of several layers of the purple thingie and then, steam it. After steaming, the purplish colour becomes brown, of course.

Jantung pisang is a nice dish serves with sambal belacan.

I do not know how to describe the taste except that it is tender, not much taste but lemak a bit and excellent with sambal belacan.

The price of rice has increased so much, now I feel really guilty when I cannot finish my rice. Do you know that not only the prices increase but the local supermarkets and hypermarket has no stock of the cheaper rice? Meanwhile, they slaughter us who buy the Thai fragrant rice. It costs RM42 for 10kg now when previously, it was only RM25 when there is a sale.

So, we must go back to our kampungs, tanam pisang, tanam jagung, tanam ubi kayu to avoid starvation already. Damn, I am getting political on my food blog again. LOL.

(P/S : I did not survive solely on rice, jantung pisang and that green vege. I have a huge ikan terubok for lunch but it is not shown on the photo, ok? But if you feel kesian and wish to donate some PayPal to me, just ask! Hahaha)

Popularity: 20% [?]

Actually, I feel a bit pissed because I just picked up from Malaysiakini the follow excerpt :

Thailand said Thursday it would provide 500,000 tonnes of rice to Malaysia in an emergency purchase as the latter’s national stockpile had enough supplies to last only 15 days.

Don’t you feel angry too? Such news will cause more people hoarding rice. This morning, my hubby already told me that the regular Thai fragrant rice we bought has increased by RM10. That is a 45% price increase. No doubt we know there is a rice shortage, it certainly does not meant that we are all going to be starved to death in a famine.

Talking about that, let’s pray that the victims of the cyclone in Myanmar will receive the help they need. Fast.

Can you believe that a country such as ours, which used to be covered with sprawling green paddy field can face a rice shortage? I say it is bad planning. And bad Governance. Development projects were carried out without proper planning. It was just built, built, built because there are money to be made there. So, all those paddy fields were wiped off. The above beautiful green sawah padi is from Balik Pulau, the only place in Penang which has a few acres of paddy fields left.

So, how do we counter this? Eat less rice. Rice makes you fat. Cook porridge. You just need half the quantity you normally use for rice to make porridge. Add some sweet potatoes for bulk.

Of course, I cook porridge today not because of rice shortage. I cook it because I figure out, one of these days I am going to need to prepare recipes using less rice. But I didn’t expect we would come to this situation this fast.

Salted fish. This is not cheap salted fish but darn expensive ‘mui heong’ salted fish. I wonder if one day, we are going to eat these not as delicacies but as our staple because of rice shortage and fish shortage?

Popularity: 32% [?]