Chick Chack!

A new photoblog... at the moment, it's called Bart's Fifth Eye.

Love Fruit

During our past two trips to Cameron Highlands, we bought some buah cinta (love fruit). Some people call it the hill tomato as its flesh has a tomato-ish texture. Taste-wise it is sourish with a delicate aromatic sweetish taste. Angie doesn't quite like it because it is sour but I quite like it.

Yee Yee told us that she has seen this fruit in Australia and it is called tamarillo. After doing a simple search on the internet, apparently, it was once considered "a lost food of the Incas". It has been renamed and commercialised in New Zealand. For more information, you can check out this site.


[Fruit d'Amour: Probably named as such because of its shape... like a heart]

Hokey Pokey

After our offal meal last Thursday, we joined Peter, Gladys, Uncle Chris and Aunty Lina for snooker at the Oriental Club at Anson Road. We had fun and we were laughing at each other's snookering antics.


[Cueing for Fun: Waiting for our turns...]


[Read, Aim, Poke!: Angie having a go...]

Offal Offering

Last Thursday (21 July 2005), we joined a group of relatives (Yee Yee from Australia was back on a visit) for offal noodles at the Ho Ping coffee shop at the junction of Jalan Kampung Malabar and Penang Road. By default, each bowl has a couple of minced meat balls, kidney, heart, liver, intestine and brain. Luckily we went in a group and we could pass on stuff we hadn't had the 'guts' to gobble down.


[A Bowl of Pig: (clockwise from top) kidney, meatball, heart, liver, more meat balls, more liver, intestine and brain]


[Brain in a Bowl: A handful of intelligence...]


[Ho Ping Coffee Shop: Junction of Jalan Kampung Malabar and Penang Road at dusk]

Highland Workshop

Over the weekend, we attended a Catholic Engaged Encounter Workshop held at the KRS Pines Retirement Home in Cameron Highlands. The workshop was facilitated by Fr. Ambrose Vaz, and Connie and Lewis Shan from Singapore. Thirteen of us, including the facilitators, attended the workshop.

In between sessions, we had steamboat dinner at You Hoo restaurant in Brinchang, visited the Brinchang Night Market, and had a durian party on Saturday night. Before we left this afternoon, we stopped at Kea Farm.


[See-through Lift: Interesting machine at the Home]


[Fun with Food: Fr. Ambrose digs in...]


[Cool Contrast: No sweat at this night market]


[Satay Strawberries: You can coat these with honey, sugar or chocolate]


[Delirious over Durians: Finger licking good...]


[Dried Flowers at Kea Farm]

Angie left Camerons feeling unwell and uncomfortable (headache and nausea). She is feeling much better now and is resting/sleeping as I write.

More photos available at CEE's Photo Album and Peter and Gladys' Blog.

BEC Meeting

We attended our BEC (Basic Ecclesial Community) gathering last Thursday (14 July 2005) night. This time it was a combined meeting between BEC 4 and 5 of Zone G. Quite a good turnout.

What do we do at BEC meetings? Well, there's a monthly reflection paper that is used as a guide for discussion or sharing on a certain topic. The topic of the reflection this month was on Harmony and Reconciliation.


[Fellowship: We had a little fellowship after our discussion]


[Pleased to meet you: Toes interact too...]

Instant Sichuan Spicy Noodle

There are all sorts of instant noodleS available nowadays. We tried Sun Shun Fuk's Chicken Flavoured Sichuan Spicy Noodle from China/Hong Kong last Thursday. Not bad and the packaging is quite neat. Sometime back, we also tried their mushroom-flavoured one.


[Sun Shun Fuk's Chicken Flavoured Sichuan Spicy Noodle: Wanna play Pick Up Sticks?]

Equatorial Enjoyment

Tuesday (12 July 2005) night saw us enjoying a buffet dinner at Equatorial Hotel with Janice and friends. Janice has just completed her studies in USM *congratulations!* and was in the mood to celebrate. Thank you, Janice, and we wish you all the best in your future undertakings.


[Angie and Janice: Filling their buffer with the buffet]


[Equatorial Egg: This egg had its yolk taken out, mashed, and replaced with tuna flakes, yolk put back, and garnished with an olive ring and fish roe]

Huggy Says Hello!

Huggy was in a mood for photographs the other day...


[Paradigm Shift: Looking at things from a different point of view...]

So Far So Good

Last Saturday night (9 July 2005) after Angie's baking spree, we had dinner at Kafe Goodall on Gottlieb Road. We arrived early enough at about 7pm to secure a parking space at the customer parking lots.

There was quite a good range of food there, from the standard Penang hawker fare to interesting international selections. Angie and I went international, naturally :o). We had something from the Italian stall (Chicken Al Capone, RM7) and a set from the Japanese counter (Unadon, RM10)


[Chicken Al Capone: Cheesy chicken with a mob mop of spaghetti]


[Unadon: Delicious ell in teriyaki sauce served with rice, seaweed soup and a small crab stick omelette]


[Kafe Goodall: So Far So Good...]

As we left, we passed by the Special Nasi Lemak stall... but too full already... *sigh*

Oven Fresh

Today is a public holiday in Penang. No need to go to work... :-)

So, after lunch, I indulged in a little baking spree. Oven menu for today: Bread Pudding followed by yo-yo biscuits. The last batch of biscuits have just come out of the oven and all the goodies are sitting on the dining table cooling down as I write this blog :-) Total baking time: about 2 hours 20 minutes *beaming with pride* Good time for me since it usually takes about 2 hours to complete one baking project. Today I've got two items out!

Fresh from the oven...


[Bread Pudding]


[Yoyo biscuits]


[Bread Pudding: Seconds before entering a certain oral cavity]

Veggie Vestern

Yesterday we had fun entertaining again after a fairly long break (for us, that is). This time we invited two vegetarian friends. What did we serve? Our favourite - Western - but this time it's vegetarian. A first for our guests as well as us! We had tomato soup, our signature mashed potatoes, stir-fried veg (broccoli, carrot, capsicum and mushroom) and Bartian vegetarian meat patties served in mushroom sauce. Dessert was Viennetta ice-cream courtesy of our guests.


[Veggie Chop: Care to guess the ingredients?]

Name That Dish!

Angie got creative yesterday for dinner. While the rice was cooking, she dumped in slices of pork, diced carrots, diced chicken frankfurters, some shallots, some thick dark sauce and soy sauce. And voila! Had a distinct vegetable soup taste to it. What's this dish called? Err... time to play a new game called: Naaaaaame That Dish!


[This dish must have a name: Care to suggest a name?]

Veggie Spaghetti

We started the new month (1 July 2005) with Veggie Spaghetti. What's in it? We put in mock char siew and Japanese cucumber. How did it taste? It tasted like spaghetti with mock char siew and Japanese cucumber :o).


[Spaghetti Vegenese: No animals were harmed in cooking this dish]