Vietnam

Sandy and I followed Mum and Dad to Ho Chi Minh City for a long weekend. We stayed at Hotel Majestic, a beautiful French colonial hotel overlooking Saigon River.











Drinks on the roof of the hotel overlooking the river.





And breakfast overlooking the river!



Crossing the road in Ho Chi Minh City involves dodging 1 million motorbikes.





Apart from Phil falling sick for 24 hours with food poisoning, the food was great!















Sandy emerging from a real Viet Cong tunnel!



Dad emerging from a tunnel widened for oversize American tourists. The tunnel may have been widened but it was still a horrible eperience crawling through 30 metres of it.



Phil and a real American tank that hit a landmine 33 years ago.



Phil standing in a crater caused by a B52 bomb! It's huge!

Jonathan's 50th birthday

Happy 50th Birthday Jonathan!

Shah organised a great spread of food at Cable Car bar. Later on we headed to Brix at the Hyatt.

Mum & Dad's visit

Mum and Dad flew over for a quick visit to Singapore before heading to Vietnam on holiday. On the evening of their arrival we celebrated Chinese New Year in Holland Village with yu sheng,



noodles and dim sum ...



The following evening we ate at La Cuisine, a tiny French restaurant in Cluny Court. We'd been meaning to try this place for ages as we enjoyed the chef's cooking at her previous restaurant, Chez La Mamy, in Ann Siang Road. A young Singaporean girl, the chef trained in France and in Singapore. The food was just as good as at the last place: phil started with prawn and fois gras ravioli, followed by veal and pasta; Sandy started with goat's cheese salad with duck confit as a main; Mum had a large slab of melt-in-your-mouth fois gras to start with and a tuna steak for her main course; Dad started with grilled scallops and joined Sandy with duck confit as a main. For dessert we shared chocolate flourless cake and creme brulee. Delicious!

Another evening we took Mum and Dad and George and Kiki to one of our favourite Southern Indian banana leaf restaurants: Iniavan, in Little India. We feasted on Mysore mutton and masala mutton, fried fillet of fish and fried whole smaller fish, vegetable cutlet, paper thosai and biryani rice.

Most fun was a meal at Bejing Steamboat in Geylang; we sat at one of the tables outside on the street.



Sandy chose the dishes -- to be dunked into the two boats -- from the trolley and selected slices of raw pork, beef and lamb, tofu, meat and chive dumplings, meatballs, beancurd skin, sweetcorn, Chinese cabbage and spinach.









Geylang is also home to Singapore's largest redlight district and watched a succession of China girls disappear into doorways with customers.

Mr & Mrs Khor

Congratulations to Aik and Karen who were married on Saturday 24 February in Penang, Malaysia. Aik is Sandy's school friend and both Aik and Karen worked with Sandy in KL, and later in Singapore, at VHQ Post.

After a Catholic ceremony at Church of the Immaculate Conception in Pulau Tikus, 175 guests were treated to a wonderful beachside drinks reception and buffet under a large, U-shaped marquee in the grounds of Lone Pine Hotel in Batu Ferringhi.

A beautiful day befitting a beautiful bride!

Penang

After the Chinese New Year celebrations in KL, Sandy drove up to Penang with her family to visit relatives whilst I went back to Singapore. The following weekend, I flew up to Penang to join Sandy and attend Karen and Aik's wedding. We stayed at Lone Pine Hotel in Batu Ferringhi, where the wedding was taking place. View from the hotel room ...



Sandy managed to find all her favourite Penang Chinese hawker food during the three days she was visiting relatives ... pictured below is Sandy's dad ordering fritters ...



Malay lunch prepared by Sandy's auntie from Kangar Perlis, on the border of Thailand: grilled stingray, ayam masak merah, sambal udang with egg, and fried tofu ...



Sandy, Phil, Hueh Hueh, Ah Ngae, parents, auntie and cousin went out for Malay food and feasted on fish head curry, deep fried fish, sambal eggplant, deepfried spicy chicken, omelette, sambal deepfried eggs, sambal cuttlefish, Indonesian tempeh, and extra bowls of chilli sambal on the side just in case the food wasn't hot enough ...





Sandy and I enjoyed a quick Indian roadside meal before heading to SOHO bar to drink. The nasi lemak (spicy coconut rice with anchovies, peanuts and eggs) was so hot even Sandy was crying! We also had mutton soup and beef tendon soup with thick slices of crusty white bread, and roti canai with fish curry and dhal. Delicious ... and the bill came to RM12 (US$4 / £2).

Happy Birthday!

Phil celebrated his 36th birthday at Out of Africa — a South African restaurant in KL — with Sandy, Hueh Hueh and Ah Ngae.







We ate peri peri chicken livers and garlic bread; potato skins with spicy beef; oxtail potjie (a kind of beef stew); elephant ribs with lashings of putu (African maize); ribeye steak; and Mozambique spicy grilled king prawns. With crepes and birthday cake for desert.



The restaurant staff singing Happy Birthday to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"!!





Mother-in-law prepared a traditional (in the Cheah household, anyway) birthday lunch of mee goreng (long noodles for longevity), red boiled eggs (err, well they're red so that's gotta be good) and tumeric fried chicken.







The final birthday celebration was back in Singapore when Phil, Sri and Mohan started partying at 11.30pm and walked out of the bar at 9.30am! It was actually quite confusing walking out of the dark bar into bright sunlight. We then went for breakfast in Little India ... masala thosai ... and straight to Prince of Wales in Dunlop Street for hair of the dog (not really hair of the dog as we were still drunk).

Chinese New Year

Sandy and I are up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, blogging from Sandy's parents house (courtesy of a very fast wireless connection belonging to the neighbour - we had to ask him to leave his router on as he was taking the family to Genting Highlands to gamble).

After eleven years, it's finally Phil's year again: Year of the Pig. Other notable pigs include Arnold Schwarzenegger (Phil +24 yrs), Fabien Barthez (same age), Hillary Clinton (+24 years), Jack Ruby (dead), Sacha Baron Cohen/Borat (same age) and, from closer to home, Ah Ngae (-12 years) and father-in-law (+24 years).

Instead of the usual steamboat for Reuninion Dinner, Sandy's mum prepared a feast of pork trotters and sea cucumber in black sauce, steamed chicken with Thai basil (from the garden) dip, roast duck, shredded turnip, and fish maw and pig stomach soup ... delicious! I much prefer this to style of food to steamboat. The others all disagree.





Sandy and Hueh Hueh loading ang pau (red packets) with dosh for giving to unmarried relatives and friends ...





First Day lunch was leftover pork trotters and sea cucumber in black sauce, roast duck, shredded turnip, and fish maw and pig stomach soup with three new dishes: wood ear fungus, golden needles and vermicelli, a dish of mushrooms, carrots and snow peas, and some vegetarian goose (made rom soy bean) from the neighbour ...



Spotted these on the table ... the nian gao is the traditional Chinese New Year sweet and sticky cake (to sweeten the words of the Kitchen God when he makes his annual report about the household); the lotus represents continuity (I think) and I have no idea what the leek means ... anybody know?



Phil wondering whether to buy a massage chair ... hmm, I think not.



Phil is heading back to work in Singapore on the Second Day, Sandy is staying up in Kuala Lumpur with her family. They will then head up to Penang, where Phil will join them on Friday. See later posts...

Phil& Sandy wish all our blog visitors "Gong Xi Fa Cai" !

blogging at the bar

Blogging at my local bar. The cactus was donated by the bar staff!