Treasure Hunt from Malaysia

I started my Malaysia shopping list right after we bought the air ticket.. so finally here they are all goodies from home..

I must say the most exciting shopping I had was at the bakery specialty store at Taman Megah,PJ. I was able to purchase all items from my shopping list plus additional. Call me crazy or not, besides the bread improver, cake stabilizer, panda paste etc.. I even brought the cup cake liner, aluminum tart mold and to fu fa paddle all the way from home. Glad that hubby was ok to let me shop like a crazy women. Now is the time to get my hand dirty with all these baking goodies. Hopefully I can start to play with them soon.

Next stop was my pre-package spices hunt. I don’t know about you, for me this is a must in my shopping list. We usually don’t get these much is spices from home.. but since we know our next trip home won’t happen in the near future.. I better stock up with no regrets. I went to look around some recommended brand of spices from LCOM and Lily’s website, but have no luck finding them in Malaysia.. I guess.. now that I know I still can get it online.. it won’t be so bad huh.

Then my snack station consist of some local roasted coffee powder( main for hubby), sambal shrimp roll, meat floss roll, Thai peanut, dry guava ( this is my favorite snack of all time), Nestum whole family cereal, Japanese rice crackers for my little one and some Twisties for my friends.. ( no in the picture)

Last and not least, Chinese herbs for my up coming confinement preparation. Chinese herbal soup premix package, homemade ang chiu (Chinese red wine), red dates, goji, dried logan, dong kwai etc..Yes, we are expecting baby #2 this coming April sorry for hiding the news for so long.. . Since my mom will not be to come and help out, she wanted to make sure I get everything I need to take good care of myself during the confinement.

Besides we also brought home some early childhood education books in Chinese for my little one cause we want to teach him Chinese as much as we can before he become americanized by his school and friends :)

I was a bit worry that our luggages will get rejected due to the weight limit but when we checked in at the airport, total weight for a 3 luggages was only 75 lb… still have maybe 20 lb to go.. I wish I can squeeze more stuff in it.. but it’s too late. Anyway, I am pretty happy with what we got right now and felt lucky that we able to pass the US custom without any problem hee..

Home Sweet Home

Do you feel that time flies like the speed of light when you are on vacation. Still remember 2 months back when we bought the air ticket and I was starting to count down my days for the trip. And now we were back from Malaysia and busy unpacking, catching up some rest, cleaning and decorating the house for Christmas and new year celebration.

We have been home since the 12^th of Dec but were so busy adjusting our sleep routine especially the little one , then working and shopping. Just thought I have a 4 days break last weekend where I can took some nice snapshot of all the goodies I bought from Malaysia, I accidentally drop my camera on the table and broke it. DUH.. so still don't have pictures to show off and yet I need to mail my camera for repair. What a bummer!

Anyway, the trip was great but too short as usual. I wish we can spend more time enjoying the food, the hot weather and just stay relax. This is the first long trip for Aidan. To our surprise, he was doing pretty good. He was able to sleep on the bassinet and play with other kid who sit next to us. He has no problem adjusting the sleep schedule when we reached Malaysia but he was having jet lag when we returned from Asia. Overall, I think it was pleasant experience travel with a toddler as my friend always told us.. prepare the worst and hope for the best.

The main purpose of the trip is to bring my son home to meet my family and relatives. So we did not get to travel to any places besides spending couple days shopping in KL,few days in Ipoh, a half day trip to Pangkor Island and the remaining time mostly stay home with my family.

Can't resist to share with you one of my favorite picture we took from the trip. Enjoy!

Malaysia Trip Count Down Started

It's official now, our trip to Malaysia during Thanks Giving is confirm. Hubby and I were busying arranging the itinerary yesterday and finally we bought the ticket. We will be leaving on the 21st of Nov and returning on the 11th is Dec. It's only 2 weeks trip because i only have these much vacation save up this year.

The air fare was reasonable but the problem is all the day we selected has no opening seats available so we are force to travel during the weekdays. I guess the good news is we save up some $$ by traveling on the weekday but use up more vacation by staying longer. Oh well.. not actually a bad thing cause that mean I can spend another day in Malaysia eating delicious food.

Since yesterday I started my Malaysia shopping list as well and packing list. This will be our first time traveling with Aidan. A lots to pack and things to remember when comes to traveling with a toddler.

Any suggestion what stuff i should get from Malaysia before i regret? Any advice on traveling with a toddler? So looking forward to the trip minus the time we are going to spend on the plane :(

Ba Le Vietnamese Bakery

I heard that one of the Vietnamese specialty is Banh Mi AKA Vietnamese hoagie which made with a French baguette filled with Vietnamese Sausages, pickled veggies and mayonnaise. After some research, I found this Ba Le bakery online and people were giving very good review about their sandwiches. So we decided to stop by to pick up some sandwiches for picnic.

The store is located at Chicago up town area. They area looks ok and safe and they are quite a bit of Vietnamese and Thai community in that area. We arrived at the bakery around 8:30AM which there are already people in and out the store for breakfast.The store are very clean and loaded with all Vietnamese specialties food. if you arrive as early as we are, you can feel that all the food are still warm and fresh out from the kitchen.

Since we have not had Banh Mi before, we decided to go with Ba Le Special sandwich which only cost $2.75. Instead of order another sandwich, we picked up a few other items to try on. We selected Vietnamese Spring roll, 2 Shrimp balls, 1 sticky rice cake and sausage sandwich and a cup of cold Vietnamese coffee. Total cost were $15.40 which I was quite shock. It turns out that the sandwich is the cheapest among all item we get from the store. A cup is Vietnamese coffee cost $3 and 2 little Shrimp balls $4.50. Oh well, I guess it's worth the experience since we hard find a good Vietnamese restaurant in my area.
Here's the verdict for my tasting:

Sandwich - it was pretty tasty. I like the French Baguette. Very fresh and crunchy and the pickled veggie taste great in the sandwich and I wish there are more meat in the sandwich.

Iced Coffee - That's reminded me Malaysia Kopi tiam Coffee with condensed milk. Hmmmm..

Shrimp Ball - taste ok, nothing special but it's a bit pricy in my opinion

Sticky rice cake with sausage- The sausage was fresh in the bakery. I was thinking maybe I can get 1 home. So I asked the cashier how long can the sausage store in the room temperature and she said the sausage will get spoil after a day if I don't put it in the fridge. So she recommended this rice cake to me. The rice cake is basically a sausage sandwich with 2 piece of glutinous rice flour dough like a mochi and the whole was wrapped by 2 pieces of banana leaf. It was quite tasteless actually. I prefer Mochi over this.
Spring Rolls - instead the Nuoc Cham dipping sauce, this spring roll actually come with a sweet dipping sauce much like the Chinese hoisin sauce. Either way, I love the Spring Roll. It is very refreshing food I think.

Todai Seafood Buffet at Schaumburg IL

It was about 5 years back when we went to Todai for the first at LA location. Since then the restaurant become our favorite place to go every time we travel to city where this place can be found somewhere within the close distance.
Hubby and I are seafood maniac, can't blame us because we both from a country where we can have seafood in every meal and now we are in the middle of the great plain where we are no way close to the sea and the seafood are costly and limited choice.

Basically there are 4 stations for food you can start with.
Cold food station consists of premix salads, raw oysters, shrimp cocktail, sushi and sashimi.

Hot food station served all kind of Japanese Udon, Ramen, fried rice and noodles, BBQ Rib and all variety of cooked seafood.

Salad and fruits station loaded with all different kind of fruits, cheese and veggies
Last and not least the dessert station served all type of dessert where there are oriental flavor or western flavor.
We had a blast with the long waiting seafood and sushi meal with 1 exception surprise that my husband think I should blog about this. It was Aidan's first paid meal! 1 cent for children 3ft or under. I guess I do need to pay for the hot water to heat up the milk.

Chicago China Town Captain Bakery

I love bakery. Sometime I wish I went to a culinary or pastry school instead of the current field I am in which I have absolutely no interest with. Anyway, I want to show you some bakery treats we bought from Chicago China Town.

We don't have any Chinese bakery at my home area, so I am especially excited when I saw those lovely cakes and breads displayed in those Chinese bakery stores and wish I could try them all.

We didn't know how many bakeries they have in Chicago China Town, while we were shopping we just ran into this Captain Bakery where their cakes and bun looks quite attractive.

We picked up a few items from the store. I don't think they are especially delicious but i think it's quite tasty.

After bakery shopping, we also stop by one of the locals and visitors favourite place Joy Yee Noodle shop for some dessert. Even though Joy Yee was named as noodle shop but they actually quite famous with their specialty drinks Bubble Tea or Asian Flavor Smoothies. They offers variety of mixed drinks and you have the choice whether to add the tapioca to you drinks or not. I ordered an Avocado Coconut with tapioca. Very rich and creamy which I think it's little too much for an afternoon snack especially after a full meal. I would recommend stop Joy Yee for some sweet smoothies or bubble tea if you go to Chicago China Town.

Penang Restaurant in Chicago

I believe this is the only Malaysian restaurant you can find in China Town Chicago. Not sure if it is chain or franchises, I have been few different Penang restaurants in the United State: Chicago, Philly and Atlanta. The menu are a little different, some taste better than other. I have to admit that Chicago Penang wasn't my favorite among all the Penang I have been but I couldn't resist myself from going to the restaurant to have some Malaysian food. This are what we order from Penang: Penang rojak consist of cucumber, Jicama and ripe mango mixed with Shrimp paste sauce and crush peanut and balacan powder. I was quite disappointed with this dish. Even though the ingredient can be hard to get in the state but I think this can be much done in a better way. Or Maybe I should make my own rojak.
Mee Goreng means Fried Noodles Indian Style. The taste was alright, not as spicy as the Mee Goreng you found in Malaysia.
Sambal Udang or my hubby calls it Sambal Onion because 70% of the servings were onions.
In my opinion, this place is a bit run down and we weren't very impress with the service and food. If you never try any Malaysian cuisine, I think it is worth to give it a try.

Mitsuwa Marketplace

This is one of my Chicago must go destination. Hubby and I love Japanese food. In this market place, not only you can get food related items and also other japanese products such books, electronic, cosmetic item etc..Be warn, the price are not cheap for sure.

Our trip to Mitsuwa was mainly for lunch. There is a food court in this market place where you can try some delicious Japanese fast food menu. I hope they are as authentic as you can get because some of the menu are written in Japanese language which I have absolutely no clue, thanks to all the sample display on the side, hubby and I manage to order some nice food the try.

I ordered Okonomi-Yaki, A Japanese pizza or pan cake with grated yam, eggs and shredded cabbage top with bonito flakes and Okonomi-Yaki sauce. Cost $3

Hubby order a ramen set lunch meal which come with a bowl of noodle, a bowl of rice and an egg.
The ramen noodle was well decorated with a piece of pork belly, some fish cake, mushroom and a preserved plum for garnish.
The rice top with water crest, scallion and the Japanese rice flavor mix.
Aren't they looks delicious? They actually taste delicious especially the noodle soup. Cost $7.50

For dessert, we ordered the Matcha parfait which start with match jelly at the bottom on the cup, follow by 1 layer of whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, sponge cake, matcha and vanilla soft served, a dash of sweeten red bead and some mochi pieces. The parfait cost $3.50. All can I say is Yummy!

After lunch, we went to the Bakery to get some breakfast for the next day. There weren't many choice but we manage to get some cute bakery item.

Strawberry Daifuku - saw this from some blog, they look interested and tasty so we decided to get one to try it out. It turned out quite good, the rice cake were very soft and never know that red bean paste and strawberry go well together.

Japanese Herbs Red Bean Bun - No sure exactly what Japanese herb but i think it just taste like a regular bread with Red Bean Paste filling.
Doraemon Bun - I bought this because of it's cute looking bun. I just blogged about Dorayaki which is Doraemon favourite food, thought maybe this is a great treat to show you what is Doraemon looks like.
Salmon Roe French Bread- as describe French bread top with salmon roe, parsley and some cheese.

IKEA Breakfast

Chowtimes once mentioned about IKEA 99 cents breakfast, we decided to give it a try the one in Schaumburg Chicago. The 99 cents small plate breakfast consist of scrambled Egg, bacon and hash browns. The serving portion seems to be quite small, in stead of the small plate breakfast we opted the regular size breakfast which cost $1 more with a larger portion and additional toast on the side.

The business hour is 10AM to 9PM Monday to Thursday but the Café hour start at 9:30AM with a free Coffee before 10AM. By the time we arrived, we missed the free coffee hours. After all 99 cents a cup of coffee with free refill wasn't sound too bad.

One more thing about Ikea that absolutely blew me away is how kids and babies friendly place you can find in the state. No only they offer the play area for the kids, they also provided a bottle warming station with a microwave and disposable bibs for the baby; free milk and cookies between 3pm to 5pm and they even sell baby jar food in the café for 79 cent each. What else you can ask for?

Aidan is enjoying his breakfast as well and his friend Mr. Panda is patiently waiting for him to finish the food.

Tick.. Tick.. Tick.. Are We There Yet?

The clock is ticking... but I am still in the office reading some blog, check out some website and waiting to get off from work so we can start driving. So I thought maybe I can post my itinerary for the trip :

Friday
4:30PM - Start driving to Iowa, hopefully my son will fall asleep in the car
7:30PM - Dinner at some fast food place
9:30PM - Plan to arrive at Des Moise to meet with my friend and stay for overnight

Saturday
6AM - Start the trip again...
7:30AM - Breakfast at the Tiffany, oops.. actually some place that serve breakfast by the highway
11AM - Another stop for lunch, and no we are not there yet.
3PM - Check in the hotel and get some rest.....
6PM -Dinner at Todai and back the hotel to recharge...

Sunday - Day trip in Chicago downtown and the great lake....

Monday - Shopping Day

Tueday - Heading home.. another day of driving and driving..( are we home yet?)

Chicago here we come

The long weekend is finally here, 1 more day to go and we are outta here. I have been looking forward this trip since January. This is not the first trip to Chicago; In fact, we have been there for so many times. So what's makes the trip so special this time? Traveling with a 9th month old baby. This is my son's first road trip. Without my son, it take us about 9 hours to get there, so I will find out how long it take us to get there this time. Everyone wish us luck when they were told we are heading to Chicago with a baby in the car. I have been hearing all the "horror' story about driving with a baby. I hope I am fully prepared and will try to take it easy.

Our main purpose for the trip is all about food and shopping. Hubby has been craving for Japanese seafood buffet since last year, one place that we definitely will not miss is Todai the Japanese seafood buffet. Next stop - IKEA. We love shopping at IKEA, too bad they don't have any plan to open one near our area, driving 9 hours to get there is quite painful. So I better enjoy myself while I am there.