Omitsu Koshi Japanese Restaurant

Have been my own test rabbit for my home cooked meals and seriously getting a mite bored and tired of eating my experiments :). So, yesterday, decided to go out for dinner. Went with a Japanese food buff friend and we decided to go for something a little authentic and not the Japanese fast foods places like Sakae or Sushi or Genki... not that I am saying that they are no good... just wanted something a little different but reasonably priced at the same time.

I have eaten at this little Japanese Restaurant several times before and I really enjoyed the little place. It is tucked away along Jalan SS 22/23 Damansara Jaya, facing Atria Damansara. If you drive along the inner circle, this Restaurant is several shoplots before you reach Public Bank. The name of this Restaurant is not visible outside or it was kind of small that I actually missed it but it is located below very large signboard which reads Beauty Haven.



They have a large selection of Bento Sets and ala Cartes on their menu and the portions are quite adequate, even for a big eater like me. We just ordered a set each and one of my favorite tofu side orders, Age Dashi Tofu.

Age Dashi Tofu (RM6)

Teppan Salmon Set (RM20) complete with miso soup and rice

Sashimi Bento (RM26) comes with miso soup, cawan mushi and rice

With 1 added Gohan (white rice), the bill came up to RM60.95 and that was inclusive of taxes. A very lovely fussy free meal. We arrived at about 7:30pm and since it was a weekday, we didn't bother to make reservations. But if you intend to go on a weekend, I would advice you to as the little Restaurant is kinda tiny with limited seats.

Location:
Omitsu Koshi
Japanese Restaurant Sdn Bhd
No 17 & 19 Jalan SS22/23 Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Tel : 03-7722 2779

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Qing Ming Time - Wonder if Dad Gets the Stuff??

It is that time of the year again, Qing Ming (Cheng Beng) festival, which is the Chinese equivalent of the All Souls Day. The actual date is the 4th of April this year and that being a Friday, most of us were not willing to take a day off from work to go visit Dad at Nirvana Memorial Park in Semenyih. So teruk hor? Where is the filial piety? Ha ha.. Dad is very forgiving lah.. what the difference in a day.. anyways, mum says we have 10 days before and 10 days after the 4th of April to make the visit. We decided to do it on the 5th, the day after.

A house for Dad

Sometimes I wonder if those who have passed on actually receives all those paper paraphernalia that we burn. Filial piety should be done whilst the person is still alive and kicking and not after he or she has passed on. Sometimes doing that (my personal opinion) is to show others how filial a son or a daughter we are when we burn tonnes of these paper stuff to them after they are gone. In fact, I'll always wondered to myself, does Dad get all these stuff that we burn? Do any of them get all the stuff that their loved ones burn for them?

A Maid and A Butler ??

Being a Buddhist, I have been taught that when we die, unless we have achieved enlightenment and is able to leave the circle of rebirth, there are 6 rebirth realms that we will come back to... shan't go into that but if you are interested to read more, then it is all here in Wiki. But whichever way, I am quite suspect as to whether those who have passed on will be able to receive these stuff that we burn each year. I personally believe that it would have been better to do charity work in the name of those departed so as merits can be accorded to them, thus improving their Karma.

I did ask several people about this and of course it will depend who I asked. Most practicing Buddhists would share the same opinion as myself. The shop selling the paper paraphernalia would definitely tell you that the departed will be able to receive these paper offerings. The shop will give you special maps and "envelopes" to put the name of the departed, the date and time of their demise, the offerer's name (mua) and their relationship with the departed (daughter). Sure can get.

My brother for sure believes that dad will get all the stuff that he burns each year. Since 2005 ( we were not allowed to go during the first Qing Ming - 2004 after his passing) until this year, my dear old brother has been burning a car each year for Dad. Each year, the car model got bigger until my Mum also cannot tahan liow. Told him that next year, if he burns another car, he'd better burn Dad a garage too.. buahaha.

2005 - A Japanese make, you think??

2006 - Don't know what model this one

2007 - A BMW

2008 - A Rolls

Anyways, really, if it can be proven that the departed are able to receive all these gifts that we "send" then I would like to start investing in my own ahem..well being.. when I leave this earth...now that they have the OSIM massage chair, I don't mind one as I cannot afford one during my lifetime...and a Ferrari, and a Bungalow, and a .......... (the list goes on).......(Mum thinks I am being morbid!)

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Vampire Saga

I have not been doing much reading these days as most of my time was spent checking out blogs, reading recipe books, watching TV's wah lai toi (but after saying all that, still missed the last episode of To Grow With Love - with one of my favorite Chinese Actress Myolie Wu). This is the official website to To Grow With Love... but it does not help me, being a banana and all :(. Had to read the ending at Wikipedia.

Anyway, back to what I really wanted to talk about... and that is the latest book I am reading. I am not sure if this is really for the kids but are we not all kids at heart? I am currently reading the Saga of Darren Shan - Vampire Rites. My fascination started with the movie "Interview with The Vampire" where I would have minded very much to be bitten by a Brad Pitt Vampire or a Tom Cruise Vampire.. :D.

When I first chanced upon Darren's 1st book, Vampire Blood, I found it very interesting. Why? The book title read "Darren Shan - Vampire Blood" and the author of the book is Darren Shan. And when I read the book, it was like reading a real life story, a biography. From the first book, I was hooked.


This is from the first trilogy Vampire Blood which consists of 3 books ... The nightmare begins... The Cirque Du Freak trilogy comprising: Cirque Du Freak, The Vampire's Assistant and Tunnels of Blood. Join Darren Shan's descent into the darkness. CIRQUE DU FREAK Darren goes to a banned freak show with his best mate Steve. It's the wonderfully gothic Cirque Du Freak where weird, frightening half human/half animals appear who interact terrifyingly with the audience. After he sees the amazing performing spider, Madam Octa, Darren is determined to steal her. But his daring theft goes horribly wrong. The spider bites Steve and Darren has to sell his soul to an evil vampire to get the antidote. THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT Darren joins the vampire, Mr Crepsley, as his assistant and they return to the Cirque Du Freak. There, Darren makes friends with the snake-boy, Evra Von (who knows what Darren is) and a local boy, Sam, and RV, an eco-warrior and animal lover (who do not). Darren begins to enjoy his life among the Cirque performers as the youngest half-vampire in existence, but he defiantly refuses to drink human blood -- the whole idea sickens him -- and he tries desperately to cling on to the part of him which is human. TUNNELS OF BLOOD When Mr Crepsley is called upon by the Vampire Generals, Darren and the snake-boy, Evra Von, leave the Cirque Du Freak and travel with him to the city. Whilst there, Darren meets Debbie and his life as a Vampire's Assistant fades into the background -- until corpes are found. Corpses drained of blood... Suspicious of Mr Crepsley's secretive bahaviour, Darren and Evra shadow him across the city and confront a creature of the night who may be the end of them all..."

Have just finished reading the 2nd book...
This is as good if not even better than the 1st book. Now things are really getting hot.. can't wait to get my hands on the 3rd and 4th book soon... haha.. does this mean less time to experiment with my cooking? Nah.. food is still 1st priority in my list :)

Third Book


Last Book

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My Bread Machine

I have always wanted to invest in a Bread Machine and after discussing this for the longest time with babe last year, I finally made a decision to use all my redemption points from my Citibank Credit Card for a Bread Machine. During that period, the BM available was the Princess Model BM, which I thought was not too had. But after waiting for almost 3 to 4 weeks, Citibank called me and told me that they no longer had that particular model available for redemption. They gave me 3 choices; 1 - to reverse the redemption order 2 - to use the points to redeem something else or 3 - settle for another brand of BM, which was the Kenwood brand. Without waiting even for the caller to finish her sentence, I told her I'll take option 3. Wah... Kenwood wor..not bad..in fact, the redemption points needed was for more than what I had but they decided to waive that and gave it to me for what I had... thank you.. thank yooooou.

When the BM arrived, I was very excited but due to the festive season and lots of other things, I never got a chance to "play" with my new toy, until 2 weeks ago.

Never got to take an actual photo of my BM but I actually got this picture with my camera phone as I was so happy with the Citibank that I just wanted to show off to all my friends the cool BM they gave me... haha. Got this picture from Ikano Power Station's Harvey Norman's and got a bit of a ticking off by their security guard. He is a foreigner and in his gruffy voice, he said "NO PHOTO...NO CAMERA!!". I said " ya ya"..but photos already taken heehee.


With all the festive periods one after another, I never really got a chance to play with this new toy of mine until 2 weeks ago. I was so impatient to try it that I simply threw in whatever ingredients I could find for a wholemeal mixed seeds bread (had to replace the normal wholemeal flour with pre-mix) plus did not read the instructions properly. The bread turned out alright but as the ingredients were not exact, it turned out extremely salty. Nobody else touched the bread except me and even then, it was with a lot of effort and a lot of water. Did not managed to take a photo of that piece of failure as by the 3rd morning, the entire bread was mold covered...yuck. Threw it into the trash can.

My second effort (here) turned out to be a whole lot better with only one complain. I need help from the sifus again.. and anybody who can help me. Sigh.. back to the drawing board.....

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It is soooo very cold ...brrrrr

This is how I feel right now in the office...

If only babe and I could have another bowl of these good stuff just this minute. We both went down to Petaling Street for lunch.. mainly because I was so tempted by the Nyonya Laksa post by the Two Superheroes...haha.. but I think what I had at the market place was a far cry from what they had the other day. Oh well, if only I can have another bowl of the same right now....brrrrr

What I had

What babe had

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Dark foreboding Clouds

Dark foreboding Clouds...this is the look the sky has been adopting the last few weeks. Just before it pours, the sky will turn terribly cloudy and dark. When I am on the road, and the sky turns this way, I get quite anxious. It is like dooms day coming. I will give up all plans and try to get home as fast as I can. This was a shot taken on Saturday afternoon as I was going towards Jalan Puchong.


At lunch time, we knew that it will likely rain again in the afternoon and sure enough by 2:35pm, the sky outside the office turned dark and threatening. Am I glad that we are all safely inside the office...


This type of picture always reminds me of Gotham City.... where is Batman??

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A Weekend of Lessons Learnt

When they say, you never stop learning... boy, I sure did a lot of learning over the weekend. From cooking to small stuff in the house, this weekend was kind of strange for me as it surely didn't start out that way.

Firstly, on Friday night, I was thinking of what to cook for my little niece and nephews when I decided to do some simple pre-mixed muffins. The only problem is that the better oven (when I say better oven, I just meant the one with the fan" was being used for something else, and being very impatient, I decided to take another chance with the old oven without a fan. If you remembered my much earlier blogs about ugly muffins and lack of proper equipment, I chose to not learn my lesson. I made the batch of pre-mix muffin dough, added chopped walnuts and choc chips some more and stuck the load into the old oven.

Tada....the results.....more ugly muffins.


And by the way, I read somewhere that muffins are ugly sisters to cupcakes. Then my muffins are the lagi ugly sisters to muffins...buahaha.

Not to worry, looks can be deceiving....no doubt the muffins were a pain to look at, it was still very yummy... must be the added chopped walnuts and choc chips.

Then came Saturday. One of my brothers absolutely loved Pak Tong Ko, the kind that they sold at the market. Now, very recently, babe has posted in her blog, the recipe for Pak Tong Ko. Now, any normal sane person would have just taken that recipe and go for it. Me, no... I had to simply experiment around (coz cooking and baking is simply another form of having fun and experimenting). Anyways, got this other Pak Tong Ko recipe from a cook book to try. Whilst I was cooking, I knew that something was terribly wrong as it was too easy to be true. Anyways, after it was all done, I put it aside until it was time to take it out from the fridge to be served.

My brother took the first bite and he spat it out (almost instantenously). "What the H*** is that?"... he sputtered. My sister-in-law, a tad more polite said "I think it must be some kind of custard dear". Haha... I tried it.. it was sweet and all... even smells like Pak Tong Ko.. but tastes like GLUE!. My brother told mum that she would now have enough glue for the next few years to used for the altar at home (she has to change the red paper at the altar every year and that needed quite a fair bit of glue and gum).

It does not look that bad but believe me.... it does taste that bad.


Anyway, on the next day, I decided to do it again, but this time following recipe in Babe's blog. Have a look at how it turned out here :)

The final lesson I had before the weekend was over was never try to do a handyman's work when you have no idea what you are doing.

I normally do all the housework on Sunday mornings and I noticed that one of the toilets always had a puddle of water on the area next to the toilet bowl. Having checked all over, I didn't not really see any dripping pipes except for the one little drop hanging on a pipe going up the sink area. And since the toilet tank has been out of that blue thingy (what do you call that anyways) for a while, I took one out of its pack and dropped it into the tank.

An hour later when I walked into the toilet, the water next to the toilet bowl was blue... Ah ha...thought to myself...now I have located where the leak is coming from. Bent down and found that there was this screw-like thingy at the bottom of the toilet tank that appeared to be loosed. Used my hand to gently press it.... more blue water came out.


Mmmm....decided to use a little more strength to try to screw the thing back.....wahhhhhhhh.... I created a gushing blue waterwall.... At least I remembered to turn off the water mains in the toilet to prevent the water from overflowing into the bedroom.


No matter what I did, the screw could not be reattached. Shucks...went to call our friendly plumber for help. He said.. it's weekend and he ain't coming. Just turn off the mains, sit tight and he'll come tomorrow. I asked "What time". He said "Day time lah"....bugger.... So, no choice, took Emergency Leave from work on Monday, stayed the entire day waiting for his royal highness to turn up... which he did..eventually at 4:45pm. Fixed it up in jiffy and gave me the bill for RM100. "What! So much to fix a little white screw". He replied "Cheap already lah... you broke the screw mah..so cannot use already...but I change the other side for you as well, in case you accidentally break the other side another day....lagi, petrol price also high mah.. come to your place also very jam"... "Ok lah...Ok lah".. I said and handed him two RM50.

So, for those who were wondering how come I was not a work or was not blogging yesterday .... I was still contemplating on all my weekend lessons.......

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