Golden BBQ and Steamboat *updated

In my earlier post, I mentioned that when Saucer came to visit me, we went for a BBQ and steamboat buffet in a place in town. It's called Golden BBQ Steamboat, well that's what's written in the GPS. *LOL* I also mentioned that I didn't know how to get to this place, you see. That's when the GPS came in handy. We just keyed in the 'steamboat' keyword and it will list out all possible Steamboat restaurants nearby.

GPS working, it's marvellous!

We reached there just before 8pm and the place was already crowded with people. Thank goodness with only the two of us, it was easy to find a small table to squeeze in. :)

Golden BBQ Steamboat

Apart from the usual steamboat and BBQ raw meat aligned in the buffet area, there were also several cooked dishes for customers to sample on while waiting for their food to cook. Since my stomach was already growling on the way there, I gladly feasted upon those fried dishes, which turned out to be quite delicious, I must say. Or maybe it was just my empty stomach talking. :P Anyway, their fried food was really crispy and marinated well. And there was also satay to boot!

Fried spring rolls and wan ton

Satay and some dim sum

I was busy eating while Saucer went to load up on the raw food for the steamboat. :) There were a multitude of balls, sotong balls, meatballs, fish balls, beef balls, you name it, they've got it. And there were lots of seafood as well: clams, prawns, cuttlefish, dumplings (sui kow) and mushrooms! Saucer loves mushrooms, so he took most of them, while I was more keen on BBQ-ed meat. :)

Balls and mushroom

Never forget vegetables as well. Fiber is good for you. :)

Vegetables

This was the plate of food that I took. Notice the difference from the plate above taken by Saucer. My plate was mostly filled with marinated meat, ready for BBQ, instead of balls. :) And when I was picking out the meat from the buffet spread, the prawns were just refilled, so I went for a binge of those too.

Marinated meat and fresh prawns

Look at all the meat nicely arranged on the hot plate. I took those clams as well! And they would really open up nicely once they're cooked. The best part about the clams is that they don't need to be taken care of, because they would never burn!

BBQ and steamboat

After the satiating meal, we were both full to the brim. No matter, there was always room for dessert, especially when dessert was something sweet and cold like ice-cream! It's definitely soothing to have those after eating with the heat glaring into your face the whole night. No doubt it's not any good quality ice-cream, but it's free flow! And how I miss those lime-flavoured sorbet covering vanilla ice-cream on a stick! Those were the good old days when I used to buy these kinds of ice-cream after school. :)

Lime ice-cream

They charged RM19.90 nett per person for the all-you-can-eat buffet. The value for money of course is directly proportional to how much you can eat. I thought the environment was pretty awesome, just like those HK street side hawker stalls. True enough the food was nothing to shout about, but it was not bad either. Steamboats and BBQs are meant to be fun because we get to watch our food cook! In case you want to get there, I don't remember the exact address but it's at one of the junctions in Burma road. This junction is brightly lit at night, so I don't think you will miss it. :)

Brightly lit road

*Updated
Address:
Golden BBQ Steamboat Restaurant
38, 40, 42 Jalan Nagore, 10050 Penang.

My favourite sandwich of all time

Doesn't it look good? :)

Can you guess where this sandwich was bought from? Buy you one if you can! The person who ate this with me is not allowed to participate. :P


Wish me luck for my final exams! :) Oh and Happy Birthday to my dearest Mom!

Attending a Gujerati wedding reception *updated

I have never attended a Gujerati wedding before, so when I was invited to one, I got all excited and looked forward to it. For the benefit of those in the dark, Gujerati are natives from Gujarat, which is a state in the western part of India. For as long as I can remember, the Gujerati people are mostly well-educated, speak good English, relatively fair-skinned, good-looking and vegetarian. There, about summing it all what I know about the Gujeratis. :) Anyway, my good friend and colleague Jason had his wedding reception at a nice hotel at the corner of Batu Feringghi Penang, which is the Bayview Beach Resort. Since I don't get to go to Gujerati weddings that often (they are quite a small community in Malaysia), I wanted to take the opportunity to document whatever I have experienced on that night.

This was the decoration that we saw right at the entrance to the cocktail area. Just outside the ballroom, there were waiters carrying trays of cold drinks around for the guests to drink while waiting for the ballroom to be ready.

Wedding reception entrance

Of course, an Indian wedding wouldn't be complete without the traditional floor decoration. I am always amazed by the amount of effort used to put out something as pretty as this... knowing that it would very well be easily destroyed by a gush of wind! I know I wouldn't be patient enough to do this. :)

Pretty floor decorations

We were there 15 minutes late but thankfully the dinner was not even close to starting yet. Guests were still mingling outside at the cocktail area. I saw some peanuts and crackers served in the cocktail area but I didn't dare to eat because they appeared to have been touched by many different hands. But I was hungry! :(

People outside ballroom

So I tried to distract myself by taking a walk around the hotel area. Well, and I did some camwhoring. :P This was what I wore on that night, a short and simple little black dress. What was I thinking taking a picture next to a coconut tree? No, I wasn't trying to brag that I was almost as tall as the tree. Never.

Camwhoring outside the hotel

Gorgeous pool at the hotel. If only I were in my swimming suit...

Nice pool by the hotel

Oh I definitely want to show you my hair! (Detour from the wedding a bit) What do you think? I did it in just 5 minutes ok! Well, maybe it looked a bit messy, but it definitely was strong enough to hold up for the whole night! And what a smart trick I discovered, to put a scrunchy around the bun to cover the mess and to hold the bun stronger. Killing 2 birds with a stone. How smart! *wink*

My hair

We were in the ballroom earlier and we managed to pick one of the nicest tables! We were just next to the bride and groom's table and just right in front of the stage. How cool is that!

My table :)

Lots of effort have been put into the details of the decoration of the ballroom and the tables and chairs. Look at this pretty napkin, even the napkin itself had details on it. And everything was in matching colours! Well done to the decor team, I'd say.

Pretty table napkin

The theme was obviously red and white in colour. I loved that each chair was carefully covered with pretty cloth and decorated with red ribbon at the back. It made the whole dinner area all the more elegant.

Dinner ballroom

This was the bride and groom's table, seated on a plateau directly facing the stage.

Bride and groom's table on a plateau

Did I mention that I chose the best table? :P Not only was it facing the stage and near the bride and groom, it was also near to the desserts! Ok, I'm trying very hard not to sound like a glutton now. I'm not, really. I just love desserts. Who doesn't? :)

Dessert spread

Soon after everyone was seated, the emcee was announcing the arrival of the bride and groom. I didn't manage to take a good picture of them walking in on the red carpet because it was all dark and my camera couldn't get a good shot. :( Well, this was taken way before they entered.

The red carpet

After the bride and groom were seated, we were promptly served with an appetizer dish. This came as a surprise to me though, because the dinner was actually buffet style. Then it occurred to me that this appetizer probably served as a light snack for those who're hungry (*note=ME) while we waited for the emcee to give the opening speeches.

Appetizer

After the appetizer, came the big dig into the buffet spread! Since the Gujeratis are vegetarian, the buffet spread was also vegetarian. I was rather impressed by the different types of dishes they could come up with, vegetarian-style. There was even vegetarian satay! Food for the dinner was just ok. I suppose it is a norm that wedding dinners never have food to shout about. Don't you agree? Same goes with Chinese weddings, in my humble opinion.

Food from buffet spread

The dessert that I picked! I think I picked more fruits than dessert, and thankfully so. Because the dessert was REALLY not that great. Chocolate cake was all crumbly, meaning that it wasn't fresh, and the puddings were too soft and bland. Oopss, I hope the bride and groom never get to read my blog post. -.-"

Dessert from buffet spread

At the end of the dinner, each of us was given a cute little box with some cakes and a lovely message inside, courtesy of the groom's family.

A pretty box to take home

Throughout the whole wedding dinner, there were many different performances by the bride and groom's family and friends. It was really enlightening to know that these people were so closely bonded and so very sporting! There was even an event where more than 10 married couples went on the stage and did a sketch, complete with dance moves! It's too bad my camera didn't manage to capture the shots nicely though. (Time to shop for new camera :P )

*Updated: Pics from the cameraman himself!

Married couples doing sketch

Couples singing


And dancing!


So sweet... :)

And there were a few good speakers who gave very entertaining speeches on marriage itself. I personally enjoyed the part where there were cousins doing a dance and a sketch. Well, what is an Indian wedding without dancing eh? :) Aptly, the dinner also ended with a dance, and it was a dance that was led by the bride and groom. :) I took a snapshot of them before saying goodbye and left.

The bride and groom - match made in heaven :)

It was indeed, a truly refreshing experience, to attend a Gujerati's wedding.

The weekend that was

Ahh... The birth of a new week again today. Why does every week have to start with Monday? Sounds so close to mourn day, which is exactly what I'm doing now. Mourning the loss of a great weekend. le sigh. Saucer was here, since Friday early morning. In fact, it was so early I had to wake up at 4.30am to fetch him on Friday, and later on go to work at 7am. Gosh, I woke up and felt like a zombie working on that Friday, while Saucer happily slept on. Anyway, at least I was a happy zombie at that, knowing I had something to look forward to at the end of my working hours, and that was coming home to Saucer.

Seeing him again after almost a month made me realize just how much I've missed him. Even though we didn't really do anything special during the weekend, just spending time together watching TV, or having my terrible muesli with milk as breakfast (which he didn't mind), or even just sitting down and talking to each other, already made my day. We woke up early on Saturday, and went for groceries shopping after breakfast. I almost wanted to buy these potato chips that were on sale, and Saucer stopped me from doing so. Haha.. I guess once in a while, having someone to control my diet is good. If he weren't here, I would have bought the pack of chips home and I would have eaten the whole pack myself and definitely felt bad after that. Oh, and not to mention the aftermath of getting pimples all over my face. *LOL*

We had dinner at this steamboat place in town, which I'm going to blog about soon! It was a nice place with a great night view. The funny thing was, I was brought there by a friend before but I didn't know how to go there myself. Thank God for the GPS that he brought along with him. That gadget was amazing! It worked well and definitely brought me to the steamboat place that I wanted to go. :) Buffet steamboat dinners are as usual, overloaded with variety of food. And my God we stuffed ourselves so badly that we didn't even manage to walk after that. OK, that walking part was exaggerating.

Anyway, I really wanted to blog about how stupid I was after dinner. I keep kicking myself for that incident that happened that night. Even now, when I think about it. So after dinner, Saucer was supposed to meet up some old friends for a drink, while I stayed at home to study. It was already past 10pm when he left, and I started studying until at one point, I felt myself to be dozing off on the table! And that was only at 11pm! So I walked around to keep myself awake and continued studying, until at 12am, I was just too tired and told myself to take a 'nap' while waiting for Saucer to come back. Here's the silly part: Since it was already 12am, and I was expecting him to be back in half an hour or so, I didn't set my alarm clock to wake me up, thinking that the doorbell would be loud enough to awake me from my light slumber. Besides, I left my lights on, so I wouldn't have been able to sleep for long anyway. SO I THOUGHT. How silly I was. And little did I know my handphone was on silent mode! So by the time I was awaken by some weird dream, I realized the clock was already showing 3.30am!!! Shit! And my first instinct was to rush to the handphone to realize there were 14 missed calls and 2 sms from Saucer since 1am. Damn it! Why did I have to sleep! I felt so incredibly bad at that time and quickly called him, knowing that he was at a friend's place nearby. He was already half asleep at that time and I kept pleading to him saying how sorry I was in the whole conversation. He wasn't even mad at me. That made the whole situation worse. :( I asked him to come over (he's just in a friend's place next block) but the friend was already asleep and he had no keys! That was when I started to panic and wanted to kick myself real hard (except I didn't know how to). I was telling myself I've ruined the last night that we could have spent together, and that he would end up in this friend's place til the next morning and I would have only myself to blame. Luckily for me, the friend did wake up in the end and Saucer came back before 4am. I was extremely stupid, I told him, and inconsiderate as well. I was just playing the whole scene over in my mind, that Saucer was at my front door calling me to open up. When I didn't pick up the phone, he rang the doorbells many times and still I didn't show up. Then he continued calling me again for many many times. Even tried to search whether I was smart enough to leave my keys in the shoes outside. Clearly I wasn't. Argh... what an idiot I was! Imagine if he had no place to go to that night, he would have been outside my apartment for possibly the whole night! The thought of that sent me shuddering and I felt bad all over again. Never will I sleep with my handphone in silent mode again. Sigh! Even though Saucer did not get mad at me, I still somehow felt terribly guilty and bad at myself every time I recall the whole incident. I made him homeless for more than 2 hours outside, when he had full trust in me to take care of him while he's here. I failed. Badly. I wish I could forgive myself.

Sunday was sad because it was the day that Saucer was supposed to leave Penang. I tried not to think of the time that he actually had to go and just focused on the present. Of course, time is always not on our side, especially when we want it to. Saucer has finally left and I have two papers to take soon. I can't wait to finish my exams so that I could visit him after! :) If you're reading this, I had a WONDERFUL time with you! *hugs*

Easy homemade desserts!

For the first time ever, the witch is going to teach you how to cook! Well, more like make yummy-licious desserts. OK fine, call it re-heating frozen food if you must then. It's not that I don't cook, I just don't have the proper kitchen to cook in! For starters, I don't even have a gas cylinder! My stupid house mate stole it away when he moved out, without us even realizing it! Argh.. so sneaky. And he didn't pay for his half of the deposit for the gas ok! Never mind, that was ages ago. I guess in a way, it's good to do without gas and stove, because I wouldn't want the kitchen floor to get all oily, like last time when my ex-house mate used to cook. So now, whatever methods of cooking I do have to make use of either the rice-cooker or the slow-cooker. :) Thinking of it, it just means all my meals are either boiled, steamed or half-boiled. :P Which means healthy cooking, without oil!

Anyway, I use my rice cooker to cook instant noodles most of the time, until one day Saucer kept telling me about this glutinous rice balls dessert that he ate from a pasar malam in PJ, and told me how good they were. Then when he came to visit one time, I decided to make the glutinous rice balls dessert for him. Well, fine, I reheated the frozen balls. I bought mine from Jusco, and I chose those big fat round ones, so that there would be more filling inside.

This was the brand that I chose, Spring Home. I had never heard of it before, but it was the only brand with large sized balls, so I bought this.

Glutinous rice balls

I loved that they packaged the balls really nicely, in a separate plastic container complete with a cover! Just like packaging eggs! This would make sure that the balls wouldn't get all mashed up if you accidentally put something heavy on top while you're shopping. You know how it is with shopping carts.

Nice packaging

According to the instructions, you just need to put the balls into the boiling water and let them simmer until the balls start to float. It also strongly recommended that you place the balls directly from the freezer into the boiling water, without letting it thaw. I have no idea why though, anyone knows why? Anyway, in the balls went into my trusty multi-purpose rice cooker. :)

Rice cooker wonder

I waited and waited for the bubbles to start forming and for the balls to come afloat. And voila!

Look it's bubbling!

Don't leave them on for too long though. I heard of cases where the balls ended up exploding under the heat and caused the filling to leak everywhere. Eewww! Look at my final product! I managed to keep every ball in its good perfect shape, and the filling that oozed out was amazing! Just the right amount and it wasn't too sweet either. You really should try this simple dessert. :) Saucer loved it! And he even said this was very similar to the one he bought in pasar malam for RM3.50 a bowl. With only 4 balls (I swear this is the only post where I had to use the word balls so many times!). So expensive! :P

Final product

While I was at Jusco, I also bought the cute mini red bean frozen buns. I know, frozen things are not good for health, but I was really tempted! I ended up buying the mini red bean buns from KG brand, and they turned out to be not bad after all. So adorable!

Red bean buns

Eat it while it's hot!

Gorgeous filling

Oh and here is an attempt I made at boiling red bean dessert. Well not much skill needed really. Just put the red bean inside the slow cooker and add a reasonable amount of water, then wait. I let it boil for almost 8 hours (started at night and ate in the next morning), then added in sugar to taste. That's it!

Red bean dessert

So there you have it! People say, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I think the saying was meant for real cooking not the frozen food, but still, if they taste good, why not?? :)

Have it the cowboy way at Roadhouse Grill

Did you know that in Penang, there's a restaurant where you could dine in the traditional cowboy environment? It's none other than the Roadhouse Grill, situated in Gurney drive, Penang. When you enter this restaurant, you would be welcome by very colourful lightings as well as dated cowboy paintings from the days of yore.

Roadhouse Grill

The unique thing about this restaurant is that each table will be served a bucket of groundnuts when seated - well not a full bucket, but it can be refilled. The best part about eating these groundnuts is that you're supposed to throw the groundnut shells on the floor! That's right! They expect you to throw them on the floor and you could actually see many groundnut shells lying around especially at the side of the tables. :) You certainly can't do that in other restaurants now, can you? :)

Groundnuts appetizer

This is the big barrel that stood right after the entrance, where the groundnuts came from. Somehow, their nuts were different from the ones that I usually eat during Chinese New Year, different meaning bigger nuts! I know this would definitely be great for people who drink beer, like my grandpa used to tell me... "Nothing beats having beer with groundnuts!" Well too bad I don't drink beer.

Source or groundnuts

I did drink this mango yogurt thing though... And it came in a HUGE glass, or should I say jug? Luckily we didn't order more drinks because this was definitely good enough for two persons. Very nicely done drink, by the way... not too sweet and not too milky.

Mango yogurt drink

As usual, most restaurants start by serving the bread and butter. I suppose this is a good move, more so if you're already starving and glaring at the waitresses hoping that food would come soon. :P

Bread and butter

Before long, our first dish came. It was the Hawaiian Pizza. Well, I'm a boring person, all right? I seldom try other types of pizza whenever I eat. It's usually either marinara or Hawaiian, the types that I've tried and tested to be universally safe. :P Anyway, this pizza was pretty good. As you can see, they weren't stingy with fillings and there were definitely generous with cheese too. The best part for me was the crust! I hate pizzas with thick crust, just like the ones in Pizza Hut, you know? It's like eating bread! So thank goodness this pizza had thin crust, like what a good pizza should have.

Hawaiian pizza

What's a cowboy meal without some beef, you say? Of course we ordered a steak as well, in this case, a mushroom steak. We ordered it to be medium well done and it was right on the spot. The portion was surprisingly huge and the gravy managed to complement the steak pretty well. The sides were pretty ordinary and plain, and their potato wasn't even mashed. But the steak was juicy and marinated well. Commendable indeed.

Mushroom steak

Another thing that captivated me in this restaurant was the cute decoration that was making the whole place look bright. For example, there was this aquarium which was brightly lit with gold fish in it. Literally made the whole place brighter, I'd say.

Aquarium

And there was this giant barrel with some cute ornaments on top - A chef and an overly frozen bottle of beer. I wonder where they got the beer bottle from? Complete with ice! *LOL*

Barrel with cute figurines

And, last but not least, they even have a section called Handphone Charger! How cute is that? You have a mobile phone running low on battery? Fear not! Roadhouse Grill has got just the right charger for you! Never worry of having no battery on your mobile phone anymore! :)

Mobile phone charger

Overall, the experience dining in Roadhouse Grill was more of the fascination on the decoration of the restaurant, rather than the food. Although, I'm not complaining about the food either. The one thing that I wish for the restaurant to have better of would be the lighting. I found that the lighting in the restaurant was mostly reddish, because of the excessive neon lights that emit this glow. It made all my pictures look like I was near a fire or something. Plus, the lighting didn't make the food look very nice. It would have been nicer to have proper lighting where one could see the food clearly without having to squint. ;)