DianaTan.net » Food

Happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon 2012

Diana — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:54:03 +0000

Here is an very nice serpentine angpow for the year of the dragon in 2012. I got this from a relative during a dinner reunion last night. Just loved the intricate design with the appropriate theme that it shows.

Got an octagonal box of 13 oranges – I ate one already – leaving 12 here. Chinese love the figure 8 which means luck, hence the octagonal shape. This was a gift from my boss for the year’s work.

Here is the deco to the entrance of Lee Gardens Plaza in Hatyai where I spend 3 days and 2 nights with my family. It was situated just opposite 2 big shopping complexes where I did some of my shopping for the cheaper exchange rate to Thai Baht.

Just before CNY, we had Indian buffet on a Thursday at Lone Pine Hotel along Batu Feringghi. For Thursdays, the buffet theme was Indian, while Mondays and Tuesdays were hawkers’ fare and Wednesdays was steamboat buffet. For Fridays, it was dine and wine costing double the price at $98 per person.

More pictures of the Indian theme buffet dinner at Lone Pine Hotel. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

A final picture with a waitress attending to the food. We went there early, so we were one of the first few people to savour the food.

Kolam and Other Pictures

Diana — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 05:17:01 +0000

Though Deepavali may just be over, the festive mood still lingers on. Here is a snapshot of kolam or art of colored rice beads on the floor designed by local artists. This was taken in one of the shopping malls that I happened to be there.

This is another pattern of kolam taken in Penang. I did not post the photos during Deepavali as I was busy working during the public holiday in my home office. Had many invoices and P/Os to format and type out and email them out to clients.

My parents attended their friend’s birthday party, a badminton kaki in their younger days recently at Suffolk House, near Methodist Boys’ School. Suffolk House is a place for fine dining where food comes in very small portions for exorbitant prices. You get the drift. I have never been there but heard that the high tea is good and cooked by the owner who is a chef, Darren Choi from Australia. At the end of the dinner, someone from another table wanted to take home the above bouquet of white roses, and lily from my parents’ table. But my mom was quick enough to take it instead as prodded by a friend before it disappears.

The bag above is actually a cake made from sugar icing, designed and laid in the lobby of one of the hotels in KL. It looked very sumptuous that I took the opportunity to take a photo for posterity. From afar, many would be fooled thinking it is a branded Gucci hand bag.

Here is an eye candy of Ferrero chocolates consisting of the conventional flavour and wrapping, almond flavored with green wrapper, and chocolate flavored with dark brown wrapper. The set of chocolates was bought from Langkawi during our business trip there last month.

Busy as a Bee in my Home Office

Diana — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:33:23 +0000

Today I have lots of offers to take up and am busy as a bee in my home office. After all, it is not often that you get lots of offers like today. And since I am not required to travel today, I can comfortably write the articles and submit them all by today. This is how I am kept occupied for some cash allowance instead of doing nothing or napping away. The year end is also a busy time for me as we need to send out promotional material to people all over Malaysia for our business. I also need to design calendars for next year and buy envelopes plus stamps. It is the determination to endure hard work and the tenacity to see it through that spells success for our business. The diligent shall have plenty to eat but the slothful who does not life a finger will go hungry.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

Diana — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:30:38 +0000

Today is Hari Raya and is a public holiday. I would like to take this opportunity to wish my muslim readers Selamat Hari Raya. I still continue to work even though it is a public holiday and have scanned many copies of brochures for the client just now and converted them to PDF format for faster retrieval. There were more than 10 files emailed out this morning to 3 different clients. By the way, Hari Raya is a time of get together and a time of forgiveness. All muslims alike will share home baked cakes and cookies in this festive season. The favorites are lemang, bubur lambuk, apom, kambing bakar, ikan masak merah, etc. Many hotels are whipping up halal food for this occasion with special discounts.

Back from Hatyai and Nice Photos

Diana — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:33:37 +0000

My family and I are now back from a wonderful trip to Hatyai where we bought a lot of toiletries and cosmetics and lingerie. The Wacoal brand there is so much cheaper compared to Penang and I also bought from Triumph. We had salad at a Singapore brand restaurant called Sizzlers. Some of the photos here were taken in Penang while others were taken in Hatyai. Above is the ‘yee sang’ that we had last night where we tossed it for luck.

This is a bento set when we had dinner in Fuji restaurant in Hatyai. My youngest sister ordered this while I had avocado salad, below.

Don’t this look tempting? I decided to eat something lighter as I had put on 1 kg already over the last few days. I like the decoration and the way they cut it out.

This photos was taken in a hotel lobby with the cherry blossoms and potted chrysanthemums decorating the place.

This is a mesmerizing photo of the prosperity bamboo shoots which was place in the hotel.

This is one of the dishes I had in Penang some time back – 4 seasons on a platter – in a local restaurant.

Gong Xi Fa Chai – which means Happy Chinese New Year in Mandarin.

Slimming your Body with Herbalife

Diana — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:15:46 +0000

I joined Herbalife, a multi-level marketing (MLM) or direct selling program some time back. It was so convenient. I paid by internet banking to my upline’s Maybank account and the next morning, it was delivered right to my door step by Skynet from Kuala Lumpur. Above are the items I have received from Herbalife. And I was introduced this by my upline who is also my Yahoo Messenger online chat friend based in KL. He has been doing this business for 3 years now since they started in Malaysia and have even gotten RM10,000 check in commissions from his 30 downlines.

I am happy I have made the right choice to reduce weight. As you can see, I love food too much and it is about time I need to reduce my weight for an optimum BMI (Body Mass Index). From the BMI chart, I am considered overweight but thank goodness not obese. So I bought Formula 1 nutritional shake of french vanilla flavor to replace my daily meals. Just 2 scoops with 250ml of water to replace my lunch and dinner. As of today, I have already lost 0.5kg after 2 days of drinking the vanilla shake. And it is delicious and not sweet at all. I have previously joined other MLM companies, all to no avail like Perfect Youth and Lampe Berger which cost a whopping RM30,000 just to be a count. I only paid RM98 for the business pack with distributor license and form. And another RM79.23, after 50% discount at cost price from my upline at a supervisor level, for the Formula 1 nutritional shake. For more details, check out here and see the pictures of consumers with slim sexy bodies from an otherwise obese body. By the way, F1 nutritional shake mix is the bestseller product of the company to help people reduce weight.

Herbalife was founded in 1980, a company that sells weight-loss, nutrition and skin-care products by multi-level marketing, also known as network marketing. In February 1980, Mark Hughes began selling the original Herbalife weight loss product from the trunk of his car. Mark started Herbalife with the help of physicians including a Nobel peace price winner for medicine after much research for the supplements. Herbalife started when Mark Hughes saw his own mother died at the young age of 36 due to efforts trying to lose weight from unworkable and sub-quality weight loss programs. The company now has grown by leaps and bounds, spread in 60 countries with multi-billion dollar profit. If you like to lose weight while earning money at the same time, drop me an email at diana [dot] tan [at] gmail [dot] com.

Old and Recent Photos

Diana — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:52:45 +0000

Photo of my birthday cake taken in July. I was not in the mood to post it then but it is a 1kg chocolate sponge cake topped with icing.

Orange juice with an orchid in a glass. The dark soft purple orchid is the national flower of Singapore and is abundant every where over there – seen in posters, on the press, brochures, etc.

Interior decoration of a cosy nonya restaurant in Penang. The rosewood furniture beckons you to dine here as long as your wallet allows. Personally, I don’t eat here often if you think so, but prefer to have simple hawker food.

Nonya food that I ordered consisting of nasi ulam, sambal kangkong, otak and jiu hu char. Also had chocolate float, not seen here.

Cound not resist a good shot of a bouquet of orange lily-of-the-valley. I love flowers and think they will cheer up any bad day.

Culinary Delights

Diana — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:53:06 +0000

I was searching through old photos and I found this set taken in Pang Seafood Restaurant which is diagonally opposite Penang Chinese Swimming Club. This is a small lobster thermidor of about 580 gm but cost a whopping RM$110. If you like to eat lobster thermidor, I suggest going to Teluk Bahang where you pay only half the price and taste more scrumptious with plenty of cheese. For frozen lobster, you pay about RM10 per 100 gm while for fresh lobster, you pay more at RM16 per 100 gm.

These are garlic scallops and cost RM25.00 which is worth the money. The scallops are big unlike the ones we tried in Can Ton Food Bay in Sunway Pyramid which cost more and are smaller. Fried garlic is sprinkled on top.

This order is crab meat Japanese toufu but we could hardly find any crab meat. The yellow toufu was soft, succulent and tasty.

Our last order was ‘choong piah’ with black Perry sauce. We found this restaurant from the brochures delivered to my house. And my drink of orange juice makes a refreshing round off to my dining experience. If you like to dine here, the address is 501K&L, Jalan Tanjung Bungah, 11200 Penang. Sorry, I don’t have the telephone number as it is not stated in the bill, so you cannot book first. But there will be plenty of tables for you to choose from if you come early.