Of Cabbages and Green Thumbs

I have never been to Cameron Highlands (open to invitation, free board and meals included ?  thank you, thank you), and I still remember my friends showing me pictures of their excursion to Cameron- posing at the cabbage ‘farm’ with some gigantic looking cabbages seemed to be a ‘must-do’ thingy.

The first time I saw  cabbages grow – was by the roadside at one of the housing area at Serdang.

 Cabbages are beautiful, like a rose, don’t you think ? 

Emerald Rose

This is a very productive garden, when we chatted with Mr Green Thumb, he mentioned that at any one time he has 10 different types of vegetables growing in his ‘garden’, currently there are :  cabbage, lettuce, jagung, Chinese parsley, papaya, bittergoard, kalian, spinach, ladies finger,  long beans and  French beans .

I was gushing about his garden but Mr GT remains humble, and said that ‘everyone has a given talent /skill, well, mine is gardening, I do it as a hobby’.

Jagung

 

 

Cabbage & Lettuce

 The vegetables are not for sale as  Mr GT plant them for his family own consumption ( although that looks like a lot of cabbages to consume by a family worr..maybe..breakfast : cabbage sandwich with a cup of cabbage tea, Lunch :  cabbage fried rice,cabbage soup ; Tea : cabbage ice cream and cabbage cupcakes, Dinner …..)   Eating cabbages is said to give gas..i wonder does the neighbor hear any weird noises….. 

French Beans

This garden is free from pesticides

Long Bean

For fertilizing  : baja tahi ayam and also vegetable wastes which were scattered on the flower bed

 As we complete our ‘tour’ Mr GT kindly gave us a very generous bunch of bayam..!! thank you for the generosity !

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

( origin of the rhyme is pretty morbid though : gasppp – I wonder is this true ahh ?http://www.rhymes.org.uk/mary_mary_quite_contrary.htm)

Restaurant Ful Lai 富来飽饺点心茶楼

When we saw the filled tables under the trees at Ful Lai- that would already be a testimonial to the dimsum, right ? We can’t find a suitable position under the trees and opted to sit inside the restaurant instead, only one other table was taken up- just shows that Malaysians are a bunch of people that loves to sit under trees, horr ?

We ordered a pot of Chinese tea, and soon, a young chap came by with the steamed dimsum, for the first round, we took :  fish paste in Char koay, yong tau foo (YTF) and fish paste in fried beancurd skin. First bite , ehh…why the dimsum wasn’t hot.. I am not talking about not-steaming hot, it wasn’t even lukewarm, it was like dimsum-left-under- -the- fan- for -2 -hours kinda temperature. The fishpaste was ok – texture was good and taste was good, considering that it was good in such an unsuitable temperature I would assume it must be good in normal-dimsum-temperature. The gravy of the YTF and beancurd skin was good. As for the ones with the char koay , the char koay was a bit tough, maybe due to that they weren’t crispy.

One thing, service was slow, instead of doing their rounds and see what we need, we had to try hard to get their attention to bring something- well maybe they were paying more attention to the larger crowd sitting under the trees. Next round we asked for char siu pau, chu cheong fun and porridge.

When the pau arrived, I was shocked/ disappointed – the pau was flat and dismal looking  - look at the picture and judge for yourself la…. appearance wise, I give it  2/10,000, but as they say, the proof of the pau is in the eating..the verdict ….the dough was ‘rough’ not refined like the texture of the pau that we normally get , only plus point is that they are generous with the filling and the taste was pretty ok. The Chu cheong fun and the porridge were average.

 Third round orders – steamed pork ribs, seaweed+fish paste, beancurd skin + fishpaste – lucky this time around- the dimsum were warm.  These were pretty ok, but I guess the memory of the earlier cold dimsum was pretty strong and still can’t get that out of our system ( actually, up to until dinner that day, the uncomfortable feeling of cold dimsum was still lingering in my system.)

 

We left Ful Lai ( after paying RM30.30) slightly disappointed with our meal

Restaurant Ful Lai 富来飽饺点心茶楼

1G (GF) Jalan 2/116B,

Kuchai Entrepreneurs Park

Off Jalan Kuchai Lama,

58200 Kuala Lumpur

Tel : 7983 6851

Pasar Ramadan@ Jalan Sri Serdang, Serdang

Although I never sahur or puasa, I can still berbuka puasa, right ah ?

chicken wings

 

Ayam percik

Ikan cencaru sumbat

Ikan Pari goreng etc

Murtabak

 

Murtabak is also commonly found in Yemen ,  where it is called Motabbag (Arabic: المطبّق) which means “The Folded” so the name could be of Arabic origin. (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Murtabak) 

Nasi ayam

All packed and ready to go

fishballs, nuggets and friends

Buat baik berpada-pada

Roti John

Origin of the name Roti John according to Wikipedia : The origin of the ‘John’ in the name is allegedly due to the Western origin of the Baguette and the tomato sauce used in the dish. During the years of British Colonial rule, all Caucasians and Westerners were colloquially and affectionately referred to as ‘John’ in Malay,  and as such, the nickname of ‘Roti John’ (literally ‘John Bread’) was easily arrived at.

Water colours

Dadih

 Selamat Berpuasa!!