Up, Close and Personal with Scruffy

Here are some pics of my guinea pig, Scruffy. He's been with me for 8 months now and is a father of 2 piggies.

Then

Now

Up, close with his nose

Look into the eye!

Looking out into the horizon

Neat trick! Either that or he's just shielding his eyes from the sunlight

Dinner at Sushi Tei

Few weeks back we decided to try the new establishment Sushi Tei at Tropicana City Mall (also fondly known as TCM). We heard some good reviews about this place so we thought we would give it try.

The restaurant had a nice setting and the prices of the sushi plates were not expensive. Though I'm not a salmon lover, but i could see that the pieces of sliced salmon were looking very tasty.

Garlic rice with chicken. I actually wanted just plain ol' garlic rice, but they don't have that

Spicy Miso Ramen. Not that spicy

Chicken Karaage

Salmon Mentai. This was really delicious!

Sushi roll with meat floss

Lots of salmon skin. A bit too much here.

Overall the food was nice. Wouldn't mind going again to try out different things. The bill came to about RM54 for all the food.

Sophia

I was down in Singapore during the weekend for my niece's fullmoon bbq party. I've not seen Sophia since she was born.

As a 1 month old baby, she's very aware of her surroundings. Always looking around and even eying the person who happens to be feeding her. She's quite contented to be left in her cot , though once in a while she'll cry for attention.

Once in a while, i would pop into her room and entertain her for a bit, hoping to get some response from her. And i wasn't disappointed.

She gladly looked into the camera

Cheeky

And i got her to smile!

Potatoes in their jacket

I had this simple recipe for some baked potatoes that i tried out yesterday. The ingredients needed were:

- 3 medium potatoes
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- 50g grated cheddar cheese
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- Bacon bits

First of all, clean the potatoes thoroughly but do not remove the skins. I used a fork to prick the skin. Then i put them in the oven for 1 hour to bake in 220 degrees celsius. While waiting for the potatoes to bake, i got the other ingredients ready. I cheated by buying slices of cheddar cheese and cut them into smaller pieces.

After that i melted the butter

Before

After

I bought bacon chips from EuroDeli, Jusco. So i just fried them up again.

mmMMmmm...bacon

After an hour, the potatoes were nice and crisp. The skin smelled very nice!

You can see the fork incisions

When the potatoes have cooled down, i cut them into half lengthwise and scoop up the pulp into a bowl. Then i mixed in the cheese, butter, milk and bacon. After that, i spoon the mixture back into the potato skins and baked them for another 15 minutes.

Yummy

The end results were delicious. I loved it, especially the potato skin!

New chick in town....

My new niece, Sophia Low, born on Easter Sunday. Here are some pictures:

A few hours old

Hungry baby

2-day old. See that pout!

Big brother Joshua has already declared that he will teach her how to swim when she is older.

A very Abby family!

First off, sorry for not updating for so long. Have been quite busy with work that i've missed out on a few posts. But first things first! Remember my Abyssinian guinea pigs? Here's a picture to remind you guys.

Well, we have had them for 5 months now. When we bought them from the shop we were told they were about 2 months old, which makes them 7 months now. And the shop didn't know their gender then. So we put them in the same cage. After 5 months with no babies, we thought that it was safe. My, were we in for a surprise!

Imagine, every morning you look into the cage and greet the 2 guinea pigs. Imagine one day you look into the cage and find a little bugger staring at you!

Howdy!

Make it 2 little buggers!

Imagine the surprise we got! But they were soooooo cute and their coats so smooth. One good thing about baby guinea pigs is that they are born with fur and are miniatures of their parents. They can be handled immediately without fear of their parents rejecting them later.

So now we have 4 pigs in a cage.

The happy Abby family

Sukico Hainan Cafe

As always, we were wondering where to have dinner and suddenly we remembered this place called Sukico Hainan Cafe which was recommended by a friend recently. It's located in Damansara Uptown, next to Public Bank. It's part cafe and part a bakery shop, so don't be confused when you see it.

When we stepped in, we were greeted by a friendly lady (we found out her name was Aunty Lily) who took our orders and also explained to me the types of flour that the shop sells. She recommended me some bags of pre-mixed muffin flour, so i bought a packet of chocolate chip flour (they have other flavours as well) and she even taught me how to prepare it.

There are a few tables in the middle of the shop/cafe, so while sitting down for dinner, you can look around at the baking ingredients lined up on the shelves. While waiting for the food to be served, the Aunty proudly told us that Lim Kit Siang has visited the cafe several times and has blogged about the place before as well.

Grilled Hainan chicken chop with cheese on top

Chicken cordon bleu

We ordered the Grilled Hainan Chicken Chop and Chicken Cordon Bleu. Both dishes were tasty and i preferred the cordon bleu. It was a little tough, but delicious. I'm wondering how they stuffed the ham and cheese so nicely and neatly in the chicken compared to my own attempt.

Overall the dinner was nice but too bad we didn't get to try the other dishes there. I would go back to buy baking ingredients when i need in the near future. For now i have my pre-mixed muffin flour to try out first! Wonder how it would turn out?