Posts tagged chinese new year

Hee Lai Ton, Sri Kembangan

Featured Food

It’s Chinese New Year and it is usually filled with eating. Well, yes, there’s all the family reunions, meeting long lost relatives and friends but it’s always around food. It used to be that most breakfasts, second breakfasts, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, evening tea, dinner and suppers were all home-cooked food. Today, most people have no time to prepare such meals from scratch and resort to eating out. Even in my family, we’ve started to supplant home cooked dishes with store bought ones. Of course the main meals (the eve, first and second day of the New Year) is still home cooked.

Anyways, along with Chinese New Year, it was also my father-in-law’s birthday. It’s kinda cool to have your birthday around Chinese New Year because everyone will know about it and you will get more presents! Anyways, I digress but we got him a fancy iPad2 which I setup to keep him busy with lots of e-mags, news portals, flip board and more.

For lunch, we went to this restaurant in Sri Kembangan that is famous for it’s Poon Choi. Read the wikipedia link if you want to find out more but it is translated wrong in my opinion. It should read “basin dish”. Inside this boiling pot, we had chicken, oyster, vegetables, pork, prawns, bean curd, fish maw, bean curd skin, abalone, eel, fish balls and more…

Anyways, the food is pretty decent fare but the highlight of course was the Poon Choi which was full of stuff to eat. There were other dishes of course such as fish-wrapped oyster with sea weed balls, suckling pig and stewed goose feet with sea cucumber. I ate everything except the feet — I don’t eat legs… chicken legs, pig legs, cow legs, fish legs, human legs… whatever.

The food is pretty good and it’s a pretty packed on the Saturday we went. I don’t know if the other dishes are worth going for though. They’re famous for their Poon Choi so if you are longing for that dish, the one they serve up is pretty good.

Hee Lai Ton
12, Jalan Muhibah 3,
Taman Muhibah,
Seri Kembangan,
43300 Selangor D.E.
03 8992 5561

 

Getting out there and shooting

Photography

Sometimes, work just piles up so much that I don’t have much time to shoot anything personal or for fun. One day, as I drive home from my parents place, I pass a road lined with lanterns. It’s the Lunar New Year (or more correctly, the Spring Festival in China) so festivities are in the air and many places have been liven up with lanterns, lights and rabbits. It’s the year of the Rabbit in case you were wondering.

Interestingly, this road actually leads to a Buddhist temple. I’ve never been inside this one but I like the road with the lanterns. After a Monday full of meetings and thinking, it was time to go out and use some creative juice.




Above: Shot as is in available light. Below: 580EX II on ETTL cord camera right, -1.5EV, Full-cut CTO gel.






Edit: First 3 shots, EF 85mm 1.8, rest of the shots, EF70-200 2.8IS II

A CNY Burger party

Food

After multiple rounds of Chinese New Year dishes and over-loading on carbs, we decided on a burger night with home-made burgers, salad and coleslaw. Nothing beats having good food and family over to spend some time with each other. They are what I’m always thankful for. As the festivities come to a close, another amazing year with the most amazing person in the world. When I wake up and see her by my side, that’s what makes heart sing and what I’ll always be so blessed — no matter what comes my way!

My nephew can’t wait to light up some fireworks so our home was a pretty good place to do it. We are blessed with a pretty sizable front lawn so… “fire in the hole!” Before the fireworks photos get posted, here comes our delicious dinner first. If you’d like the burger recipe, head over here.

Chinese New Year feasting

Food

Chinese New Year feasting is often a bit excessive and this year, I think I’ve made some effort to control the over eating… but it’s also a good time to also be thankful that our tables are still overflowing with food. There are a lot of others that don’t have the abundance we have — not just in terms of food and filled tummies but also family and good friends. That counts more than any meal.



Fire in the hole!

Life

This Chinese New Year, we had the fireworks event right in our new old home after dinner. Boy, have the prices shot thru the roof?! I remember buying a pack containing a dozen “moon traveler” rockets (lil inexpensive gunpowder rockets on a stick with a small bang after reaching a height) for less than a ringgit. Today, it’s like ten bucks for a dozen. Large rockets we like a couple of ringgit each.

Hmm, the escalating costs of “wars”. Back in the good old days when one was a teenager, we used to have lots of firework wars with our neighbors in Ipoh and Penang. Rather belligerent bunch of people we were indeed. Hawks thru and thru. Any misfire by any neighboring kids that landed into my uncle’s compound in Ipoh drew immediate retaliation. We were also a well funded super-power — many uncles had supplies us with more ammo than the neighbors plus we had superior technology (string guided rockets and a bazooka launcher). We also had time to experiment that a moon traveler dropped three feet for every fifty it flew. I remember my brother and I spending countless afternoons performing “weapons research.” My goodness how fun were those days. Maybe that’s why we’re all intact together, nary a missing finger or blinded eye. Research and proper safety. I remember having water, foam, and aluminum foil and styrofoam padded protection! Do not try these at home 🙂


The only shot that worked but while my 580EXs were recyling fast enough to keep up with my burst sequence, the 430EX II lagged, hence I lost my sidelight.


Bazooka Mark II in “ground mode” — didn’t want to be a bad influence on my nephew by hand holding it. Anyways, the extraction pipe and laser sights weren’t fitted yet 🙂