On the 3rd day of CNY, the mil made a trip to Ipoh with her besties. Her bff who's aged 78 drove an MPV and she's the same age as the mil. I'm always amazed by this aunty. At 78, she's still running a car workshop in PJ, and drives to Ipoh frequently with the mil.
With the mil in Ipoh for 2 nights, we had really simple dinners at home. On the 4th day of CNY, Sherilyn made a quick and easy Yosenabe, a basic Japanese hot pot where you can cook whatever ingredients—any kind of meat, seafood, tofu, and all kinds of vegetables—in a delicious dashi-based broth.
Sherilyn used two types of instant dashi for the soup - one is a seafood dashi from Melaleuca and another one is a chicken dashi bought from Japan recently. In the hot pot were a variety of items that we could gather from the fridge - tofu fishball, stuffed beancurd (foo pei), prawns, pork, egg tofu, cauliflower, and some green veggies.
Yosenabe is a very easy one-pot dish that anyone can prep at home. We all love having this dish for dinner as we can throw in all our favorite veggies and meat into the pot. If you're lazy to wash your veggies, you can get ready-to-eat triple-washed veggies, ready-to-cook shabu-shabu sliced pork, chicken, beef, meatballs, and fish balls and throw them all into the pot for a quick and satisfying meal.
I always have a stash of good quality instant dashi at home for making quick soups. We use it to prep hot pot soup, to cook dumplings, noodles, and other dishes.
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| As there was still some soup left, we had Yosenabe for dinner again the next day. Sherilyn added another sachet of dashi and more water to briefly simmer the dashi, before adding in a whole head of Chinese cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, pork belly, a whole head of radish (my favorite), foo pei, egg tofu, and big onions. |
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| Dinner on Chor 5 - Yosenabe and ginger + egg + siew yoke + sesame seed oil fried rice cooked by the girls' grand aunt who lives 2 floors below us. |
On the 7th day of CNY, we had our yearly CNY gathering with our close buddies at Restaurant Pin Xiang @ Aman Suria.
The mil didn't attend this time as she was down with a bad bout of gastric after she returned from Ipoh. I sent her to the clinic to get some meds from the doctor in the morning.
Our sumptuous lunch with a bill totaling over RM2k+. There were 9 adults and 8 kids. Actually, our kids are no longer kids but adults now and eat like adults too!
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| After lunch, we got ourselves coffee and milk tea from a Pakopi truck parked outside the restaurant. In my opinion, I think their Hong Kong milk tea with jelly is way better than many other popular boutique bubble tea brands. And it's way cheaper too. |
But I regretted downing the cup of kaw kaw milk tea that afternoon coz that night I suffered from insomnia. Damn the caffeine overload!! And the following night, which was the eve of Pai Ti Kong (9th day of CNY)), I didn't get an hour of shut-eye as well as there were thunderous sounds of fireworks throughout the night. Dang it!
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| Photo of KL city night sky taken from the 5th floor of our condo - KL Towers has been illuminated in red since the Eve of CNY. |