I am trying this tomorrow!

<Edited>

REVIEW OF RECIPE!

Hello everyone, I’ve tried this, and it was….. BUTTERY hahahah. Very rich and filling. I followed the recipe for the eggs exactly except that because of my laziness to find these two ingredients, I substituted creme fraiche with full cream milk and chives with parsley. Taste great! MACAM DI HOTEL. Haha.

I find however the recipe to be needlessly complicated. I felt that the “playing with the heat” was unneccesary, and don’t see relevance of adding butter together with the eggs. So, I’m going to try making the eggs again, but adding the butter first barutah the eggs to see if there’s any difference.

Condiment side: I cannot bear to see the mushrooms just fried blandly, so I added some cloves of garlic (you know how I love these!) to saute it with, together with the salt and pepper.

For the tomatoes, I didnt use cherry tomatoes (don’t like them!) but used big huge *almost* overripe tomatoes instead. Cut them into halves and seared them on the pan with dried basil, salt and pepper until the bottom side was caramelised.

All this served with hot toasts.

Results: I thought the eggs were okay. Like I said rich. Tested it on two people and got mixed reviews: Person A said the mushrooms turned out gorgeous and asked again and again how I made it, and Person B raved about the tomatoes: “omigod these tomatoes are so gooooood”. No one said anything about the eggs until I asked: to which they replied. Oh yea, it was yum. Hehehe.

He snores too. I was already asleep when I heard the snores. Shone the light from my phone to see where it’s coming from. Haha. I can’t resist from switching on the lights and snapping a picture! Subject stayed put and slept soundly throughout!

This post is made especially for Boipren.

Picture of Flyboy’s Facebook is stolenlifted off R&aL. Please direct yourself to the 4th bullet point of the pinkly highlighted post.

“Best Mother (Potential)”

I’m not making this stuff up! Swear!

This post is pink in the attempt to raise awareness for Breast Cancer. Dewi Md Sofri (22/10/2007) from The Brunei Times have reported that apparently,

AT A TIME when the entire world has launched an aggressive awareness campaign against breast cancer, Brunei’s silent stance during the Breast Cancer Awareness Month has evoked strong reaction from the general public.

That’s funny, considering how many Bruneian women AND men get diagnosed each year with breast cancer. I am pretty aware of it because Astro has been airing informational pink ads on TV as well, but apparently many people don’t watch TV or skip commercials.

So I’m giving a much deserved plug to Ness’s Tuna and the Halaqah Muslimahs for being proactive in this issue. Some of them are beautiful people who have unfortunately been brushed by the hands of breast cancer and they will grace today with pink hijabs. Join them on their plight to raise awareness!

Lastly, in keeping with the pink theme, some shameless self promotion. Inspired by the pink ribbon, and the month of October, I’ve decided to pink it up.

CLICK FOR TURQUOISE AND ROSES!

BECAUSE SHE HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE BLOGGIES

I’m feeling rather lightheaded. Hehe. An insincere congratulations to the others bloggers who have also been nominated. VOTE FOR ME! But first, an apology!

I know I haven’t been updating you much. I’ve been hounded (well not really) for updates by my immediate family. I suspect they have nothing to do at work.

But there really isn’t anything in my life worth writing about right now. All I do is drive my post-natal sister around here and there and get into long lengthy conversations about ironing with Miss WordPressing. I also haven’t been eating anything interesting, mostly just junk.

Although I do seem to be weirdly obsessed with windows lately, and have been taking pictures of random people’s houses just so I can look at them closely before I go to bed. Yes, thus “weird”. But I can’t exactly post the pictures I took because I’m afraid it would be considered breach of privacy.

The cats are being boring as well so I can’t blog about them though I did catch one of the outside ones with a dead bird a few days ago. Otherwise it’s same old same old.

Nom nom 

I only received a total of ONE hari raya card and I’m possibly coming down with a flu. *sniff sniff* My raya was uneventful and we’re probably not having any open houses this year because there is only four of us at home and we have no amah. I did go to a few open houses though, but I didn’t take any pictures of the food because it seemed rude, plus I’ll be holding the line.

I did attend a very interesting wedding last week though in my favorite kampong by the beach, Danau between a nenek of mine and another nenek. My nenek is a widow when his wife died on him a few years back, and so was the woman he married I think, a long lost love~ I thought it is really romantic. The wedding was sooo packed despite pouring rain! I suspect a lot of people came to watch the hoohaa uninvited! Hehe.

Kalau jodoh tidak kemana

ANYWAY, I THINK I HAVE TALKED OUT OF MY ASS ENOUGH! Will write more interesting stuff soon when I start doing interesting things. Or maybe I’ll just exaggerate more….

VOTE FOR ME! :D:D:D

Sweeney Todd. It’s all his fault. If I had not met Sweeney Todd, I would not have bought the DVD and would not have this craving for meat pies. It’s an arduous task looking for delicious meat pies in Brunei, especially those resembling the pies featured in Sweeney Todd.

For your information, Sweeney Todd is a (fictional?) man who lived in 18th Century London, working as a barber. Basically he shaves people and such. He has psychopathic tendencies however, and sometimes kills his clients by slitting their throats with a razor blade. No one ever finds out because he’ll always take the meat off the victims’ bones, pack them up and gives them as a present to his lady “friend”, who happened to operate “the best pie shop in London”.

So in the movie, all blood and gory aside (no matter how graphic), this pie shop would be featured frequently, and the lady friend would be all kneading dough, or making the filling, and people would be buying the pies and eating them, and exclaiming how delicious the pies are. I’ll be all drool drool yum yum.
Ever since watching the movie, I have been craving for meat pies! I’ve tried those in Coffee Zone, the only place I know that has meat pies, but they were disgusting. I tried making my own but while my steak and mushroom stew ended up being delicious filling, my puff pastry had pretty much the consistency of…. kuih mur. I don’t know anywhere else that served meat pies in Brunei that in my desperation: I WENT TO MIRI.

There is this place, called Dave’s Deli, which I’ve been reliably told, sells meat pies, smothered in gravy. Unfortunately, when I went to Miri, it was closed, and was undergoing some sort of renovation work so I came home empty handed. =(

Yesterday, however, my parents with some uncles and aunts went to Miri to visit some grand-relatives. Apparently Dave’s Deli is now open for business! I didn’t actually asked them to but since they remembered how disappointed I was the last time I went there, they tapau-ed for me 2 meat pies, 2 chicken pies and 2 generous servings of delicious gravy!

We haven’t had these in a while no?

Meat pie

The meat pie was exactly as I’ve imagined! Except that the pastry has been a bit soggified due to intense transportation stress and microwavation. My parents actually brought them home last night but because I was bursting full from attending a friend’s open house, I left them overnight in the fridge.

Meat pie at 45 degrees angle. Yes that is a bite mark.

This is after I’ve nuked the pie for 30 seconds. The smell was amazing! Again, the pastry was a bit soggified, but I could imagine that they were probably gorgeous if I had eaten them as soon as I’ve ordered!

Gravified

The way to eat these pies was supposedly by smothering them in a rich brown gravy. The gravy was delicious and they packed for us  2 containers with extremely generous servings! I’m probably going to keep one, and use it later to eat mashed potatoes. YUM!

Innards

I apologise that the innard shot is not that attractive. The filling was generous so that it was practically bursting out. The meat chunks were giant sized! I do prefer meat chunks in pies instead of the minced variety. The filling was basically, carrots, potatoes and meat chunks, sauted with garlic and onions. Simple, but definitely yummy. An improvisation they may consider is adding mushrooms into the filling. I wasn’t expecting mushrooms with the pie, but when wolfing it down this morning, I kept on thinking that adding mushrooms would have given the pie an extra kick!

Chicken pie at 45 degrees before microwavation

The chicken pie box was labelled “chix”. So I didn’t have to bite into each pie to know whether it’s chicken or meat/beef (unfortunately!). Like the Meat Pie, the chicken pie also had a somewhat soggified pastry casing.

Chicken Pie at higher than 45 degrees after microwavation

After nuking them in the microwave, the pastry shrunk a bit in the middle. That also happened with the Meat Pie. Again, judging from the flaky layers I can see that this would have been gorgeous when eaten straight from the oven at the Deli!  Dave’s Deli should seriously consider coming to Brunei (or I should consider going to Miri again).

Gravifying the pie with my fat sausage-like fingers

I do feel the process of pouring gravy over food to be rather therapeutic. I believe it is because after that the food being poured on would always taste better. Oh gravy, what can I do without you?

Innards

The pie was fuuuuull of chicken shreds, even more than the meat pie was full of meat chunks. They were as were the meat pies, filled with chicken shreds, sauted with potato, carrots, onions and garlic. Definitely delicious but I still prefer chicken pie with a creamy quiche-y like filling, with corn and peas instead. So I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the meat pie more than the chicken pie.

I definitely would be going to Miri again one of these days to visit Dave’s Deli. I need to know what the pies taste like straight out of the oven!

I AM MORTIFIED!

We could’ve won! I just HAVE to sing! It is confirmed, I am now migrating to MALTA to become a Malteser, because apparently there is a rerun tomorrow night.

For those who missed the hoohaa and still see “Bruneian Bloggers”, namely Me, Bulimic, AnakBrunei, Rano and Danurasana in a moderately dignified light, please DO NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO SWITCH ON THE RADIO TOMORROW. We will be losing against the DJ’s in a game trivia and I will be destroying your eardrums with my extremely tuneless singing voice.

Horrifying and deathly sound emanating from your radio speakers? THAT WAS ME!

Car suddenly swerved to the stable? IT WAS PROBABLY ME ON THE RADIO!

Elevated heart attack rates across the Asia-Pacific region? MY FAULT!

Loss in the ability to do motor skills? I TOLD YOU NOT TO SWITCH ON THE RADIO!

Insanity and delirium? 90.7, KRISTAL FM, RERUN SOME TIME TOMORROW NIGHT.

BEWARE!

Bah cubatah meliat siapa yang pandai menjawab:

APA HUKUMNYA ORANG MEMBACA YASSIN DIKUBUR?

Siapa pandai menjawab, a certain restaurant belanja buffet.

…. “Wahai Jibrail, kalau kamu dapat terbang selama 3000 tahun dan meskipun aku memberikan kekuatan kepadamu seperti kekuatan yang engkau miliki, lalu kamu terbang seperti yang telah kamu lakukan, nescaya kamu tidak akan sampai kepada sepersepuluh dari beberapa perpuluhan yang telah kuberikan kepada umat Muhammad terhadap imbalan solat dua rakaat yang mereka kerjakan”…..

Click here to read.

Beautiful.

I apologise that processing the video had taken more time than I thought. KAN JULING KU MENGEDIT. The video is unfortunately cut into two halves, Part 1 and Part 2. I hope that everyone can follow the interview. I’ve manipulated voice to make it louder to the best of my limited abilities (there is a distinct background sound of…. running water) and I’ve also censored as much as I could.

What you unfortunately won’t see in the videos: Faces of the Interviewees, as they have explicitly said, and I quote, “we are private people”. SO I have applied some visual filters to mask the scenes.

There will be an introductory few seconds in the beginning by me, and the rest is pretty much Muaz’s interview skills.

It is uploading to YouTube as we speak. It’s a bit long, so patience is a virtue. Hehe. Watch this space. In the mean time, commentary by Muaz is available here.

UPDATE (3.00pm): Here is the first part of the interview. Please try to not comment yet until you’ve watched the second part (upload not complete yet), thanks!

Disclaimer: For those who noticed the question, we definitely did NOT say that we were from the Brunei Times when we were asked. But we did say, we represent the “Bruneian Blogging Community” hehe. Sorry guys, had to say something.

UPDATE (11.15pm): Here is the second part of the interview finally uploaded (atu belangau). I was using a PC for the hell of it and Firefox actually crashed on me 2 times while uploading this. See why I love Macs?

There it is. First of all, I was definitely impressed that they agreed to do the interview. There was not much hesitation on their part when we asked for the interview, after all, they deserve as equal a chance as everyone to defend themselves. I don’t want to bash the restaurant yet I am very sympathetic and outraged by the story from the bulletin.

There are definitely inconsistencies between the story of the customers and the story of Wecan owners. One say this but the other say that. Which one is telling the truth? I cam for clarification, but instead ended up being more muddled. Adakah kayu bergoyang tanpa adanya angin? But in their position what would you do?

The table with 4 seats was indeed given away to other people but sure they only ate a piece of kurma (and some drinks) because all the food from the buffet was gone. Their father indeed used the surau for praying but they actually came also to sungkai. But with the absence of food they left. However, this doesn’t mean that the owners were untruthful in their story because at the time, the 4 people dealt only with one of the workers.

Frankly, at face value, I can definitely sympathise with both parties. Sure the customers were a bit noisy and was affecting the restaurants ambience, but then again, the restaurant owners did not exactly handle the situation well. I think both parties could have reached an amicable conclusion should discussion continue between them. Perhaps also the policy of “pay for all bookings regardless of how many in attendance” should be even more clearly stated.

In the end you have to decide yourself. It’s a good restaurant but needs serious revamping in the “service” and “customer appreciation” department.

Let this be a lesson to all restaurateurs, be clear with not-so-common policies such as this, remember that they are your breadwinners and thus must be appreciated. Let this also be a lesson to diners, make sure you get all the correct information, don’t be afriad to ask if you are unsure. Be reasonable and polite no matter what the situation is.

To the 10 customers who had to suffer such an embarrassing spectacle, don’t think that your experience have been put aside. Take comfort in the effects your story have on people, take pride in the fact that you have opened many eyes, and hopefully no one would ever again have to endure anything like that. Let us all take whats good from this and forgive whats bad.

UPDATE: Apologies to those who came here for a recording of the interview. At the request (through phonecall) of the Wecan Restaurant’s manager, the videos have been privatised and members of the public will not be able to watch. While you can still see the embedded YouTube player, clicking the “Play” buton will only result in a “Loading…” message with no actual loading.

When I enquired “why”, he simply said, and I quote, “there is no point” and urgently requested for the videos to be removed. I did compromised and negotiated whether a voice recording would be better suited for them. However,he refused and reiterated, “there is no point”.

If you would like to know more of what went on in the interview, please refer to comments section and this blog post. I would like to reiterate that, while the video was being recorded, the interviewees were aware that the camera was rolling and everything they say were being villified on camera. They were also aware that the interview was to be posted online.

For now, apologies from Turquoise and Roses! It is their rights and I am only honouring the request of my interviewees.

UPDATE:

From Wecan owners via text message (spelling mistakes NOT mine):

“Before we started, we had clearly warned you not to take any video or voice recording but we have totatly disregarded our request and instruction. Therefore it was improper for you to have done so. We advise you to totally delete the video and interview, forthwith.Wecan owners.”

Wow, I must have been MUTE and speaking in Pig Latin when I had clearly stated that the video will be posted online for credibility. I was pretty sure I’ve heard a resounding reply of OKAY. More than sure, even. I had not realised there was any confusion. Tsk tsk, these people sure know how to twist words around. But their wishes are their wishes. Next time remind me to have the agreement in writing.

I just got back from an interview (conducted by Muaz and I) with the Wecan Restaurant owners, three of them to be exact. Everything is on camera, and is very very long! So I’m editting out relevant bits and will post it up as soon as possible.

Stay tuned. It will be very interesting.

“Then the other owner came to us and said to one of us who actually gave a complaint on our behalf, saying “Kanyang dah parut atu..ahh?? Haram tu yang kamu makan ahh.. kuar kamu dari sini!! Haram kamu masuk kadaiku lagi!!”

WHOA! If this is true, then this must be one hell of a restaurant!

Read the full story first.

The owner had actually dared to say that in the face of their customers?! I’m surprised really. Shocked even! With 40++ other restaurants having Ramadhan Promotions, times are very tough and competitive. I’m just wondering why on earth would a restaurant owner say this.

I think a boycott is in order since. Perhaps not.

1. They ignored the initial formal complaint
2. Restaurant owner blew everything out of proportion
3. Blatant disregard of customers’ rights (why would someone want to pay for something they didn’t even eat?)
4. Extremely rude owner
5. Extremely rude other owner
6. Using the pure name of Islam and Ramadhan in filthy circumstances
7. Sexist comments
8. The ridiculity of the whole situation

*shakes head* Wow, if this is all true, REVEAL the name of the restaurant so others will not suffer the same fate. If not, and if you are a restaurant owner, THIS IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO.

Update: Please redirect yourself, after reading above blog post, to the recorded interview with Wecan Restaurant owners here. Click!

Before I begin, WELCOME to those redirected from BruStu. Apparently there’s a nice thread going on about the Pocong post.

Anyway, I’ve been craving meat pies lately ever since I watched the movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd. Tried making my own a few weeks ago, but simply can’t get the puff pastry right. Hmm. So if you know of any delicious meat pies for sale anywhere, then hit me with a comment!

Random food pictures coming ahead.

Grilled Lamb, from the Charcoal Sungkai Skewer Buffet. D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S like no words can describe. It was beautiful and tender and so so so so melt-in-my-mouth. I am definitely coming back soon. This is DEFINTELY in Turquoise and Roses’s recommended restaurants for puasa. You simply MUST go there!

Cookies and Cream from Miri. I went there last week so I’m now jetlagged. Apakan! Miri pun jetlag. I haven’t been there in years so it was real nice. Many many new things. I was quite sakai. For everyone’s information, sungkai in Miri is 5 minutes behind Brunei time.

Will update soon.