Traditional English Afternoon Tea at E & O Hotel, Penang

Here are some desserts during a traditional English afternoon tea at E & O hotel in Penang. The English afternoon tea was free using the coupon voucher for members and is valid for 1 year. E & O hotel was owned by the Sarkies brothers and is a premier lifestyle hotel that was recently renovated.

The sandwiches are served in a 2 tier holder with scones on top. There are cucumber sandwiches, salmon, cheese and beef sandwiches. You can have a choice of various types of tea, and my favourite is orange flavoured tea. Each diner has a tea pot to himself.

A closer view of the sandwiches with whole meal bread and plain white bread.

Fine bone china is used at the cutlery. On the left is strawberry jam while the right side is butter. These are fillings for the scones where you can split into halves using a butter knife and spread the jam evenly.

Food from Various Places

 

Just recently, I had lobster thermidor in Fishing Village in Teluk Bahang, Penang. As seen from the picture, lobster thermidor looks scrumptious with fillings of button mushrooms, onions, succulent lobster meat and lots of cheese. It was garnished with juliened cabbage, carrots and greens. 100gm of frozen lobster is about $13.00 or USD 4.35. This meal was 1kg lobster served on a huge dining plate.

 

Our next ordered meal was baked crabs - we prefer it baked to retain the flavor so that it is not masked by other sauces like chilly crab with eggs, lots of gravy, et cetera. Here, we had 2 baked crabs, one for each of us to fill our hungry appetites.

 

This is curry chicken cheese baked spaghetti on the 7th level of Gurney Plaza, next to Xuan Xin Steamboat that was opened 2 weeks ago. As we were catching a movie soon, it was only convenient to have our dinner on the same floor as the movie screen cinemas as we don't want to be late for any cinema show. I don't like it when it is all dark with the lights turned off and the movie has started while you have to search for your seat numbers. It is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

 

I love this Siamese 'belacan' fried rice consisting of chopped long beans, onions, mango, dried prawns, chicken, egg omelette and sambal. The whole combination was just simply delicious when mixed together and eaten as a complete meal with enough carbo from the rice and roughage from the veges.

 

The same meal together with spicy tom yum soup and a glass of fresh orange juice without sugar and ice - also from Gurney Plaza.

 

Here is coconut ice cream added with chopped peanuts, stripes of mango and water chess nut coated with red jelly-like substance which is typical of any Thai dessert.

 

The black pepper gravy for the fish fillet simply sumptuous. This was ordered at Clinic Cafe on the 4th level of Gurney Plaza. By now you might have guessed that I love to patronize Gurney Plaza, an upmarket lifestyle shopping mall.

Dinner at Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant

 

This is the entrance to Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant where we dined recently over the weekend. It looks decadent with the red Chinese New Year cloth decos, potted bongsai trees, et cetera.

 

This was one of our dishes that I ordered - broccoli with scallops, stirfried with ginger, garlic and spring onions. The broccoli was crunchy and scallops succulent to taste. The chopped ginger added the 'oomph' to the flavor.

 

Notice the comb of genuine shark's fins with dried scallops, chicken plus chinese herbal roots and other condiments. A bowl like this will set you back by $40 as sharks' fins are rare commodity now and sharks are endangered species. The double-boiled soup was just superb and heavenly. 

 

This presentation of this dish was not as nice as what we have ordered before but it tasted just as delicious. This is two styles cooked chicken that's fried and garnished with sesame seeds which give the added flavor to the palate.

 

After finishing our ordered dishes, to our surprise, the waiter brought us free dessert of mooncakes to celebrate the lunar month of the mooncake festival. The middle portions are salted duck egg yolk covered with lotus seed that's been processed into a paste and baked in the oven. Some of the mooncakes are just plain filling while others have nutty fillings and red bean paste.

 

These are the most common mooncakes with brown covering and floral motifs imprinted on them. They are vacuum  packed individually at now cost 10% more than last year, ranging from $12 - $18 a piece. This photo was taken downstairs of the restaurant where there is a supermarket on the ground floor.

 

This is a different variety of mooncakes made from black charcoal powder to give its distinct black color.

 

More colored mooncakes - in this case, they are beige or pastel yellow snowskin.

 

This is the ambiance of Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant and view from our table. Sometimes Chinese wedding banquets are held here with almost the whole restaurant being booked in advance. There are also private function rooms for the discerning wealthy and millionaire diners who prefer to eat in complete privacy and away from the prying eyes of other diners at other tables.

 

I am done with the photos at Hei Yeong Seng Restaurant. Now next to showing food photos taken in Kuala Lumpur where I went for a business trip last week. This 'sui kow' soup was taken at Noodle House in Taipan, Subang Jaya and sprinkled with chopped spring onions. A bowl like this with 5 'sui kows' cost about $6.

 

This is fish fillet baked rice at Kim Gary on the 3rd floor of Gurney Plaza. This is one of my favorite dishes and I don't mind having this every day! I can eat the same food on a daily basis without getting bored.

Gourmet Tea

Today is the first of September and heralds a new beginning of the month. It is also pay day for me. As an aside, I am paid twice a month - one on the first and the other on the fifteenth. And I love to work from a home office. Just last night, I had lobster thermidor which I will put up the picture later on. I also had baked crabs and stir-fried vermicelli in a fishing village food cafe. We had to book a table, otherwise there will not be any place and you will have to wait until the diner finished their meals before getting an empty table. That's how popular the place is, regardless of how ramshackle it looks.

My friend had gourmet tea that came in a tea pot while I ordered 2 glasses of orange juice. The lobster thermidor was succulent! There was plenty of cheese, button mushrooms and lots of onions baked together with the fresh lobster. The bill came to about $190 which was much cheaper than if you were to dine elsewhere in Penang. This particular food cafe is located in a fishing village by the seaside and is always patronized by diners that come from far and near. Singaporeans love this place for its very affordable yet delicious food. That is why it is always jammed packed with people.

The gourmet tea that my friend ordered was a type of Chinese tea called 'pu er'. It is not cheap either and the longer you keep it, the better it tastes just like wine. The older it ages, the more expensive it becomes. There are many types of gourmet tea and you can check out by clicking on the links given to read more about them. My favorite English tea is Earl Grey and Peppermint tea.

I Love T.G.I. Friday's

 

Attention Baltimore area Friday's fans! Head on over to your local Friday's for a great offer of a Dinner and a Cold One for only $10.

Enjoy some of Friday's® delicious entrees including a drink of choice:

• Indulgent Parmesan Crusted Chicken


• Jack Daniels Pulled Pork Sandwich


• Balsamic Glazed Chicken Caesar


• Mouth-watering Black Angus cheeseburger

This offer is available Sunday –Thursday only. For the full menus being offered, please visit:

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T.G.I.F. means Thank God It's Friday's. There are many outlets of T.G.I.F all over the world and I love the one in Baltimore for its ambience and food. T.G.I.Fserves western food with huge portions - suitable for big people with huge appetite. The ambience is cosy, with dimly lit lights that is suitable for dating couples to dine with soothing music in the background. The waiters and waitresses are also trained to handle your orders with upmost professionalism. On March 15, 1965 casual dining got a serious kick start. That’s when a fun-loving New Yorker named Alan Stillman purchased a bar located on 1^st Avenue and 63^rd Street and named it T.G.I. Friday’s.  Okay, so his main goal was to meet stewardesses, but what he didn’t know at the time was that he was going to create what is now referred to as the casual dining industry.






Today, T.G.I. Friday’s offers a casual dining experience unlike any other, where you can expect great food, drinks and plenty of fun to go around at 928 locations in 44 states and 61 countries.  Just don’t expect a dull moment at any of them.

“TGIF,” an acronym that stands for “Thank God It’s Friday” (or, alternatively “Thank Gosh It’s Friday,” or “Thank Goodness It’s Friday”). The expression, which has been popularized in the last few decades through media, entertainment and marketing, nonetheless represents one of the most deep-seated features of human nature: the universal need to have fun, relax, and hang out with friends and family. And what day better represents this need than Friday, the start of the weekend? I have dined in TGIF a few times and due to the dim lighting, did not take as many food pictures as I would love to. But this is a splendid restaurant to patronize if you run out of ideas of where to eat. The fish and chips were succulent and juicy with the chips crispy to the palate. There's also a generous portion of salad paired with the main meal.

This sponsorship is brought to you by Friday's® whom we have partnered with for this promotion.

Moving Obsession?

Thanks for the article from Jermaine Haynes

There are few things in this world I love more than real estate and that probably explains why I’ve moved so many times. It’s three in the last four years, to be exact, and I think I’m crazy because I actually like packing and unpacking and all that comes with it. I spend so much of my time changing my address and utilities and on WildBlue in Bennettsville websites that I think my boss thinks I’m slacking off but really it’s just necessary stuff! First the townhome I couldn’t pass up came my way and then it was the old farmhouse and my most recent obsession is this old Victorian I’ve moved into. I think I’m going to get a dog the next time the urge to move strikes so I won’t lose so much money on movers and things like that – this obsession is getting a bit out of hand! I know it sounds silly but I think it has something to do with wondering what the perfect house would do for my life.

Food is Nourishing

We work hard to earn an income to bring food to the table for our families and children. We spend most of our waking hours working hard for at least 8 hours straight on end, with some people working even longer hours. Therefore, we need to nourish ourselves with nutritious food to replenish the lost energy and calories. Eating food can also be cathartic. But eat in moderation and not to the extend of being obese that you have to be warded in the medical centre and see the personnel in scrubs uniforms.

On a side note, you might like to check out http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ by clicking on the link given here to find out more. The lab coats sold here are of premium quality without burning a hole in your wallets in case you are searching for one or work in the hospital. It has long been the tradition to don a lab coat in the course of your duty in the medical centres.

It is certainly time consuming to maintain this blog with many gorgeous food photos that make eye candies to whet the appetite. It is done out of love of seeing my own photos being listed for every new post and see visitors coming back repeatedly.