Camper1991 On The Fifth Day of Chinese New Year

CHINESE NEW YEAR... fifth day....

The place is called Camper1991 and during this festive season, no reservations are allowed.  Business is brisk over here, so I heard.  Normal days, we can call and book, but on this fifth day of Chinese New Year,  we were told to just walk in... and .... wait....

As usual, it is best to be early diners if we do not want to wait in line.  We reached the Campers1991 before 6pm and there was two tables left.  So happy to see that... it was my first time visit to this place and from reviews, the food is good and the price is reasonable!

There were 6 of us including a three year old who eats like an adult.. or should I say, she eats more than I do!   Here's is our order.... 

Har Cheong Kai Burger...

aka chicken burger in prawn paste... 

I would like to try that again!

Portion is to my liking...

Not the gigantic portions which make me full even before eating!

We ordered another type of burger which is pork...

Somehow the picture is missing from my folder... 

My three year old finished this plate of tomato pasta teriyaki chicken...

Ok, she finished the noodles and we adults helped with the chicken... 

Smoked duck pizza.... 

6 pieces of chicken wings crispy, sweet and savory... 

Rib eye steak.... 

Two types of desserts...
Don't understand why they make a choc dog cake....

Looks so real... 

Nevertheless, I started with the legs... 

and ended with the head...

Poor doggie... 

And the Happy Lot.... grinning from left to right....

Total cost... RM226 plus drinks...

When we left, there were a few families outside... 

Happy Waiting!!

Lunar New Year 2024 Before And After

TODAY IS THE SIXTH DAY OF LUNAR NEW YEAR....

And this is the day when I am now free to blog a few lines to activate back my blog after a long absence!

So much happenings for the past few weeks, my house were filled with all different types of noise and voice.  The two terrible twos were mainly the culprit, the happy screams, the complaining cries, shouting filled my house.  Even the baby was not left out, she has her fair share of the above noises.

And now my house is at its silent mode again and I am able to sit down quietly now....

Here are some pictures we took during the festive season....

 

My extended family.... 

When three becomes six and then nine... plus myself...

A table of 10...

 

 

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner At San Jose 2022

TABLE FOR FOUR...

We had our own reunion Chinese New Year dinner on Monday evening.... we made a simple one, just hot pot at home.  All we have to do is to clean the vegetables, get everything defrosted... and the hot pot boiling with a packet of seasoning.  They sell a lot of hot pot seasoning over here, from tomato soup to shrimp and chicken soup, I just threw in the whole packet of paste.  No doubt not so healthy but it is so easily done.... 

As usual, Chinese New Year won't be CNY without a plate of Loe Sang... 

No crackers so I put in a few pieces of Tacos... LOL...

Most important is the sauce.... 

The apricot, plum sauce and honey makes it right....

And our dishes for the evening.....

We ate too much shrimps the day before so we omitted for this evening....

Simple and yet satisfying meal for our Reunion Dinner....

Our Chinese New Year Celebration On Sunday

PRELIMINARY ROUND of CHINESE NEW YEAR.... 

There is no public holiday for CNY here in US, thus my kids have to work through this festive season.  Instead we celebrated few days earlier, during the weekend instead of Tuesday.  They invited one family over to join in our dinner which was held at 5pm.... 

Our cooking started in the morning and we were proud to present the following dishes, all made from scratch... LOL... I would never have done these dishes by myself... with the cooperation from my daughter-in-law, I think we did a pretty good job?  LOL... Just complimenting ourselves!  LOL... 

Our own homemade Loe Sang.... 

Consists of cucumber, radish, carrots, smoked salmon... and raisins!

No Kacang Puteh sold here... so we used Bali fruits and fried wanton skin... 

We also made our own sauce... Plum, apricot, honey.... 

Our own homemade roasted pork and roasted chicken....

Oh, we made our own Char Siew as well... BBQ Pork.... 

Three in a platter...

Mixed vegetables...

And the main attraction is this Poon Choy.... 

Never expected we could make this so well...

Ahem... sorry, can't help it... 

LOL... 

Maybe I do this again next year... or perhaps on any other day...

Does not have to wait for festive season, right?

My first CNY meal here in San Jose....

 

Apricot Scones On The 11th Day Of Chinese New Year

CRAVINGS FOR SCONES...

I still have a small bottle of strawberry jam in the fridge and eating them with hot freshly baked scones has certainly "motivated" me to bake them in the early morning after a light breakfast.  

A very simple task actually, just get all the ingredients on the kitchen table and everything will be done within an hour.  This time I did the full portion as in the recipe by Anna Olson on youtube.  Instead of cranberries, I put in chopped apricots this time and added in more lemon zest.  

Full portion = 16 scones...

The odd shaped one at the bottom is the remainder of the dough... 

As usual, I topped it with pecan...

25 minutes of baking under temperature of 170 degrees... 

I don't know why the recipe written is brushing the top with egg white...

It is so pale in comparison with the egg yolk...

Next time I will use egg yolk instead... 

I ate two scones at one go... 

So nice to go with the cold strawberry jam...

Actually these can be quite filling...

I gave some to my neighbour...

And the rest of the remaining ones, I put inside the fridge...

Just have to airfry them for 2-3 minutes

And they taste like freshly baked ones again... 

On The 7th Day Of Chinese New Year 2021

BIRTHDAY, EVERYONE!

I invited my two friends over for a simple dinner, since it was the 7th day of Chinese New Year, I told them that the menu was just porridge.  LOL... Besides porridge, we decided to do the Lou Sang again, an appetizer to be eaten before the main meal.  

Again, we cooperated and get the ingredients done, lots of cutting to be done, cucumber, carrot, sengkuang aka turnip, dried apricot, mango and pomelo.  For toppings, the usual peanuts, fried crackers, sesame seeds and then lastly, the apricot/plum sauce, that is the most important item otherwise the Loe Sang won't be a success.  LOL... 

Ren Ri in Chinese...

It mean People's Day.... 

Spot the difference?

This is more like it... 

LOL... 

After the photo-taking, we filled up the plate with all the toppings..

and we naturally forgot to take another picture of that....

We started the video taking instead... 

and wish each other the best of everything!

LOL... 

My simple cooking of porridge.... 

And the the rest of the dinner 

on this 7th day of CNY...

Fifth Day Of Chinese New Year

FIFTH DAY...  Looks like it is back to normal, no more festive mood.  My kids, my friends... they start working again.  For retirees like me, it is just another normal day, wake up thinking what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.   Just the daily chores, sweeping, washing, cooking, eat, watch TV while dozing off at times and then bedtime.   This is retirement life... sounds kind of boring eh... know why?  Traveling is prohibited!  Sigh... otherwise life wouldn't be so quiet as it is now....

So now it is back to normal, normal means Movement Control Order, only two can dine out.  This morning I bought back food for breakfast instead of eating out...

Felt like eating curry noodles from Ye Sing... 

Days before MCO, their curry sold out by 9 or latest 9.30am...

Nowadays they are still available even at 10 or after... 

This was yesterday's lunch.... 

4 leftover prawn curry from the previous dinner... 

I just added in some greens and one dish is ready... 

Oh, did I tell you about my smart cooker?

I just took it out in full use a couple of months back...

And since then, I don't want to keep it in the cupboard anymore... 

Never realised that it was so so useful!

OK, I will tell more about it... 

Back to this dish, I braised pork ribs, arrowhead, black fungus... 

marinated with fermented beancurd and chili sauce... 

Add in garlic and ginger... 

Cooking time 30 minutes and the dish is done!

THIRD DAY CNY FALLS ON VALENTINE DAY 2021

FALLS ON A SUNDAY...     

Now with the latest MCO rules, only two in a car, two to a table when we eat outside.  A good move I would say, at least to the food business, not much but better than just take-away or delivery.  

On this third day we followed just that, two in a car and we drove to Foh San for dim sum.  This restaurant has a super big space and it is not enclosed, open verandah and spacious.  I had not been there for several years until yesterday and though the food/dim sum were not as good as some other shops, we did not really mind.  After few days of cooking and staying at home, I don't mind dining out for a change...

After breakfast we went to Shake&Bake to get a Valentine cake and brought it over to our friend's house.  It has been quite a while since we last saw them... 

A small mini Black Forest cake.... RM60  

Evening comes, my friends came and together we made this.... 

Our supposedly moo-moo ended up looking like some other animals... 

We are not artistic enough... 

LOL... 

After photo taking, we topped with more fruits and crackers...

And apricot plum sauce, sesame seeds and peanuts.... 

After all the photo taking, the tossing began....

Shouts of good blessings were recorded on the phone... 

That will be for keeps!

Ordered delivery Prawns in Bread...

And the black color soup is Black Vinegar Trotter... .

We carried our food out to the living hall... 

because we cannot carry the aircon to the dining hall... 

LOL....

My Chinese New Year Eve Dishes

SMALL AFFAIR .... This Chinese New Year Eve is a very different one from my 6 decades, different not in terms of food but in terms of company.

A small scale this year, only three of us and I just did one dish... Soup!  The rest of the dishes were "contributed" from my neighbour and my sister-in-law.  I did not go over this year, she has four eating in her house which is a rare sight, all along there are more than ten each year.

Anyway, keep safe and still be happy, that is all that counts!!

For lunch we had these dishes... 

Bak Kut Teh given by my neighbour.... 

Ju Hu Char given by my neighbour too....

So nice of them!

Our CNY Eve lunch.... 

Then around 4.30pm these came...

I ordered from a friend's friend....

This Poon Choy it is called...

It cost RM238...

They gave the pot too....

I just have to heat the gravy and pour over these ingredients....

And then warm it up over the stove for awhile....

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law brought over these for me...

Black fungus with pork belly....

And our dinner for three....with the remaining soup....

We finished the dishes except for the Poon Choy...

There's one third left and I will do something with it one of these days!

LOL.... 

How about your CNY Eve this year?

Any Special Reunion?

 

Chinese New Year Eve 2021

ON THIS DAY...

This year is the first time in history that I am actually quite "free" when it comes to cooking for reunion dinner.  A very quiet time on this day, not only in the house but in Ipoh as well.  No traffic jam for the first time in history in Ipoh at CNY Eve!  Even the road in front of my house is empty, a rare sight, normally it would be filled with cars parked along the road and we always have to "chup" a place for my in-laws' cars when they come visiting.  Well, I guess this year is kind of Special... 

 

Received some flowers from Camerons last night.... 

Other than that, nothing much, nothing special...

As long as we stay safe, we are Good!

Have a Safe And Healthy Chinese New Year!!

 

My Dishes For Chinese New Year Eve

GONG XI GONG XI.... 

This year Chinese New Year Eve reunion was different from the previous years.  For the first time in history, I did all the cooking!!  For many days before the real day, I did some serious homework and research, wrote down what I needed to buy and getting some tips from the "cooks."  When the real day finally arrived, a few dishes were "born"... from Reanaclaire's kitchen.  LOL.... 

Started the eve of CNY early by preparing all the ingredients needed... most of the time were spent washing and cutting..... cooking them is easier...  Now looking back, I am amazed at my late mom, she really did a lot for our whole family plus extended ones during festive season.  How she managed to cope up with endless dishes without any complaints is a real wonder!  Now it is my turn and I only did less than half she used to cook....  

My dishes for the eve of Chinese New Year....

Opened a can of abalone and added in Chinese cabbage and broccoli... 

A vegetarian dish... 

Steamed chicken... 

Ju Hu Char... special request from my girl...

Chicken soup with pig stomach... 

Now looking back, I only cook five dishes....

Not much but a Big accomplishment for me!  LOL... 

4 dishes and a pot of soup in fact...

And yet I felt so exhausted by the end of the day!  

Today is the 8th day of CNY.... 

Not too late to wish my readers... 

A Happy And Blessed Chinese New Year!!