Calorie (or lack thereof)

My classes on Wednesday usually end a bit later than other days, so I often have dinner with the now-famous Sri Petaling Gang. Ivan was missing this time, he said he’s broke so he decided to have dinner at home. We were joined by the 2V’s and TK (names have been concealed to protect their identities). We regularly have dinner together on Wednesdays anyway. Today, we decided to try a new place - Calorie.

What a name. I thought they’d be serving extra-high calorie food but unfortunately it’s the other way around. I needed the extra calories anyway. Yeah but anyway, I drew that logo myself. It doesn’t look exactly like that, but I’m pretty sure it’s something similar - Comic Sans MS text coloured like Google!

The menus actually state the calorie count for each of its main meals. You could see at one glance that they’re into healthy food (not health food) and so I was disappointed. Haha! Okay not really but I definitely wouldn’t mind the extra calories.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of my food so I guess there’s not much point getting into details about what I ate, but it’s worth mentioning that they’re different from what we usually get from other eateries. The most noticeable thing is their minimal use of oil. It’s unusual for outside food to be prepared that way, because well… generally (appropriately) oily food tastes better But it wasn’t bad at all, their dishes had a light and simple taste to it without being bland.

An interesting place to say the least, definitely worth a visit if you’d appreciate simple and healthy food. If you ever drop by Sri Petaling, Calorie is somewhere opposite of Sri Petaling Hotel, directly opposite of the Sri Petaling KFC outlet.

War With Arrows

Okay. This is going to be a ridiculous post, but due to my insane obsession true love for nga ku chips, I have to make certain things clear. I was wandering the net searching for more stories on nga ku (yes, i’m that crazy) and very soon realised that there was a confusion going on. Some people call it arrowroot. Some people call it arrowhead. I used to call it arrowhead. Then I started calling it arrowroot. Now I’m in doubt myself. So what is nga ku’s real name??? Preliminary research (wahseh, sounds pro) has returned only contradicting results. Looks like there’s no easy way to find out. I’ll have to do it the hard way.

Well, to start things off, we have to start using proper, scientific names for our candidates. I’ve narrowed down the potential names to Sagittaria trifolia and Sagittaria graminea. See, I’m even colour-coding them for readibility purpose

Let’s start off with Sagittaria trifolia. A quick search on Google with this name will most likely point you to a rather professional site with quite a large and believable database on plants - Plants for A Future. This site lists information on plants very concisely, and it clearly shows that Sagittaria trifolia’s common name is Chinese Arrowroot.

 
_{Says its highly edible. Sounds correct.}

_{Sounds yummy. Like nga ku}

BUT, I start to find contradicting information regarding the common name of Sagittaria trifolia. The Global Compendium of Weeds states that Sagittaria trifolia is called arrowhead instead.

The Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database also calls it arrowhead.

Another rather convincing info I found is from persimmon’s blog. It’s quite obvious that nga ku’s are called Arrowheads. Unless the packaging is wrong, which is something still possible.

 
_{Almost irrefutable proof. Almost. (Pic taken from persimmon’s blog)}

Okay. What we have established here is that Sagittaria trifolia  is more likely called Arrowhead than Arrowroot. Then again, we cannot confirm that nga ku is called Arrowheads from this picture alone. So we shall move on the the other candidate in question - Sagittaria graminea. The confusing here is started by the Plants for A Future (mentioned above) site. It states that Sagittaria graminea is called Arrowhead instead.

_{Confusing, hor? But doesn’t sound very yummy lar.}

 An easier way to find out what Sagittaria graminea  really is, is by looking for its pictures. So I took the liberty to go hunting for some .

Wet Web Media says that it looks like this:

   
_{Doesn’t look yummy}

Natural Resource Conservation Service says it looks like this:

_{Not at all.}

 The Burke Museum of National History and Culture:

_{Definitely not. No no.}

Now we’re pretty sure that Sagittaria graminea looks nothing like nga ku. Can we now safely assume that nga ku is indeed called Arrowhead?

I really hope so.

I Have Sinned

It’s the time of the year again. Chinese New Year is around the corner. Bright red coloured decorations in every nook and cranny of shops and supermarkets, loud overenthusiastic chinese songs blaring over the speakers, specially set up booths selling overpriced CNY goods in every available space.

_{Chinese New Year in Chinatown London. So says Wikipedia.}

While most people would go around shopping for food, clothing, decorative items, whatnot… I was more interested in a rather petty thing - Chinese Arrowroot chips - better known as nga ku chips.

_{They. Are. Addictive.}

I’m hopelessly addicted to these chips really. They’re not something that can be bought all year round, they only come around during CNY. Which is a good thing actually. Otherwise I’d 1. Die of nga ku chips intoxication or 2. Die of starvation because I won’t have money left to survive. They aren’t exactly cheap. A bottle can range from RM11-RM15. For nothing but potato-like chips, that’s pretty hefty. Which brings us to the main point of this post.

I have sinned

I bought another bottle before I finished the first one. I have submitted to gluttony.

_{Addiction fueled.}

Does that mean I’m going to rot in Hell?
Sure hope they have nga ku chips there.

Late Night Hunger

I’ve had no time for updates recently, started working a couple days back. And work is boring, nothing to write about I’ve got to run off to bed real soon for work tomorrow, so I’m going to make this a quickie. Nothing to write about, really. The only thing in my mind right now is - FOOD.

I didn’t had a proper dinner because I wasn’t feeling too well, but right now I’m so hungry I’m salivating over the pictures I’ve taken a few days back during friends’ birthday celebrations (again! :P).

We celebrated Jane’s birthday at a rather unique place.

_{Steamboat BBQ combo! Things don’t get much better than this! :D~~~}

I miss my vegetables. And my ice cream too

_{Why must I tempt myself like this? =.=”}

If that wasn’t enough, we celebrated Marvin’s birthday at his house a couple days after Jane’s. More food!!!

_{Steamboat with homemade soup! I felt my stomach growl. Again.}

There was actually this mega pizza feast at Marvin’s house the moment I arrived. He ordered 10 large Dominos pizzas. But I sort of…. forgot to take pictures of them. Because… I was too busy eating them taking pictures of guests/stuff

Anyway, that’s all for this very short update. Gotta run off to bed otherwise I won’t be able to wake up for work tomorrow!

NBTD

Recently, the haze in KL has begun to clear. A few days back, the sky was particularly clear and coincidentally, I got back home late and realised that the night scene around my apartment was simply stunning. I couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to take some pictures.

_{The golf course beside my apartment}

_{Looks like neon christmas trees}

I thought it was pretty cool, so I made the next shot deliberately using the same “method”

_{I have no idea what it looks like}

Then suddenly, I heard my neighbour unlocking her door. To avoid looking like a complete idiot standing out there suspiciously, I quickly went back into my unit. Haha. But I still had an opportunity to take pretty pictures from my balcony.

_{Nice view of Kesas-MRR2 Interchange}

And again, I genuinely forgot to set the timer on my camera while I lined it up for the next shot.

_{Aurora lights! Made in Malaysia}

I have quite a few other shots taken from my balcony, but they’re mostly taken in the afternoon or evening. Check out the rest here. Night shots are difficult to take, and they’re often too noisy. Ciplak camera is like that one-lah.

Back 2 days ago, Phil said he’d be free for dinner and asked me for dinner plans. And we hatched an “ambitious” plan. We were gonna make a steamboat party! So in the evening, off we went. 5 guys, Phil, Wei How, Ivan, Edward and I went to the nearest Carrefour to do grocery shopping. We were happily picking out the things we needed, sotong ball ketam ball fish ball pork ball Phil’s ball mushrooms guava drink grape drink crab fillet chicken fillet fish cake nuggets sausages french fries and lotsa veggie. We quickly headed back to Phil’s place and started preparing.

I started preparing most of the raw food, while Wei How started frying the nuggets and the fries. The rest did a good job arranging everything we needed - plates, bowls, cutlery and the food itself. We didn’t had spices or anything (and the skill) to make good soup, I just had to make do with my bottle of Tom Yam paste. I ended up using half the bottle for the single pot of water. And it still tasted rather bland

It didn’t take too long before everything was ready…

_Taa-daa!!!

Not too shabby, eh? Haha. It might not look a lot there, but it was madness. We were completely stuffed, to the point we actually could not finish some of it. All of us there weren’t exactly small eaters. Only for RM11 per person, we were almost stuffed to death. All of them insisted that a little less will be sufficient if there is a next time

The sense of satisfaction was great, and it was some mightly fun. Eating with friends is nice, preparing food with friends is even better! The food was simple and nothing extravaganza about it, but it was one of the best dinners I ever had!