九皇星君/九皇 Nine Emperor Gods Festival

For the last two nights, my wife and I have gone to the Tow Boo Keong temple here in Ipoh to either see or partake in the Nine Emperor Gods Festival 九皇星君/九皇. The festival is a celebration for the nine sons for the North Star Goddess: Tou Mu. The arrangement of the event was excellent and the entire night was filled with excitement and an air of festivities. Everyone was smiling and as friendly as could be, however all were running around trying to do their prayers and find a space to place their Joss Sticks. Men and women, children and the elderly were all about in sort of a chaotic coordinated procession marking their way around the various deities to be blessed. Even I myself took part in this event and with great pride and homage to the respect of Buddhism.

Another aspect of this even is the food, the glories array of food, basic, everyday, hawker style delicacies abound the temple and at a price so low that you cannot help yourself but to gorge on all the wonderful vegetarian delights that fill the hall. There is a real air of holiday celebration throughout the dining area as volunteers rush to fill orders and to clean the tables for the next batch of hungry worshippers that comes in droves all day and night long. I have been feasting for the last two nights on Mee Hoon and potatoes as well as the pink buns that are to be found everywhere along the temple road. Traditionally you will find Tortoise Buns in all shapes and sizes, these buns are made throughout the day by volunteers and then sun dried before they are steamed to a very surprising texture.Also you will notice a grand style Chinese Opera in every traditional manner that can be thought of. Starting roughly at 8:30 PM the opera will continue into the late night before a full procession of volunteers who are considered to be the clean ones (who have observed a strict diet of vegetarian food for nine days) all dressed in white. This procession will leave the temple and head down the city center for a couple of kilometers to the river front will prayers and offerings will be made before returning back to the temple. This parade of the sons will start around 1:00 AM. This is an event not to be missed, I only wished I had seen this event more often throughout the last ten years I have been here in Malaysia – well there will be many more that I will avail myself to in the future.

Durians: Back in SEASON YEAH!!!

Hurry, they are back in season, so jump into your car, head over to Gopeng and stop on the side of the road and start to let yourself go and enjoy one of the greatest delights on earth: DURIANS!!! These have to be some of the best of the year out there, they even have this strange looking one that has very little meat on the seeds and has a very strong vanilla taste to it, extremely lucky if you can find one.

Thai Glass Noodle / Yum Woon Sen, My Wife's is the Best

Recently my wife and I have been going up to Foo Seng near Jusco/Tesco to eat a wonderful salad called: Yum Woon Sen or Thai Glass Noodle. The lady there makes it very well and we found ourselves eating this a few times a week late at night.

Well my wife decided to try her hand at making this and all I can say is give credit where credit is due: Congratulations!!! This is absolutely the very best ever!!! She did it perfectly, absolutely perfectly. She is using Tiger Prawns and that really makes a big difference and the entire salad taste more fresh and crisp than I have ever had anywhere else before. Now we can have this wherever we want (usually every other day) and eat it from the comfort of our own home...This makes one GREAT breakfast by the way.

Next my wife is going to try her talents with Chinese Style Steamed Fish, I have every bit of confidence it will turn out perfectly. My wife says she has always wanted to make this, but I am hoping part of it is cause she knows it is also one of my all time favorite things to eat when out and I just took us out for it the other night. I think we are going to start trying newer recipes each week or every other week so I'll post the results on here about them,.

Anyway the Yum Woon sen is one great Comfort Food to have around.
This is the best comfort food.

New Updates

Sorry been away for awhile, seems hard to get back on here to post updates, been so busy lately with a new business venture that time seems to be little. Actually more so that is has been hard to think what to write about, so I will try harder to be more at ease and post more.