During the recent long weekend, I wanted to cook nasi lemak so Saliheen and I made it for our friends who came over for movie night! I figured it wouldn't be too difficult, just leceh because got so many components.

In the end everything turned out great except our nasi!!!!! BARANG PALING PENTING SEH. The rice was lemak and sedap ah but the texture was all wrong because lembik. We did the rice in two batches, both times the nasi lembik. Letak kat tengah tengah Sahara desert pun belum tentu boleh kering beb.

But lembik tak apa, asalkan dalam Instagram tak nampak :P

Clock-wise: Ayam goreng, ikan bilis, sambal sotong, sambal petai, timun, sambal manis, telur dadar and of course, the lembik but Instagrammable nasi lemak :P Nasib baik masih boleh makan because the taste was right and went well with the other dishes. Just the texture je yang off.

We watched 'The Usual Suspects' after our nasi lemak dinner and it was so, so good! I've been trying to watch cult classic movies as part of my personal 30 before 30 project so this was a great start. I've taken an interest for American pop culture so this is also me trying to "complete" that interest.

It sucks when an article/someone makes a reference and I don't understand/appreciate it because I didn't watch a particular movie or TV show! Now whenever someone says "Who is Keyser Soze?" I can reply with "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" :P

My favourite scene is the famous line-up scene, of course... I still can't believe the lines were ad-libbed!

Saliheen and I also watched 'Goodfellas' on our own the day after that and it was so good too!!! Especially when you know it is based on a true story wtf. I've read Bryan Burrough's Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI 1933 - 1934 and have some knowledge on Depression-era criminals and how the FBI started because of that era so this is a continuation/extension of that? Now I've been reading about the Mafia non-stop! (And lots of movie trivia, of course. Haha)

Also helps that the setting is in New York City, it is fascinating to imagine how the city was like decades ago and spot familiar things since we've been to the city! The next NYC-based classic movie I want to watch is Taxi Driver, which is about a lonely and depressed former US Marine who becomes a taxi driver in NYC. About time I know the context of Robert DeNiro's iconic "You talkin' to me?" line in the movie, amirite? 

We're also going to watch The Godfather for our next movie night with friends so let's see what the hype is all about, and why Saliheen was so obsessed, he wanted to use The Godfather's soundtrack as our wedding dinner walk-in. Kau pikir kau mob boss ke ape sak. Suruh park motor sembarang bila takde proper parking lot je kau punya jari dah terketar ketar, nak perasan kau Don konon.

Hari Raya Dah Habis La

Long time no blog!

My blogging mojo is really perangai biskut seh, kejap ada kejap takde. I didn't have the inspiration to blog because firstly, I've been really busy at work and home (always like this at end of the year!) and secondly, I was (kind of) jaded with blogging and social media.

I won't elaborate too much on the second point; I was just trying to limit my usage and minimize the negative feelings I had against it and its users. I still used social media la, I never really went away or anything, but I just didn't want to blog the thoughts I had because of it. Maybe not yet. Or maybe never!

Trying to restart my blogging mojo so I'll start with the latest pictures I have in my phone. Saliheen and I took leave on Friday so we had a good and long Hari Raya Haji weekend to meet our families and friends ♥

Ok fine, I only have 2 pictures from Hari Raya Haji - one with my sisters, and one of my favourite little boy Chah Inn, who wailed and cried bloody murder because his brother and my sisters took a picture without him lolol I wish I had his problems! #kidlogic #kidproblems

The rest of the time we stuffed ourselves with good old Malay raya food, both at his side and mine. Perut kembung sampai sekarang, beb. Recycled my one-piece baju raya because I knew that was gonna happen. Note to self: Buy a black loose fitting jubah for occasions like Hari Raya Haji and other majlis!

Posting pictures from Hari Raya Haji just made me realize I didn't blog about our Hari Raya Aidilfitri festivities few months prior! Shall I use this entry as an excuse to post outdated pictures hwa... hwa... hwa..........

Kept our baju raya cheap and simple, the way we like it, because we value comfort over anything else! It was our first Ramadhan and Hari Raya in our own home and it was very enjoyable - picking out our first lampu lap-lip, ordering kuih raya (Makcik pro tip: order kuih raya 1 month in advance!!!) and having our relatives and friends over for Raya celebrations. Ramadhan was lovely too, we managed to cook for most of our sahurs and iftars, didn't miss any sahurs, went for terawih together and hosted several iftar sessions. 

(Love my lipstick in the last picture! It's NARS Audacious Lipstick in Vera. Damn solid.)

We had full bird's eye view of SG50 fireworks which set off in front of our friends' new house during one of the raya visits! How lucky! I'm not a sucker for fireworks but I have to admit the ones we saw that day were sooooo pretty ♥ Saliheen and I also visited his cousin's place one of the Raya days and his cousin and wife dah macam ada cat cafe kat balcony rumah la sia. Gerammmmm!!!!!

We entertained the idea of getting a cat as our house pet but some of our friends said I won't be able to clean the cat's poo once I get pregnant in the future (something about parasitic infection???) and can you believe it - betul betul during Hari Raya Haji, my cousin's cat berak inside the toilet just before I needed to use it and the stink was nauzubillah min zalik! Nak kena beli gas mask dulu ni sebelum beli kucing haha.

But aku seriously berangan je k. Taik baby aku belum nak handle, ada hati nak handle taik kucing. Cis!

Roll Over The Ocean! Roll Over The Sea!

What do you do when you start missing food you had while on holiday? 
You (try and) recreate it in your own kitchen, of course.
Well, you could also fly over to the country which sells the food that you're craving for but I am not a Kardashian and don't have that fly-halfway-across-the-world-at-short-notice kind of money lying around my house so I'll stick to recreating food in my kitchen, thank you very nice! I've done it before, anyway - recreate food from my holidays, I mean - and I really do enjoy it very much.  Except when I fail miserably, like when I tried to recreate the vegetarian dumplings called Pierogi we had in Poland and it ended up looking and tasting like lumps of kerbau shit instead. Not like I know how kerbau shit tastes like la, I'm not that adventurous sampai makan najis (what would the halal police say, gasp!), but I imagine kerbau shit would taste as bad as that haha.
Anyway, I started missing the lobster rolls from Luke's Lobster after blogging about it a few weeks ago then kebetulan Sorted Food (one of my favourite cooking channels) posted an episode on Lobster Rolls!!!!! You can watch it here. 
I used most of the ingredients listed in their recipe but changed some of the quantity depending on taste, I didn't follow the exact order of putting in ingredients, and I also didn't go through the tedious steps of removing the meat from the lobster! I bought lobster meat (already peeled from its shell) because I am not only lazy, I am also smart. I mean...... who ask you go peel yourself, right?!?!?! Just buy the peeled lobster meat off the shelf la!!!!! How, is that smart or not.
I got the lobster meat from the Adam Halal store opposite my flat at S$25 per tray, by the way. I don't know if Eating Crabs sells lobster meat in the same form as well, but I guess no harm asking if you want to try out this recipe. 
This recipe is ridiculously simple for something so delicious!!!!! I prefer the mayonnaise sauce version whereas Saliheen prefers the hot butter sauce version - I think I would've liked the hot butter one better if I didn't overcook the lobster meat (you can see this happening in the video above). Really quite unfortunate lobster meat is freaking expensive though, or else, I'd make this a regular staple for when family and/or friends come over. Fancy siol kalau serve lobster everytime tetamu datang rumah! Semua kena datang pakai ballgown and tuxedo ah gitu hahaha.
P.S. I recently found out Luke's Lobster and Magnolia Bakery have outlets in Tokyo so YESSAH!!! Actually, a lot of places that we went to in NYC have considerable presence in Tokyo seh, including the Statue of Liberty kwa kwa kwaaa.