We are lucky that there are so many parks and playgrounds around us.
It’s been raining so much this winter that we head out to the park whenever the sun is out during the weekend.
A new playground set in our neighbourhood. The girls like this new playground a lot.
School holidays mean waffles for breakfast! I bought a new waffle machine and it worked a treat.
So much cooking over the weekend! There was lasagna, a roast pork dinner, loh bak and fried bean sprout noodles oh and pumpkin soup too! I was very productive in an afternoon I thought.
Lemon Swiss roll because we have lemons at home and ah ma loves Swiss roll.
Pandan Swiss roll on the other side, but I think I still prefer Swiss rolls with bits of fruit in it.
We had a belated reunion dinner last week and there was so much good food ! Ah ma cooked up a storm and it was all really delicious.
I love ah ma’s stir fried shark fin dish, I wish I had more of it but I was so full.
Ah ma’s asam ak
Ah ma’s duck dishes are the best, her asam duck dish is so morish, again looking at the pictures makes me wish I had more that day.
I finally washed and cleaned the pig intestines to make loh bak and teng for the family. I really should try to make kueh chap for the family one day.
The cny cousins
Tristan and LG looking very festive! My girls were in party dresses, next year I will be more organised and get them some pretty cny dresses.
Back at work, the first week was relatively calm and quiet. Everyone seems to be panicking and stressed already but maybe it’s because it’s my first week back so I’m still very chilled.
I’ve enjoyed waking the girls to school and getting to do some pick ups and drop offs. I pray that my wfh days last and I’m able to at least have a couple of days where I can be for present in my kids’ school lives.
A photo for remembrance, I am looking forward to the days when we no longer have to hunt for RATs and the supermarket shelves are not empty and bare. My father in law is undergoing a major surgery next week and we can’t be there for him or for my MIL, I feel really bad for R, I know he’s secretly worried.
When to visit my friend’s grape farm where he left nice grapes for us. I’m sad that his dad isn’t well, why do people have to get sick and age? Sigh.
Saitaoha lost her first tooth, of course tooth fairy visited but she let her keep her tooth.
Grape season
Thin skins and such a great crunch, juicy and sweet.
My cute Saitaomei and ah pa’s 丝瓜, he is always bringing the girls around his garden and letting them pick his fruits of labour. It must be so satisfying picking and eating your own homegrown fruits and veggies.
This playground at my parents backyard was a lifesaver during Covid days and gave the children a great area to run around and play in the sun. It is still a lovely garden and I always feel relaxed and happy walking around the garden and checking ah pa’s latest fruit of labour.
My girls are so big now. Sigh.
The weather was nice enough for us to venture to their favourite playground on Sunday morning.
She always wants me to push her on the swings and refuses to let her papa do it. Both of them in fact are always fighting with each other to sit next to me, or even something silly like having their towel hung next to mine ! While it is sweet being so loved by my girls, I wonder when they will no longer fight to be close to mummy?
She is very athletic and agile, so good on the monkey bars, obviously she doesn’t take after me, I have no physical abilities whatsoever.
Is this supposed to be Byron Bay?
They are used to me taking lots of photos of them. I want to chronicle their childhood and document their lives, our lives growing up and growing old together. This is also the reason why I still blog to this day. I recently started writing on dayre too, it’s fun to take photos of my daily life, snippets and sudden moments and thoughts, at that time, I had this thought and I felt this way. That’s Dayre for me.
Kimchi fried rice
Sundays are the days I replenish R’s lunch bentos, I like to think that despite my hectic work life, he’s never run out of lunch boxes !
Pasta bolognese, penne for the kids and spaghetti for R, because they both prefer different kinds of pastas 🙄, I aim to please.
We had a Sunday steak dinner that somehow morphed into a Valentine’s Day dinner. The food was surprisingly good if I may say so myself, R and I were in a good place this week, and the kids were happy too, they soak up our emotions and when their parents are happy they are happy too. It’s as simple as that I think.
Tiramisu
Befitting dessert of Tiramisu to end the night. I hope the next week is good too and I get to spend quality time with my family again.
My view from the kitchen window. The playroom is a success, even in its half done state. Saitaoha loves the room and spent the most of the morning in it. The majority of the dirty, hard labour is done, we’re on to the fun part of furnishings and decorations.
Saitaoha is so big and tall now. Still loving her shoes haha, she insisted on wearing her new shoes today, but was also admiring her other pair of new shoes gifted by da yee. She has too many shoes now, never a problem for girls I reckon.
Winter is almost over and I thought we didn’t do too badly illness wise. Bang, here we are, sick again. I feel guilty and wonder whether it’s because I haven’t found time to reschedule the kids for their second flu short yet. I didn’t get my flu shot this year too 😓.
Today’s chicken and mushroom risotto was a success, it mostly comes out overdone when I cook it using my instant pot. But I shortened the timing and liquids this time and it seems nicer? Will ask for resident risotto fan R for feedback.
The nice thing about taking a sick day, it gives you time to potter around the house, do household chores, cook, I wish we had four day work weeks, how nice that would be.
I wish WordPress had stickers like Dayre because I need a confetti throwing 🎉 cat right now, Saitaoha has recovered! Her appetite is back to normal and all errr bodily functions are back to normal too. Hooray!
It’s school holidays so my mum is looking after LG during the day. It’s great for Saitaoha because she loves her jeje’s company. Here they are drawing together.
My sister baked a quiche which I had for brunch with a kopi, it had asparagus, onions and bacon, very delicious.
In return I made a lasagna which the kids and my parents will be having for lunch tomorrow.
Oh hai, anyone miss me? This one is getting demanding, insists on being carried and walked around, Mah Mah’s arms are breaking.
Hehe so cute together. I’m hoping to bring the kids to the playground tomorrow, all kids invited, Tspellstrouble want to come ?
Simple dinner tonight of ah Ma’s veg tomyum soup, honey pork with brocolli, 番茄炒蛋.
Hi mummy, mah mah dressed me in the theme of shapes.
I love her solemn looking face. This is her favourite seat in the house, the beanbag!
Today ah pa and I brought her for her 4 months child health nurse checkup. She did really well and is tracking well in her growth and development. We’ve been suspecting that she’s put on weight and we were right, she’s now 6.4 kgs 😃. Her sister was 6.1 kg and one cm longer at 4 months, her father commented, ‘so Saitaomei is shorter and fatter lah?’ So bad this papa.
There was a bit of drama on our way to the check up, because it’s a new location we ended up going to the wrong place and couldn’t find the right venue. I was all for giving up and rescheduling a new appointment but ah pa refused to give up. ‘Let’s circle around and try again!’ he said. In the end the lovely nurse called me and gave us directions. When we left she said to ah pa ‘thanks Daitaoha’s dad for your persistence!’ Haha thanks indeed to my father, he is one in a million, I don’t know what I would do without my parents here.
Another chiffon cake, in fact I baked two today, one for Tristan’s class and the other for my uncle.
Roasted a chicken today but it wasn’t well cooked because I took it out too early. I should have put it in the oven earlier but it was occupied by the cakes 😓.
Ah Ma cooked this yummy bak cho mee for lunch, but I was too busy and only had it for dinner.
Saitaomei in her favourite beanbag watching tv.
Meanwhile jeje is hard at work cleaning the house.
‘You missed a spot jeje!’ says Saitaomei.
Hahaha, I would love it if both kids help me with housework in the future. I look forward to cooking and baking with them, just like how I cook and discuss recipes with ah Ma. It’s lots of fun.
Happy baby gets all the attention today because jeje has gone to daycare.
Baby has new daddy?
We invited my BIL to join us for lunch. He is a super daddy and is always very attentive to Tristan. It was so nice of him to offer to carry Saitaomei so I could eat.
Happy BIL because he gets to order food that he wants to try (instead of ordering food that his child will share and eat) for a change.
It’s our favourite noodle place, their spicy big intestines noodles was 👍.
I had my usual dan dan mian.
Quickly cooked mushroom and spinach risotto for dinner so Saitaoha could have some once she returns from daycare. She’s usually famished when she’s back but I was worried she wouldn’t eat it since she’s on a food strike nowadays. She ate a bowl 🙏🏻.
Enjoying some watermelon for supper. She loves watermelon and this was was extra special because it’s from ah pa’s garden! Super sweet and juicy, better than store bought 😍.
Check out R’s pained expression. I reckon that’s what daddies are best for, physical horsing around. If I had to do pull ups with Saitaoha, I would probably land on my back and crush her 😅.
Whatcha lookin’ at?
Is it Friday yet???
Finally Friday tomorrow, I hope I get some time to bake a cake, pack Saitaoha’s old clothes, take out some clothes for Saitaomei (she’s growing so big!) and bring Saitaoha to the playground.
Sigh I always have these plans but they never seem to work out, 时间不够用！
We were at Papparich for lunch on Saturday and the wait was horrendous. It was made worse by inexperienced and disorganised waitresses cluckling around in stress. I’m not sure why management didn’t just assign one person to man the queue, it would have saved the waitresses asking each person 6 -times in a row how many seats were required for each table.
Anyway the reason for that rant was to say that I liked the lychee soda drink at Papparich which was a pricey $4.60 and was sure I could recreate it at home. So I did! Very refreshing with lychee, longans, mint leaves, a lime wedge, lychee syrup and soda water.
It was Jan that suggested that we have roast lamb for our Sunday family dinner. Believe it or not, it was my first time roasting lamb with guidance from my sis.
Luckily it all turned out lovely and our roast lamb dinner with roasted veg, mash and gravy ( not forgetting the all important mint sauce) was delicious.
Headed into the city this weekend for some shopping.
Tried the coffee @Moana (Hay Street mall) which shot coffee lover chills up my spine. Darn it, I thought I had downgraded my caffeine addiction due to the lack of good coffee in East Perth but Moana made me so sad that I’m not working in the city anymore. Moana is a quaint little cafe too, I will be returning.
Pork Belly ramen from Zen (Subiaco) which we went eons ago because they were the one of two Japanese restaurants in Perth that served uni (sea urchin). Sadly they no longer serve uni and the restaurant was quite disappointing. R found his ramen pretty tasty but Andy thought it was similar to instant noodles (oops).
Another Gordon Ramsay recipe, Morrocan lamb with sweet potato and raisins. I am surprisingly finding Gordon Ramsay’s recipes quite easy to follow, I should have reduced the stock a lot more and it was a tad too salty, but I can imagine myself doing it again because one pot meals are so handy!
My foolproof teriyaki chicken and mushrooms with tamagoyaki lunch bento :). Hope the work week goes by quick!
This was a couple Saturday nights ago when R had a long day at work and ended up falling asleep once he got home.
By the time he woke up, it was rather late and we didn’t have many places to choose from. In the end we tried Elies Tent which is a lebanese restaurant in Victoria Park which we’ve passed by many times but never tried. It ended up being a good choice because the restaurant was quiet and we got this corner all to ourselves.
I spotted a belly dancer poster on their door and commented to R that we had probably missed the belly dancing since we were so late. But to our delight, at the start of our meal, the vivacious and friendly belly dancer appeared. She was a talented lady too and came by to chat with us later.
We ordered the Maza for Two banquet ($35 per person) and it was fun when all this spread turned up. Hummus(chickpea) and mutabbal(eggplant) dips and fetta cheese which we had with lebanese bread. I actually enjoyed the mutabbal a lot which had this strong roasted eggplant flavour. We also had falafel which came out piping hot and was very tasty.
Tabbouleh, which was a refreshing salad but I think they should have added more ingredients, this one perhaps had too much parsley and not much else.
Chicken and beef shish kebab. Nothing special but grilled meat on a stick 🙂
Seasoned rice with shawarma lamb and chicken, the meat pieces were very tender and nicely spiced and lemony. R and I were getting very full by this time.
Would I return to Elies Tent? I’m not sure as I don’t think R is a big fan of Lebanese cuisine, but it was definitely nice to have something out of the ordinary and at a nice, cosy family restaurant.
Breakfast at Venn’s in the city. I love the high ceilings and secluded feel of this hidden breakfast spot.
Breakfast at Venn wasn’t great, this mushrooms with poached egg and toast was too salty.
I probably should have stuck to good ol’ jam and butter with toast.
We were really unlucky during our last Sunday brekkie hunt. All the places we went to were either closed or too full etc. So somehow we ended up at the popular Tuckshop which only required a 10 minute wait. This was my smoked cod gratin which came with a cheese toasty. The gratin was rich and packed with seafood flavour, rather like a seafood chowder, but a bit heavy for me especially paired with a cheese toasty.
Lots of fun things happening in the city! I liked their makeshift beach with giant tv screen of rolling waves in the middle of the city.
We discovered this 360 degrees poultry roaster gadget and couldn’t resist buying it. You know how one side of your roast chickens sticks to the tray and you end up ripping the skin when you try to flip it over? This gadget solves all your non crispy skin problems because it roasts the bird standing up.
The result of our roast chicken, more crispy skin but the meat wasn’t as tender as usual, maybe I left it too long in the oven to get the full golden brown effect.
Three kinds of roasted sweet potatoes, they included the normal golden sweet potatoes, my favourite purple skinned white fleshed variety and a new white skinned but purple flesh variety given to us by Gerry, very nice too.
Baking for our work morning tea, nectarine and almond cake. Tristan’s first birthday party is coming up this weekend so lots of cooking will be involved this weekend. I’m hoping I get well from my bout of migraine and overall dizziness this week, wish me luck!
It’s been a while since I’ve been into the Perth city so I ventured in alone during the past weekend. Maybe it’s because I don’t work in the city anymore so I really appreciated the new fun cafes and shops.
Who knew there was such vibrant street art in this hidden lane?
This was my Saturday breakfast joint. I love grilled toasts so the name Toastface Grillah immediately appealed to me.
A cosy little nook is how I would describe Toastface Grillah. It was a hot Saturday but cool and relaxing in the shade.
I enjoyed my me time with a Pear Grillz toasty ($9) with blue cheese, pear and lime chutney, a latte and the weekend papers.
The toast was yummy but the clumsy daitaoha dropped lime chutney and blue cheese on my skirt :(. A messy eat but definitely worth it . I would love to try all their other toasties but I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to go again.
More gorgeous mural art in the city, I love the owls. The sleepy city is finally waking up.
Ok, this is my new favourite breakfast place. But The Old Crow’s lunch and dinner menu looks so good that I’m dying to go back for dinner too.
I love the dark wooden interior and the lovely oldie music. Just a few shops away is the ever popular Tuckshop Cafe which I reckon is overrated. But I’m secretly pleased that no one seems to have discovered how good The Old Crow is yet because the quiet restaurant is just so cozy and comfortable. But surely it won’t last long?
Black pudding, fried eggs and a side salad. Everything matched wonderfully well, down to the bits of red onion. A delight.
Hotdog for breakfast? Why not? This house cheese kransky on a soft bun with jalepeno and hot sauce ($13) wasn’t your typical hotdog and was pretty tasty. I probably wouldn’t order it again because there are so many other yummy sounding things on their menu but it was still a novelty.
I want to go back! Maybe it’s time to plan an early work Christmas lunch …
daitaoha 