Category Archives: Reviews

I Went to West Malaysia and All I Got Was…

We traveled from Kuching to KL to spend time with family over the Chinese New Year holidays. We ate (a LOT) of course, but also brought back lots of goodies from Penang and KL. Here’s a sample of our haul:

Bak Kwa – Sweet Pork Jerky

bak kwa

Thin sheets of pork meat, covered in a sweet glaze and lightly grilled. One of my favorite snacks; they won’t last long!

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Bad Ass Coffee: A Little Taste of Hawaii in KL

I’ve joined Annie in Kuala Lumpur on holiday for just a couple of days. Annie’s cousin has been graciously taking us around to makan (eat) at places around town. One place she said she must take me is Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii because I’m Hawaiian (well, Hawaii-born at least).

Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii, Tropicana City, Kuala Lumpur

bad ass coffee company tropicana city kuala lumpur malaysia

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Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

First off, I want to say thank you to all our readers, who have been bearing with us while we get settled in to our new home in Kuching. Even though Annie has been cooking most nights of the week, there haven’t been too many House of Annie recipe posts lately. Most of our posts have been about goingout someplace to eat.

The main reason for this is, the big shipping crate carrying all our stuff (including kitchen appliances, all our normal herbs and spices, and the home computer with all our archived food pics on it) from San Jose hasn’t arrived yet. On top of that, the one tiny fluorescent lamp in our wet kitchen (where most of the cooking is done) has gone out, so it’s nearly impossible for me to get good pics of whatever Annie is prepping for dinner.

I never intended for this blog to be a restaurant review site. Most of you readers probably couldn’t fly here to Kuching to eat at the places we’re eating out at. That being said, I do want to tell you about a place we’ve found that serves some good Sarawak laksa.

Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

grace place sarawak laksa stutong kuching
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Ramadhan Bazaar Dinner

I really didn’t feel like cooking last Thursday. It was one of those days when I just felt lethargic, and didn’t have any mood to do much. The day had started with rain and then more rain. The whole morning was dark and gloomy and by the time the sun deemed to peek out, it was already mid-afternoon. Somehow the weather just made me feel very unproductive. Or maybe it’s that one-month mark of being here…feeling not quite like this is home, missing California and feeling somewhat homesick (which is strange because I am Malaysian after all).

So when it came time to prepare dinner, I just didn’t have any energy to do it. I called Nate at work and told him that we’d have to eat out and get some food to go. He tried to convince me that we had enough food at home to make something and maybe we could just pick up a roast chicken or something to go with it. I tentatively agreed but I still wasn’t really feeling it. I was just not wanting to cook anything at all.

Then, it struck me. In all the chaffeuring I had been doing sending Nate to and from work, I passed by this Ramadhan Bazaar at Stutong Market almost every weekday. And almost everytime we passed it on the way home, I would say to Nate, “we should stop by one day and pick up dinner from here before the Ramadhan (fasting) month is over.” And by Thursday, the fasting month was quickly coming to a close; Aidil Fitri would be celebrated on Sunday. So I called Nate back and said, “let’s go to the Ramadhan Bazaar and pick up some dinner there instead!” He thought it was a great idea and so that was where we headed after work.

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