Bangkok: Part 2

The conference I was at was held at the same hotel we were staying at so that made commuting a whole lot easier.

We had a lavish breakfast spread at the hotel every morning. I sneaked All Bran into Bub's Koko Crunch while I tried the most amazing pairing since peanut butter and chocolate: crispy bacon drizzled with maple syrup and fluffy pancakes. Oh mannnnnn ...

The views at the conference room were stunning, just take a look at the wash area.

While I was hard at work, Hubs took Bubs to the aquarium at Siam Paragon. He took the late savers discount package (be sure to pay online 24 hours in advance) which was a pretty good deal so you could just have dinner directly after the aquarium.

Bubs freaked out when he saw this gigantic shark heading towards them. Hubs had to explain the concept of glass and aquariums to him.

 

He freaked out again when he had to step onto the glass walkway with sea creatures swimming below. Hubs coaxed Bubs onto it with an ice cream bribe.

There was a glass-bottomed boat ride which Hubs declined once he heard that there were sharks. Lily livered, both of them ;) 

We had a work dinner at the Tawandang German Brewery which was a massive beer hall filled with a mixture of locals and tourists. The German-Thai fusion food was really good. That was one of the best pork knuckles I've ever had. I may or may not have had several generous helpings of the crackling *shifty eyes*

The place has live performances throughout dinner, from Thai dances to American love songs. The performance of the night was a live musical of the romantic horror Nang Nak. All of the girls at our table had shivers down our spines and mumbled something about sleeping with the lights on that night!

Bangkok has heaps of street food on all street corners. What surprised me was that all of the vendors used charcoal to cook which is a dying art in Penang. I also love how bottled water and soft drinks were sold in glass bottles.

There were fresh flowers sold everywhere. 

We even managed a tuk tuk ride on a small side road that didn't have much traffic. I gripped tightly on to Bubs, my bag and the handrail - all in that order.

It was fun going shopping for snacks. We filled our cart with lots of Thai Lays in exotic flavours while Bubs couldn't resist taking a closer peek at roasted pork belly on display.

And a quick roundup of our loot included:

Thai Lays which comes in a variety of Asian flavours: chilli squid, spicy lobster. Tear inducing tom yum instant noodles.

And this cute, 50s style pansy print skirt for myself :)

Bangkok: Part I

I'd to go to Bangkok for a work trip so figured that I could sneak in Hubs and Bubs into my luggage for a couple of nights ;) Even though we were there for 4 days, I'd meetings for half the time so we didn't get a lot of time to really go around for sight seeing so whenever we had little pockets of time, these were mainly spent at malls.  

We stayed at the Anantara Sathorn and it was such a relaxing stay right in the middle of the bustling city. 

 

Bubs was more than fascinated with the huge TV that played the Cartoon Network 24x7 right in front of the king sized bed and happily plonked himself there for most of our stay.

We'd a full day before work started so we tried to cram everything we wanted to do on that day. We took the BTS to most of the places to avoid taking taxis - we almost always ended up with unscrupulous drivers that refused to use the meter (I guess the fatigued looks while lugging Bubs around gave away the fact that we were desperate). 

First up was dessert at Mr Jones' Orphanage at Siam Central. The name conjures up images of oppressed children dressed in black moping around. The truth couldn't be any further ...

 

It was like having afternoon tea in a whimsical toyshop. Stuffed bears were perched across beams,  giant cogs and a train track stretched across the cafe; we couldn't stop staring in wonder. Be warned though that the wooden booths are slightly cramped and daddy long legs Hubs had to sit at an awkward angle. 

The cakes were reminiscent of the ones at China House and displayed so invitingly, Bubs found it impossible to pick just one. 

We narrowed down our choices to a Cookie Monster cupcake (who could say no to such a cutie?) and a wedge of sinful chocolate cake covered with M&Ms and Kit Kats. 

To ensure that all of us finished these on a sugar high, we topped it off with a chocolate peanut butter milkshake.

We walked around in a daze, onward to our next destination: Terminal 21. Each floor has a different country's theme. The food court had a San Francisco vibe going on.

One of our goals for Bangkok was to eat as many coconut ice creams as we could. Unfortunately, they were out of coconut flavoured ice cream so this was plain ol' vanilla :(

Hubs was elated he managed to find decent short sleeved shirts at 2 for 700 Thai Baht at the British floor.

He rejected my help to pick more shirts for him ;)

Dinner was at Mix (Terminal 21, 5th floor right at the opposite end of the food court) , a Thai fusion restaurant that Suyin highly recommended. It was a little pricey and portions are smaller but at this point, we were bone tired so we wanted a nice and quiet place to just relax for a while.

The squid ink pasta with fresh scallops was served with a yummy dollop of tomato based sauce and fresh basil sprig.

We ended our day by meeting our 2nd goal: mango sticky rice daily *slurps* The ones in Bangkok have a sprinkling of crunchy lentils that we just can't get enough of.

What We're Reading Now: Bubs and Me

A roundup of the books that we currently have on our nightstand.

After I was enthralled by Persepolis, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a hard cover version of Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi at Popular at only RM16.90.

It makes for a nice, light read taking you through the love lives of Marjane Satrapi's grandmother's friends during an afternoon tea in their parlour.

I have been nom-ing on cheeseburgers at McDonald's weekly for these little gems. These are such a steal! The Magic School Bus and DK Watch Me Grow books retail for around RM30 at bookshops but the tiny versions are included with each Happy Meal.

The photography and layout for the DK Watch Me Grow books are stunning.

I was thrilled to find this version of Madlenka at Borders in Chinese and at 20% off to boot. It tells the story of Madlenka who's excited about losing her milk tooth and runs around the block to tell her neighbours of different backgrounds (Italian, German, French, etc).


I like that each neighbour greets her in their native tongue (Bonjour, Guten tag), the variations of her name in each language (Madeleine, Magda)  and the little whimsical sketches representative of each culture. What makes this copy doubly interesting is the Chinese text which took me a while to figure it out.

Bubs was particularly entranced with the window cut outs.

Even Hubs went wow when he saw how gorgeous the detailed illustrations were. These are literally mini works of cultural art.

Chicken in Milk

When I chanced upon this recipe, my first thought was gross, chicken in milk? Blerggghh.
Then curiousity got the better of me, I started googling for reviews and all of the stellar blog posts convinced me to give this a try.

Jamie Oliver's recipe for Chicken in Milk below:

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg higher-welfare chicken
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• ½ stick cinnamon
• 1 good handful fresh sage, leaves picked
• zest of 2 lemons
• 10 cloves garlic, skin left on
• 565 ml milk
  
  
  Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5, and find a snug-fitting pot for the chicken. Season it generously all over, and fry it in a little olive oil, turning the chicken to get an even colour all over, until golden. Remove from the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and throw away the oil left in the pot. This will leave you with tasty sticky goodness at the bottom of the pan which will give you a lovely caramel flavour later on.
  
  Put your chicken back in the pot with the rest of the ingredients, and cook in the preheated oven for 1½ hours. Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. The lemon zest will sort of split the milk, making a sauce which is absolutely fantastic.
  
  To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it onto your plates. Spoon over plenty of juice and the little curds. Serve with wilted spinach or greens and some mashed potato.   

A couple of tips and tricks that I used based on reviews:

• If you don't have cinnamon at home, you can skip it. Won't make a huge difference
• Add in rosemary and thyme (as in the herbs, not the MAC eye kohl) 
• The original recipe did not specify if the chicken was to be covered so I covered the pan with tin foil and then roasted it un-covered at the last 15 mins for a crispier chook. 

The first time I made it, I'd to hide the milk from Hubs who would have refused to even touch it as he has an aversion to what he terms as weird recipes. I only confessed to the milk when both Hubs and Bubs polished their plates clean. 

Bon appetit!

Family Day

As Bubs had a great time at our workplace's Family Day last year, we decided to drop by again this year. Unfortunately the haze was sooo bad this time around *boo hiss* and we'd to skip the 2km walk.

Bubs eagerly went for the go karts ... until we realised that he didn't know how to pedal. We tried showing him how to move his legs round in circles but I think it was a little too challenging for him so he gave this up pretty quickly.

I gave Hubs a piece of my mind when he initially wanted Bubs to go on the horse ride all by himself. Men!

Somebody was thrilled to bits with this Batman painting. He pouted a little because he wanted a full face painting like a mask so I cheered him up by asking him, does Bruce Wayne go around telling everyone his secret identity? Wide-eyed and struck by the realisation, he shook his head.

And ... what I thought was the best part of the day, though Bubs might beg to differ ...

A life sized walking dinosaur complete with pre-recorded roaring sounds. To say that Bubs freaked out would be an understatement.

He screamed his little lungs out, scrunched up his face and cried incessantly.

Bubs: Mummmmy, I don't want the dinosaur to eat me!
Me: Don't be silly. The dinosaur's tummy is already full from all of the children it ate earlier.
Bubs *wails louder*

Hubs thinks that this qualifies me for Mum of the Year :)