Rings

  Our wedding will happen next year in June, 👏👏👏🎈Yay! First step towards wedding will of course be our rings! We searched for quite a few weeks for the perfect rings. Went to a few vendors in Kuantan and also in KL. Kev got his eye on a ring that cost RM2k however we decided that why should we waste transport money to go KL and get it. There's also plenty of choices in Kuantan. We tried Poh Kong and also Habib. Also compared between different goldsmiths in various shopping centres. In the end we decided to go with these babies from Wah Chan. Wah Chan has got lots of couple ring choices. We also wanted to get white gold instead of gold. Gold looks too old for our taste. At first I wanted to get the same ring design as Kev's however after he chose his, I got my mine on another one.

They even got us a little box for our rings. However Kev hated the Wah Chan word on the box

A close up photo of our rings. Kev decided to get a black "choker" for his ring and I got a necklace for mine

Our receipt from Wah Chan

The price of our rings. Of course mine is more expensive as there are more stones on it. There's no stones for Kev's

   We were lucky as we decided to get our ring when the new government took over the office. The 6% of GST was scraped off. My ring price is RM1020 while Kev's one is RM667.

My Marshmallow Journey

  For the past one month, I was obsessed with marshmallows but thank god I'm finally out of it. It all started with an idea of searching marshmallow in Pinterest and I found someone who suggested that it is possible and is easy to make one without corn syrup. Out of curiosity, I then followed the instructions. It wasn't as good because it was too soft and full of sugary taste only. I decided to perfect the art. I watched quite a few more youtube videos (links below) and decided to embark on the quest to make my version of the perfect marshmallow. Ironically, as I grow older, I don't really like marshmallow. Haven been eating any since young. The process of making it intrigues me. With my busy schedule and deadlines, Kev had been bugging me not to spend too much time marshmallowing however I can't. It has became an obsession. For this recipe I tried a total 6 times. I troubleshoot along the way and found new ways to achieve the consistency I like.

Plain Vanilla Marshmallow
Prep time: 30 min
Cooking time: 15 min
Serving size: 40 moderate pieces (bite size)
Difficulty: Difficult

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons of powdered gelatin
3 tablespoons of water
2 cups of caster sugar
1/2 cup of water
1/3 cup of corn syrup
2 tablespoons of vanilla essence
1/4 tablespoon of salt
1/2 cup of corn flour
1/4 cup of icing sugar

1. Put 3 tablespoons of powdered gelatin into a mixing bowl. Pour 3 tablespoons of water to bloom the gelatin. Mix it together with a fork just to let all the gelatin be soaked then let it sit for 15 minutes.

Pour in the gelatin and the water and let it bloom for 15 minutes

2. After 15 minutes, use the mixer to break out the soaked gelatin.

After 15 minutes, break up the gelatin by beating it.

3. Put the 1/2 cup of water into a pot. Pour the sugar, salt and also corn syrup into the centre of the pot. 

Pour the sugar, salt and corn syrup into the water in the middle of the pot

The corn syrup i used. Quite pricey too.

4. Put the sugar syrup to boil up to 246 Farenheit or 120 Celcius then remove the pot from the stove to cool.

Use a candy thermometer, stop the cooking when it reaches 246 Farenheit or 120 Celcius which is firm ball stage

5. Pour the sugar syrup into the mixing bowl with the gelatin and mix on high speed.

Mixing the sugar mixture with gelatin. Mix in high speed.

Not ready yet.....

Still not ready

Somewhat still not ready...

6. When the syrup becomes white turn to low speed and continue mixing.
7. Pour in the vanilla essence.

Pour in vanilla essence

8. Line your mold with parchment paper

Cut your parchment paper so that it can fit into the mold nicely

9. When it is well beaten, remove the syrup and pour into a mold (9.5x4inch).

It is quite ready when it forms thread on the mixer

Or form thread on your finger

Or forming thread at the side of the bowl

Pour the candy mixture into a mold

Take another piece of parchment paper and cover it on top of the candy to shape/flatten your marshmallow 

10. Chill inside the fridge for at least 6 hours.
11. Mix the corn flour and icing sugar in a bowl.

 Mix the corn flour and icing sugar into a bowl

12. Sieve the corn flour mixture onto the candy.

Sieve the mixture onto the candy

Corn flour and icing sugar on the candy

13. Remove the marshmallow from the mold and cut the candy into bite size pieces.

I like to cut the marshmallow into squares

The marshmallows are ready

  There are a few tips of how to make this right. Firstly is the gelatin. Do make sure that the water will cover all of the gelatin. If not some gelatin will present itself as a clump in the marshmallow. It's will be more difficult to spread our the gelatin later. You will have to use caster sugar instead of coarse sugar. I tried using coarse sugar and I've got clumps of sugar in my marshmallow later. The step using the mixer to break the gelatin is important too to avoid clumps. Make sure that you pour the sugar and corn syrup into the centre of the pot to prevent crystallization. The temperature is really important in candy making. For convenience sake, I used a candy thermometer. The most difficult part is gauging when to stop beating the candy syrup. I've failed multiple times because my candy is either too soft or too hard. For me, when the candy starts to form threads along the side of the bowl that is the indication to stop. if your candy when lifted up sinks into the mixture really fast, then it's not beaten long enough. However if it is stiff peak then it is overly beaten. Just beware that this mixture will rise up quite high and dirty your mixer. If you have a big mixer that will be awesome but for me my mixer is the handheld type so you really have to be careful. What I did was I stop the beating when it's rising to high then I beat again then stop.This mixture is really sticky and you will make a mess out of your kitchen. I'm a really impatient person and I tot I can get away with the waiting time. However I realised, even if i chill it in the freezer, it still wont be set. You will have to properly wait for 6 hours if not the mixture is still too soft. When after 6 hours the marshmallow will seem to be really hard. Give it sometime and it will soften to a just nice texture. A tip on how to know that your marshmallow works. There are some website line their mold with aluminium foil. I prefer to use parchment paper. If your marshmallow is really ready you will be able to remove the parchment paper quite nicely without distorting the shape of the marshmallow permanently. The marshmallow is supposed to bounce back to it original shape after your remove the parchment paper. Though making marshmallow is really messy, it is not really difficult to clean it off. Boil some water and soak your utensils. The sugar will melt away and you can wash your utensils easily.

  I've also tried making some coffee flavoured marshmallow which is quite a hit among some of my friends. To make coffee flavoured ones I reduce the vanilla essence to 1 teaspoon. I mixed 2 tablespoons of coffee with 2 tablespoons of hot water. I added in into the mixing bowl after I added the vanilla essence. I realised that making this coffee marshmallow it takes a bit longer for it to be ready to come out from the mixing bowl.

Adding 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence into the mixture

Adding coffee into into the marshmallow mixture

Bite size pieces of the marshmallow

Coffee flavoured marshmallow, Ready!

The links for the other Youtube videos I use for references.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EixpnQRC2hw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPXJ1uobO_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jOCykVBDwc&t=477s

And of course not to forget all the questions and answers I read in the internet. 

Ratings
Kev ★★★☆☆
Carol ★★★★☆

Meng Yang Restaurant

  This place is highly recommended by my brother for a good breakfast. We are used to having kampua in Sarawak. It's the staple food there so we have to find another staple around here. The noodles here is something similar to the ones we had a home. So one morning, when I'm free, not working, not going to church and not waking up late, Kev, me and his dad decided to give this restaurant a go. According to Kev, the food here is quite popular among Kuantan people.

It's a small hawker place located next to Ekspo Perabot, a furniture store. Lots of parking beside.

The stall owner preparing dishes. Roast ducks hanging over the stall.

?Duck intestine😂 dry noodles. 烧肠面

Duck and dry noodles. 烧鸭面

The front of the stall. 

  We came to this coffee shop mainly for this dish. However this shop is open until late night. This stall is only open in the morning. According to web reviews, they do have other dishes that are good in the evening. The duck noodles is nowhere close to Sarawak kampua but it's good enough for me as I prefer noodles that are drier. Kev however prefer noodles that is more slimy and wet. The roast duck and duck intestine are really good. 

  The shop however is not a 5 star restaurant so do not expect too much from it ambience and cleanliness especially the toilet. It's your typical malaysian coffee shop. Lol. I've also asked the stall owner which days are they open. They say they open whenever they want to. So it all depends on your luck whether you able able to have this dish for breakfast. 

Ratings:

Ambience ★☆☆☆☆

Food ★★★☆☆

Cleanliness ★★☆☆☆

Price ★★★★☆

Lot 7339, Jalan Wong Ah Jang,

25100 Kuantan,

Pahang.

Opening hours: 7am to 10am daily but can be closed any day

  

Sungai Lembing

  Kev had been mentioning Sungai Lembing for ages to me. This is because Sungai Lembing is really near to Kuantan. It takes around 1 hour to travel from Kuantan to Sungai Lembing. In the end we really made the trip there. The town of Sungai Lembing is along a river called Sungai Lembing 😅. Most of the people there are Chinese. People usually travel there for the famous rainbow waterfall. However we cant make it for that because you have to wake up really early and book a 4 wheel drive to enter the forest. The whole 4 wheel drive travel takes around an hour and you will have to hike for another hour. We are totally not prepared for that. We just travel there to eat 😂.

The first thing you see upon arriving at Sungai Lembing town

Two rows of shop with trees in the middle separating the 2 roads in the main town

An interesting sight where the old petrol pump is located in the centre of the town

 We went during Wesak day so there were not many stalls at the morning market. We managed to get ourselves a small piece of purple kuih. The coloring is from the butterfly pea flower. The treat itself is made up of sago. The taste is pretty much ordinary but the colour is magnificent.

The morning market

Half eaten kuih as i cant wait to sink my teeth into it

  Sungai Lembing is famous for their food especially their mee called Lembing Mee （林明面）and also their soft, white and silky Mountain Water Tofu （山水豆腐）. Sadly when we reached there, their tofu was sold out. We went around 8am and it was still sold out so if you really want to try the tofu do remember to go earlier than us. We went to the  The food stalls are located next to the morning market. It's only open in the morning. We had our breakfast at the stalls. We had Lembing Mee and Yong Taufu. Everything here is self serviced. Choose the yong tofu and mee, the seller will cook them for you. You will have to find a place to sit and bring the food to your own table. You can choose between a clear soup or a curry soup base.

Our scrumptious breakfast

Yums... Look at the mee and the tofu.

Ratings:

Ambience ★★★☆☆

Food ★★★★☆

Cleanliness ★☆☆☆☆

Price ★★★★☆

  It is a good place if you want to experience a typical Malaysian way of having breakfast in the open air stalls. The place is quite loud as there were many people around ordering food. Not easy to find a place to sit but we managed to find a place a bit further from the crowd. Malaysians used to have a saying. The dirtier the place is, the better is the food there. This directly applies to our condition here. The place is not as clean as those cafes but who cares, the food is good. Lol. The price of the food here is ver much cheaper compared to if you ordered the same thing in Kuantan.

Medan Selera Sungai Lembing,

Jalan Besar Sungai Lembing,

25200 Kuantan, Pahang.

Opening hours: 6am to 1pm daily

  The town is separated by a river. The villagers will walk through the hanging bridge to reach the town. There's a total of 7 hanging bridge along the river. However during rainy season, there's a risk of flooding in the area. We crossed the hanging bridge named Jambatan Gantung Kolong Pahat which is probably the most well known one among the rest. 

Me crossing the hanging bridge

Houses along the river

More houses

  Across the hanging bridge, there you will find small rows of shops and houses. They sell the famous Lembing mee there. The mee is so famous because it is made using the clean water from the river which flows down from the mountains. It taste better than the usual mee you can find in Kuantan. You can buy it back and cook your own delicious Lembing Mee soup. There are some agar-agar sold there as well. 

Lembing mee

Handmade mee using the traditional oven, cooking with wood

The different colours agar-agar

The shops across the hanging bridge

No 337, Kolong Pahat,

26200 Sungai Lembing,

Kuantan, Pahang.

Tel: 09-5412395/ 019-9893305

Opening hours: daily 8am to 4pm

  

Kemaman

  After church, Kev and I decided to take a short trip down to his father’s hometown which is Kemaman. Since I came here, I haven took any roadtrips to anywhere. Bunny C loves roadtrip a lot.It took around 1 hour to reach Kemaman from Kuantan. Kev is crazy with the Avengers figurine by Petron. I asked him to buy he did not previously and now he starts to covert the figurines when he saw people showing off on Facebook and Instagram. Lol. According to Kev:” Black Widow is not nice, it doesn’s look like the real thing. Doctor Strange looks cool with the words written on the glass and the light transluminating. Hulk is the one with the most worth since he is so big and the whole figurine is so heavy. The manufacturer must have used a lot of metal making Hulk.” He searched all the Petrons in Kuantan and managed to get the last Captain America in Teluk Sisik branch. Told him to get it from MBO cinema he refused because it is RM15 more expensive. I used to tease him as being cheapskate as he is really economic. He wanted another one probably either Ironman or Doctor Strange however everywhere is sold out in Kuantan. So during this trip we are on the search for the figurines. Sadly, it is quite sold out as well except for Black Widow.

Collect All 6 figurines from Petron

Kev is a coffee lover while I’m more of a tea person. Talk about coffee he got lots of ideas. The 1st place we visited in Kemaman will be Hai Peng restaurant. This is because Kev says that they offer really good coffee and also Keropok Lekor. The restaurant is made up of 2 shoplots and it was decorated in a very old Malaysian Chinese Kopitiam style.

                                  

                                    The signage of the shop, Hai Peng in chinese                                   

Very artsy feel with the paintings on the wall

The old Chinese Kopitiam chairs and tables

My favorite keropok lekor which cant be found in Sarawak

The delicious coffee using Kopitiam cup

Nice bread with butter or kaya (coconut/pandan spread)

The corridor

The connecting shoplot

Ratings:

Ambience ★★★☆☆

Food ★★★★☆

Cleanliness ★★☆☆☆

Price ★★★☆☆

  The place is located by the roadside which makes parking a bit difficult however we managed to find some place to park behind the row of shops. The place is quite open with nice decorations. We sat inside so the main road did not bother us too much. Kev loves the coffee a lot hence the 4 stars. However cleanliness is a bit low due to the toilet condition. 

Kedai Kopi Hai Peng Kemaman,

K-3753, Jalan Sulaimani, 

Chukai, Kemaman,

24000 Chukai, Kemaman, Terengganu.

Tel: +609-8597810

Opening hours: 6am to 7pm daily except for Fridays

  After that Kev brought me to Kuala Kemaman as he said that there you can get the most delicious raw keropok lekor around the place. You can fried, or steam or even boil the keropok lekor at home. It's a small Malay fishing village and there's lots of stalls selling similar stuff. Other than the keropok lekor, we also got a bottle of homemade chilli sauce which is said to be better than the ones in Kuantan. The chilli sauce is to go with the keropok lekor.

The keropok lekor which looked like snakes from afar. Lol

Kev buying stuff. It's a small roadside kampung stall selling homemade fish products

Sweet chilli sauce

You have to deep fry these to get crispy keropok

  Lastly on our way back near Cherating, we stopped by the turtle conservatory. Me, being the kid at heart, remembered studying about turtle going up the sands to lay eggs. Was seriously hoping to be able to do that. However, the area is closed to the public. What we saw was 2 turtles swimming around in a swimming pool with some exhibition. It was a disappointment to me as I really do want to stay at the beach at night and watch turtle lays eggs. However, it is also understandable why they closed the area up. 

Opening hours

Outside view of the conservatory

A fake turtle welcoming us

The exhibition

Swimming turtle in a small pool

Cherating Turtle Conservatory,

Bukit Cherating,

26080 Balok, Pahang. 

Tel: +609-5819087

Opening hours: Tuesdays to Sundays 9.30pm to 4.30pm