Fruit Enzyme Cleaner

My dad has been making his own fruit enzyme liquid to be used as cleansing agent for years. During our recent trip back to Ipoh, I found that the fruit enzyme cleans oily dishes very effectively, so I asked my mum for some of their fruit enzyme cleaner. The fruit enzyme is to be mixed together with a little dishwashing liquid. Dad mixes about 1 part dishwashing liquid to about 4 -5 parts water and stores the liquid in a used transparent shampoo bottle with pump.  He uses it to clean bathrooms too.

This is how dad prepared the fruit enzyme for me to bring back to KL.

Back in Oct 2011, after a collection of lemon and orange peel (these 2 fruit peels smell fresher and more invigorating than other fruits – you can use grapefruit too), he mixed the peel with some sugar and water.  He prefers white sugar as white sugar will produce enzyme that is light colored while brown sugar produces brownish and dark colored enzyme which does not look pleasant.  He mixed the concoction in a large plastic tub and labelled the cap with date.  The fermentation process takes 3 months.

This is how the fermented fruit peel looks like and now dad has to filter it.

Filter your enzyme solution with a piece of cheesecloth or a fine strainer.

He then pours the enzyme into a used and cleaned orange cordial bottle. Now I have a large bottle, that can last me till my next trip to Ipoh in December

Wait, he does not throw the fermented fruit peel away. He recycles it as compost for my mum’s potted herbs!

My parents’ humble and fertile garden. There was once a rambutan tree, mango trees and several papaya trees but all were chopped down after they were inflicted with some kind of plant disease. All the trees bore us lots of sweet fruits for years. Now there are still pandan leaves, cili padi plants, lemon grass, green ginger and my mum’s whole range of herbs, which she uses to cook and infuses healthy tea for herself. She also uses the herbs to self treat minor ailments.

Alycia pointing to a green cili padi.


No. of times viewed = 1171

Famous Traditional Heong Peang @ Gunung Rapat, Ipoh – 189 (Yat Pat Gao Enterprise)

During our food hunt in our recent Ipoh trip, we brought the girls to visit a Heong Peang ‘factory’ in Gunung Rapat, Ipoh, before adjourning to Sam Poh Toong Caves. From the facade of the makeshift ‘factory’ housed in an attap house in one of the ‘kampung’ of Gunung Rapat, no one, absolutely no one would have thought that this tiny attap house could churn out so many pieces of traditional Heong Peang for distribution for sale all over Malaysia! It was definitely an eye opener for the kids, as well as for me! For almost 20 years, my dad has been buying Heong Peang from 189 @ Gunung Rapat. If you do not make any prior booking via the phone, your trip to 189 may be futile and you may have to leave empty handed.

A kneading dough machine in one of the rooms.

Sherilyn and Cass watching in awe how the workers knead and fill up the dough with molasses.

A worker kneading the dough and shaping them.

A tray of biscuits waiting to be placed in the ‘oven’

The uncooked biscuits are lined around the sides of the ‘oven’ to be baked, which looks like a cement well. About 150 pieces are stuck to the ‘oven’ at one time. If you stand to watch the process for 15 minutes (that’s how quick it is to bake the Heong Peang), you will be amazed to see how the biscuits get browned and skin turn flaky and crispy… and be prepared to bring along some hankies and wet wipes to wipe away your dribbling sweat!

Coconut husks are used as fuel for the fire, this is what I call authentic traditional baking method!

The biscuits turning brown and almost ready!

A batch of really hot-from-the-oven super crunchy Heong Peang outside the oven, waiting to be packed.

Save some tissue papers for wiping off your dribbling saliva too, when you see and smell the irresistible  freshly baked Heong Peang! As with most kampung styled prepared food, you just have to bear with the not-so-hygienic newspapers used to line the trays.  ‘Kar Liu’ food always taste better eh?

We bought 8 packs of Heong Peang from 189 — including 1 packet that’s reduced sugar. Some are individually packed and has a classier packaging. The individually packed ones can last longer. Some of the biscuits were for distribution to friends and the rest – we have been gorging on them everyday. Waiting to see the deadly aftermath on my scale soon as I have not been exercising everyday lately!

189 (Yat Pat Gao Enterprise)
189, Lorong Gunung Rapat 5,
31350 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia.
Telephone : 6016-560 9781 (Lew), 605-312 7033

No. of times viewed = 1235

A Bowl Of Nutritious Noodles For Dinner

Without a live-in maid, my mil and I have to alter the dishes on our menu.  There are now lesser elaborate dishes that cause oil splatters, though my mil still prepares pan-fried fish and pancakes using our newly acquired Happy Call Pan (HCP), which is a gift from my mum.

Here’s what my mil prepared for the girls when  the hubs and I attended a dinner last weekend and left the 3 girls behind:

She boiled a pot of veggie soup aka ABC soup in the afternoon using chicken breast and ribs. For dinner, she dumped in 3 chicken drumsticks into the pot of ABC soup and briefly cooked them. Then she blanched some french beans, green leafy veggie and rice vermicelli.

There you are… a bowl of nutritious and delicious noodles cooked with love, which is a very complete meal and the girls love them!

I am very thankful that my mil has a passion for cooking and baking and she actually does not mind whipping up good food for us all. And she does not mind doing the dish washing as well (which is the chore which I hate the most), thank God for her ! 😀



No. of times viewed = 331

Dim Sum @ Restoran Foh San, Ipoh

Foh San dim sum was the first eatery on my To Eat List in Ipoh this trip. For the first time, everyone else in the family agreed unanimously on the eating place without any objection or giving other suggestions. I was happy and excited as my suggestion was not booed. It’s been ages since I last had dim sum at Foh San. On the 1st day of the Hari Raya holiday, our big entourage which comprised of 13 people including our 3 girls reached Foh San at about 10am, which is considered early for us to have breakfast but seriously late for Foh San goers. I remember going to Foh San as early as 6:30am to have breakfast when I was younger. Back then, Foh San was still housed in the old building and even at 6ish in the morning, the restaurant was already fully packed to the brim.

When we turned into Leong Sin Nam Street, the roads were already jam packed with cars and people! The street which has a few other competitors in dim sum were flooded with people. From a distance away, I could see the long beeline forming from the take-away lane at Foh San, spilling onto the road. With tail drooped between my legs, I told the hubs to drop our plan. Looking at the crazy queue, it would take us forever to get a table. I thought of shifting our destination to Yoke Fook Moon, located a few shoplots away, which serves dim sum just as good but the queue outside Yoke Fook Moon was just as crazy. The hubs told us to try our luck in grabbing a table at Foh San and dropped us there, while he went to try his luck in getting a place to park his car.

You tell me, looking at this crazy crowd, how long did we have to wait to get a table? To top it up, we were served by an extremely rude and obviously over-worked waitress, who pissed us all up with her totally unacceptable rudeness and sarcasm.

A 2-storey spacious dim sum place filled to the brim with people at every nook and corner.  Surrounding every table were standing patrons waiting for the table of existing patrons to finish eating and to exit!  We had to split into 3 groups to wait at 3 separate tables!  This is total madness!!   After an approximate 45-minute wait, we managed to get a table but had to squeeze ourselves (all 13 of us) to fit into that small table.  Our teapots had to be placed on the floor to allow space to place food! Some people were seen standing in the middle of the walk-way and eating the dim sum with their bare hands, after failing to grab a table!

Instead of being served with waitresses pushing dim sum carts, it’s self-service at Foh San.

Many of the specialty dim sum items were sold out and the hubs just ordered whatever that’s left…

After this unpleasant experience, all of us vowed never, ever, ever again to step foot into Foh San during a double holiday season (it was Hari Raya holiday and school holiday).

Food wise, it has definitely lost its reputation of serving top notch dim sum. I would give it a rating of 6/10 for food and 3/10 for service.

Restoran Foh San Sdn Bhd
51 Jalan Leong Sin Nam,
30300 Ipoh Perak.
GPS Coordinates: N4 35.815 E101 05.168
Business hours: 6.30am to 2pm (Closed every Tuesday)






No. of times viewed = 566

Selamat Hari Raya and Happy Holidays!

I look forward not only to Chinese New Year and Christmas every year, but also to Hari Raya because of the long holiday that we get to enjoy. Just love the festive and holiday atmosphere in the air everywhere. It is also during these occasions that I get to take a long rest and break in my online store and catch up on my sleep!

This Hari Raya holiday, we are heading back to Ipoh to celebrate my dad’s birthday. We will be starting our journey tomorrow morning and I am hoping that the traffic will not be a bumper to bumper crawl on the highway, else we will have to make a U-turn and head back into the quiet city. I can’t wait to be back in Ipoh to spend a few days with my parents.  As much as I miss my parents, the girls miss their goong goong and granny very much too. And not to mention the good ol’ Ipoh food, air and water. Yes, even the air smells fresher too in Ipoh with lush greenery and limestone hills surrounding this idyllic city that churns out pretty girls. Datuk Michelle Yeoh and your truly are born and bred in Ipoh, ahem!   Gosh, my tummy is rumbling away thinking of all the Ipoh food stalls that we will be charging at soon!! I’ll bet I’ll regain the 1kg that I’ve lost recently in just a few days with all the binging that’s underway.  But who cares.  Eat first exercise later and I’m certain I’ll lose it again once school reopens in 8 days.  I’ve already listed out some places that the girls have never been to in Ipoh, to bring them to visit this holiday. Hopefully we can tick off the places in my To Do and To Eat List In Ipoh.

Here’s wishing all my Muslim readers and friends Selamat Hari Raya and to everyone – enjoy your holidays and drive really safely if you are traveling on the road.

No. of times viewed = 1444

Science Experiment On Springs For My Primary 3 Daughter

During my revision with Alycia on Science subject before her exam last week, I found out that her understanding of the concept of spring is very shallow. She seems very confused with the correlation of the diameter of the spring and its elasticity. I am ever more surprised that her Science (in Mandarin) teacher did not do any experiment with them by showing them the different types of springs. Kids are kids and seeing is believing. If you tell them something that is so technical without showing them, how then can they remember clearly? In order for something to be etched in your memory a life time, you need to see the actual object / experiment with your own eyes. Reading and memorizing alone ain’t that powerful. So at the eleventh hour before her exam, I scrambled and searched at every nook and corner of our house to find her some springs to demonstrate an experiment on spring to her. But as fate has it, in situations like this… most of the time, a spring just could not be found. I looked at my ‘blur’ Alycia and told myself that if I did not show her, she will most likely not fare well in her Science test. So I did not give up searching and then on my table top, I saw my spring hair ties! Yes I have a bunch of these spring like, wire like hair ties. I took 3 different sizes of the hair ties and showed her the elasticity of the spring hair ties with different diameters. After the brief experiment, Alycia’s understanding of the spring immediately went up. On the eve of her Science test (in Mandarin), I gave her some work books to do. I told her that Science is all about understanding the subject and of course, you need to memorize facts too. She did not fare well in her Science subject in her mid year exam in June as we did not do enough of revision and preparation. This time, she scored a 92%, which is a vast improvement from the previous Science test and I am quite happy with the marks, given that both the hubs and I read no Chinese and cannot assist her.

My hair ties and Alycia’s Science work book which I bought for her. So far, workbooks from Hup Lick Publishing are the only ones with dual language (English and Chinese) that I can find. I find these workbooks a saviour for me since I can’t read Chinese.



No. of times viewed = 390

Our Sunday – 12 Aug 2012

After lunch at Ishin Japanese Restaurant @ Old Klang Road yesterday, we headed over to Antipodean @ Menara Tan and Tan to have desserts with Alan Yun and Emily Lim, our 2 local celebrity friends.   My hubs and I were pretty surprised that the Antipodean outlet at Menara Tan and Tan wasn’t as packed as the outlet at Bangsar. We needn’t wait at all and the restaurant had many vacant tables, which is just so not Antipodean. The crowd at the Menara Tan and Tan outlet is not a patch on the one at Bangsar, which is perpetually packed to the brim.

Here’s what we had at Antipodean…

Macadamia cookie, which was very nutty and not too sweet.  My kids and I chomped down 1 cookie which was pretty large and ordered another one.

Ginger Snap, which was too sweet for everyone’s liking.

Lemon Meringue which the hubs picked. Totally not my kind of dessert and my kids didn’t like it either.  We did not fancy the foamy stuff (which is egg white + sugar)  on top of the lemon pie.

A picture with the stars!


No. of times viewed = 274

Involving The Kids In House Work

Ever since kakak went back to Indonesia for good, I involve the girls in almost every chore – hanging out, retrieving, folding and keeping the clothes, cleaning up before and after meals and cleaning up their own mess. You spill drinks, you drop food on the floor – you clean them up.  Alycia was exempted in most of the chores for the past 1 week due to school exam.  Yesterday was the last day of her exam. After her shower, she helped me to hang out the clothes.  I always tell the girls that I am not their maid and not to take things for granted, thinking that kakak is still around.  There is no more maid in the house.  Everyone is to take ownership and responsibility of their own area and actions.  No. 1 and no. 3 are pretty helpful while no. 2 is still pretty helpless in house chores and has a “I don’t care” attitude. Yesterday, she got a big tongue lashing session from me when she tossed my new Ikea bowl made of ceramic like a ball juggler after putting rice into the bowl! And 2 days ago, she spilled herbal drink on the table and floor when she balanced her mug at the edge of the table and drank from the mug balanced precariously at the edge of the table!! How would you handle such a brat?!


My 2 earnest helpers helping me to label the containers for unfinished food before storing them in the freezer.

No. of times viewed = 286

My Loot From Ikea

Here’s my cart-full of cushions, cushion covers, floor mats, some kitchen accessories and dining ware and knick knacks from my favorite furniture shop, IKEA. Bought all of these yesterday morning after dropping off Cass at school.  I told the hubs that since we needed to replace all our cushions with new ones, we better go to Ikea  since it’s their Textile Month this August.   The total damage is over RM400 BUT thanks to Ikea, I needn’t pay a sen, save for RM5 for a packet of yummilicious, super thin and crispy ginger-almond biscuits from the food section of Ikea 😀

No. of times viewed = 476

First Outing Without Kakak

This is our very first dining out without a live-in maid – it was a buffet lunch at Genji Japanese restaurant @ PJ Hilton.  After having the luxury to have a ‘kakak’ to help me out for the past 10 years, I now have to adjust my life living without a live-in maid.  Now there is no one to help me lug a big bag when we go out and no extra pair of hands and eyes to help keep an eye on the girls. It’s manageable now that Cass is 4 years old, except that I have to ditch the huge back-pack  and carry a bigger handbag myself, which ain’t that glam but oh well, that’s what most mothers without a live-in helper does right? I can’t carry my Coach handbag anymore but have to replace it with a huge blue and white stripes Oriflame mummy-baby bag, which does not really go well with most of my outfit. The first time I carried that huge blue and white stripes bag, Alycia gave me a shocked and sarcastic remark.. “mummy, are you going to use that bag? It’s for the BEACH!!” LOL!!

It’s been 2 weeks since kakak Dyah left us and though life is pretty tough without a live- in helper, I am slowly but surely getting used to it.  I just have to invest more in expensive hand moisturizing creams and gloves. And online business is now taking  a small break too until Alycia’s exam is over and until things at home are more settled.

No. of times viewed = 388

Weekend Getaway at Hilton Sentral

Last Saturday, I made an eleventh hour decision to allow the girls to have a 1-night getaway at Hilton Sentral as daddy’s free voucher was expiring on that day. He gets a free night’s stay at Hilton Sentral every year when he renews his membership with the Hilton Hotel group. Initially I had wanted to stay home to do revision with Alycia as her exam is just a week away. However, in the evening, I just wanted us to relax a wee bit and I was looking forward to indulge in the buffet breakfast at the hotel on Sunday. So off I went to pack the bag with clothes and Alycia’s school books, in the hope of doing some revision at the hotel but as usual, the books were totally untouched, even when we were back home. It is just too ‘happening’ at home right now as the girls’ aunt and cousin from Hong Kong are here. As they hardly have the chance to meet (this is the 4th time they meet in their entire lives.. first few times were when all of them were toddlers; Cass was  not even 1YO then), I allowed them to play and bond and revision has been pushed aside. Looks like this weekend is also packed with activities with the cousin and aunt. Alycia’s exam will be on Monday o_O !

After checking-in into Hilton Sentral, daddy bought mooncakes for supper…

3 kids + 2 adults all cramped into a deluxe room with a king-size bed. We ordered a baby cot for Cass but in the end, she climbed out and 9-YO Alycia went in to sleep – soundly through the night!

Lil’ fitness freaks at the gym @ Hilton Sentral

Healthy breakfast at Hilton Sentral – freshly juiced fruits and veggie, yoghurt, assortment of cheeses and fresh cut fruits. Sherilyn was holding a square framed cheese.






No. of times viewed = 226

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY