When you make the decision to work overseas, you better love the one you’re with.
For Heidi and I this was the easy part of being away from home…we love each other, we’re best friends. We actually like being with each other, sharing adventures, talking shop, and laughing at the funny situations and experiences we discover daily. We’re comfortable when the other goes off on their own…Heidi today is meeting with friends to shop at a new craft store (combination of Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Craft Warehouse) and then to get their nails done) I’m teaching a swimming stroke clinic. We are the first to tell each other of our frustrations, our fears, our hurts, and joys. We cannot imagine what it would be like otherwise. We are together everyday at school, we drive there and back in the same car. We go to the same parties and functions, the same inservice trainings. We shop and cook as a team, argue over where we should go out to eat, and sit on our porch sipping wine in the evening as the lights of Kuala Lumpur begin to sparkle. You better love the one you’re with for you are with them all the time.
During the week we work like dogs so on the weekend we try to discover a new part of town or try a new restaurant. We no longer are intimidated by KL traffic so into the Waja we go driving “defensively aggressive”. If we get lost, who cares….we just try orient by finding the Petronas Towers and wander until we find our way.
Yesterday we had a party to go to in the early afternoon. Got our fill of snacks, wine, I (not Heidi) had a couple puffs on the Shesha Pipe, a water pipe with apple tobacco, and off we went on one of our date nights. Earlier we posted about Jalan Alor…that wildly crazy street with hawker stand overload. Well, one street over is a much more subdued avenue with all these amazing restaurants and spa’s. We started at 6:00 with a most amazing foot massage at Tropical Spa. It is sooooo hard not to fall asleep while these strong and knowing hands massage your feet. You decide the amount of pressure. Heidi and I are wimps and always ask for medium. Funny story….seems there are pressure points all over your feet that connect somehow with other parts of your body. Well, some friends of ours took their daughters to this same spa, both of them elementary age. Part way through the massage, one of the masseuses said to our friend, “This one here is a silent terrorist”. Not understanding, she asked him to explain. He said, “Watch”. He touched a spot on her foot and she immediately farted. He did it again and once again, poof !!! After they all had a great, hearty laugh, the masseuse promised to stay away from that spot. Luckily for Heidi and I, the only spots found were ones of relaxation.
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- Tropical Spa…home of wonderful foot massages!!!
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- On our way to Changkat Bukit Bintang, an upmarket gastronomy district around Jalan Alor.
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- Decorated streets on the way to Sao Nam restaurant.
Following the massage, we went next door to Sao Nam…this amazing Vietnamese restaurant. We had reservations so we were seated outside, right under a cooling fan. We looked at the wine list and saw a bottle of BOGLE Petite Syrah…the same BOGLE we used to find at Safeway back home. We ordered it immediately. For dinner we started with vegetarian spring rolls, followed by a mangosteen-prawn salad and a plate of deep fried chicken rolls. For the main course we shared a Vietnamese Pancake…heavenly delicious.
Here is the recipe:
Vietnamese Pancake
banh xeo
How this dish become known as ‘Banh Xeo’ is simple. ‘Banh’ is ‘cake’ in Vietnamese, and ‘Xeo’ is the sizzling sound made when the rice batter is poured into the hot pan.
Ingredients
100g rice flour
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
300ml coconut milk
300g prawns, cooked and peeled
200g chicken breast, cooked and shredded
200g beansprouts, cleaned
Oil for greasing
5g lettuce leaves
2-3 sprigs basil
2-3 sprigs mint
Combine the rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk in a mixing bowl. Stir to mix well.
Grease a pan and place over a medium flame. Pour in one scoop of the rice flour mixture. Swirl until a circle of batter is formed.
Add prawn, chicken and beansprouts on one side of the pancake. Cook over a low flame until the batter becomes golden brown and crispy. Flip the other half over to form a half-circle pancake. Serve with lettuce, basil and mint, and Fish Dipping Sauce.
A great wine to pair would be P. ANHENSER WEISSER Burgunder. Off dry wine is made from the family of Riesling grape variety. Fruity, with a hint of sweetness on the finish.
To finish off the meal, we ordered fried bananas with rum….at our table they added the rum and lit it on fire. Orgasmically good !!!!! After two and a half hours we finally asked for the bill and wandered hand in hand down the street toward home. Nice evening.
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- Bogle Wine…a bit of California in Kuala Lumpur
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- Sao Nam Restaurant
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- Pic from our menu…and the food looked exactly as shown.
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- From the menu.
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- Part of my Mangosteen and Prawn salad.
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- Eating our way through the Vietnamese pancake….even ate the star fruit.
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- For the size of this pancake, take a look at my hand in the picture….big and filling!!!
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- vegetarian spring rolls…not sure what was in the dip but we used it all up !!!
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- Selfie at Sao Nam
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- Fried bananas with rum…on fire at our table.
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- Seated outside…lots of greenery and my lovely wife!!!
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- Taken by “Andy” our wonderful waiter.
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- For a bit, we had the outdoor porch all to ourselves.
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- Crazy smoking “candles”, five feet tall on the side of the street.
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- Made for a smoky moment passing by these “chimneys”
Last year we had THE FRUIT OF THE WEEK. Well, we have gone through most of the fruit so this year we are hoping to post, SIGNAGE – STRANGE, UNUSUAL, FUNNY
For those lovers of the show, PARENTHOOD, here is our first sign:
Yes, Heidi and I could have checked into Funky Town but, remember, we wandered hand in hand down the street toward home. (and funky town!!!)
Our Adventures 