Makan Time

It was not a planned trip. The original idea was to pick Idlan up from Langkawi on Sunday after his trip with friends. He would be flying there on Thursday, and we would pick him up after three nights.

Anita booked a room at a hotel near the bungalow he and his friends booked. It would also be a break for us after the month-long exams for the boys.

It turned out that Idlan coped well with the journey and appeared to be having a great time. So, we decided to take a break in Penang at our favourite hotel instead. As usual, that would mean food and plenty of them!

After the early dinner, we took a beca ride to Armenian Street. Before returning to the hotel, we took a stroll and had some drinks and dessert. But, the drama started the following day...

A Day in Penang

Everyone got up earlier on the Saturday after having a nice rest at the hotel the night before. We were up in plenty of time for breakfast before joining my Mum and Aunt again at her place. Then came the plan to head to Penang Island to visit more relatives. My Aunt tagged along as well.

We arrived at my other Aunt's place well before lunch - there was hardly any traffic getting there. We decided to have lunch at one of the nasi kandar shop near my Aunt's apartment and it was a delight. Irfan especially felt sleepy after the curry and ended up on the sofa while we were waiting for Zohor prayers.

Irfan contemplating what to eat next ...

I think that's a thumb up

Making acquintance with the local wildlife

Next stop .... Padang Kota. As per custom, we would order pasembor, laksa, sotong bakar, sotong kangkung and ais kacang; not necessarily in that order. It was gorgeous although the laksa could have been better - it didn't come with shrimp paste.

We just sat at the esplanade after the meal with the boys playing with bubbles and running around the place.

Nah! We stick to bubbles ...

That's Butterworth at the far end ....

Let's start ...

The wind blowing heavily ...

Next stop was at another Aunt's place in Kepala Batas. They had recently moved there from Butterworth and this was the first time I came over to visit them at their new place. More food and by this time, the boys were already getting grumpy. When we finally dropped my Mum and Aunt, it was already past sunset. Another early for the long journey tomorrow ...

The Preparations

When Anita got her mind set for something, she would obsessively pursue it. And the family open house the other was no exception. She was planning it for some time and got all the logistics organised well ahead.

For her part, she cooked her famous soto. She ordered a few items from her Instagram contacts as well as getting one of her friends to bake the cake for us.

Her Mum helped with the decorating and she got one of our maid's friend to stay over as well.

Certainly all her effort came into fruition as things started to fall into place. Luckily since our apartment was recently renovated and one of the leaked bathroom had been fixed. A few days before, she went to Sungai Buloh with her friend to get some fresh flower pots for the balcony. Therefore decorations was rather straight-forward.

Open Apartment

Last Sunday, the day before my and my father-in-law's birthday, we hosted an open house at our apartment - hence the dubbed open apartment - inviting mainly Anita's cousins and my father-in-law's siblings. The turn out was better than expected. Mixed with that, we also had an impromptu cake-cutting and all the usual birthday stuff.

It was just beginning

My parents-in-law

One of Anita's Aunt

It was an excellent day all around and some of our friends stayed until the evening. Food was curtesy of Anita's excellent soto as well as a few orders of biryani and "laksa Johor". Everyone was entertained, even our new driver - who was a pastry chef - chipped in with some desserts for good measures.

Most of our cousins only visited us for the first time, and many had not been here since the renovations last Christmas.

The four of us

And they got my name wrong!

Even the baby was behaving

Good time all around

Everybody had a good time and Anita was the most pleased. She put plenty of effort for the afternoon, and her mother actually spent the evening with us. We also got the help from a friend of our maid as there were plenty to do during the event. But everything went well.

Idlan and Irfan though only made sporadic appearance, although one of their cousin joined them in Irfan's room playing with the PS4. That left us adults to chill out while enjoying the food. The main problem our visitors had was the security and parking arrangements. To make things easier, we stationed our driver at the visitor's car park to fetch them through the main lifts rather than them having to go through the visitor's route and the main entrances.

Peace!

The day's entertainment

Group photo with friends

We were stuffed by the late afternoon, and the party was only halfway then. My father-in-law did not stay until late as he was getting tired from all that. He did however gave a speech after cutting the cake. Off came the story when I called Anita's home when we were both still in college. Hilarity ensued! But great day all around ...

That Lunch

With the new highway called LATAR, the journey from my parents’ place in Gombak to Kuala Selangor had been cut from 2 hours before to half that. Yesterday - as I was free, I decided to take them for lunch there. Luckily one of the driver was free and I had the chance to just chill out on the journey.

This crab looked new. Or maybe it had a new coat of paint.

The sun was high and it was really hot then ...

We got there before the rush for lunch

The menu could be best described as "illustrative"

We left rather late as I had some things to do at the hospital that morning. We finally arrived at the restaurant at around 1.30. The crowd was still building up at the time. But the cook there was really efficient, and despite the crowd, we got our food quite fast as we were already hungry when we arrived.

When it was hot, this just took the cake!

You just can't get any fresher than this

Some spicing up needed ....

The food was finally here ....

We ordered a couple kilograms of crabs, some prawns and fish as well as vegetables. And true to our word, we finished them all. The crab was fresh but the highlight must have been the garoupa. It was exceptional!

The aftermath

It was too warm to walk around. Anita shelved the idea of walking around to buy salted fish. It only took me 10 minutes before going to sleep at the back of the car …..