Happiness is...

... definitely a weekend spent with special friends and family. As Jin has gone MIA in HK (editor's note: there was a very legitimate reason for this) for 2 weeks, leaving me stranded in Spore all alone, I quickly planned my weekend getaway to home sweet home across the border. It was a busy weekend - managed to have my usual Penang chee cheong fun at OS restaurant, met up with Lilian (finally- like after 11 months of not seeing her!!) for coffee, attended Piggy's wedding dinner, squeezed in a haircut, pedicure and walked up the hill near the house. The highlight was the cook-in dinner cum bday celebration held for me at SC and CW's house, where I got to play with Ethan and baby Nicky :). Here's a happy pix of him at 4 months!

The dinner was fun - Marc showed off his amazing skills in the kitchen by whipping up mushroom bruschettas and one yummy creamy carbonara pasta. Then it was SC's turn to hold the limelight with her lemon glazed grilled chicken with amazing tasting grilled veges. I managed to send some people to chocolate heaven with some molten lava chocolate cake- this time, I used the 70% valrhona cocoa..I liked it as it was much more bitter but I think the 62% one is better suited for this cake. Cheryl got quite addicted to it and finished up 2! Talking about Cheryl, she made a very good honey rock melon sago which I need to get the recipe off her to try out.

Lastly, as per last year's set tradition, I was presented with a beautiful bday cake from Bakerzin - strawberry mousse with crunchy crust. It was so good that I took home 2 slices for mom and HM to try :). With bday meals and celebrations like this, how can one not look forward to another bday? heehee... if only Jin could have joined us :p

Oh, after the dinner, I tried my hand helping out SC with some corsages for Piggy's wedding and managed to pull one off! quite proud to see some of the folks at the wedding wearing it! Here's a pix of keat playing instead of working..terrible :P

Here's us at Piggy's big day :

Before I left, took mom to try out Kemaman food (from the state of Trengganu) at a kopitiam in Section 14, PJ. I had the nasi dagang with fish curry and mom went for the curry noodles. The nasi dagang came with white rice instead of the purple one and the fish came with a whole load of oil. After 5 minutes of painstakingly removing the oil, I finally got to settle my craving for nasi dagang. Mom's curry noodles was not bad - nothing like the ones we get at the chinese coffeshop..this one had a lot more curry powder taste. I enjoyed the vietnamese coffee which this place does well..wonderfully thick and black with nice coffee powder texture!