Happy Anniversary Bibik n Wak Joe

Bibik Koyah (her full name is Rudziah) is my mom's sister. I have been really close to her ever since the day I started college in Kuala Lumpur doing my "A" levels. Weekends were spent at her house as I wasn't that keen staying at the hostel - lousy food; no privacy (as you would expect from an introvert) etc....Wak Joe and she would pick me up Friday evenings and send me back Sunday nights!

She was kind enough to let me stay at her house despite the fact that she only had a two-bedroom low cost house. After I left for England, she started her food business and it has thrived by leaps and bounds. Now she has this huge double storey bungalow in Kg Melayu Subang which is quite empty as all her children except for one have moved out of her house....It's one of those paradoxes of life.

Anyway, last Thursday was Bibik and Wak Joe's 34th Anniversary and she wanted to have dinner at Thaba. It was planned that Thursday night would have been their anniversary dinner...What can I say, Man proposes God disposes! Her second daughter, Ulun who's in Johor Bahru gave birth to a 4.2kg baby boy (normal delivery okay!!! According to her husband the birth was an easy one and she was even laughing while delivering the baby). So there Bibik went to JB to pick her daughter and grandson (her 4th grandchild) and we had to reschedule the dinner to last night (my parents had to give it a miss because they had to go back to Muar Thursady evening).

Dinner at Thaba was brilliant as usual except that the celebrated arrived after we had finished our meal because of a massive traffic jam due to exodus of KLites making their way to various destinations for the school holidays.

Happy Anniversary again from all of us!!!!

Name tag

So you thought that it's the "name tags" that civil servants are made to adorn on their tops every day! Nah.....

I have been tagged by a blogger whom I had recently added to my blogroll, D re my children's names!!!

Here's the detail of the TAG:-

PROPOSITION : What is the meaning of your kid'(s) name(s)?

REQUIREMENTS : Write about what or how or why you gave the name(s) to your kid(s).

QUANTITY: 5 people

TAG MODE: Firstly you leave their blog and post link and add to the list below and secondly you let the blogger you want to tag know that he/she has been tagged by commenting in his/her blog or etc

To tell you the truth, wifey and I never had any problems nor arguments in choosing our kids' names...We never toiled the night flipping through baby names books or discussing various names etc. The names we chose were the names which came across our minds and that's it! Call it telepathy....but that's basically it!

Here goes D!!!

Child No 1- Siti Khadijah

Named after Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) first wife

Child No. 2 - Muhammad Yusof

Named after one of the Prophets.

Child No 3 - Siti Kauthar (allahyarhamah/deceased)

Meaning - "abundance of bliss"

It is a name of one of the wells in heaven. This is the reason why we chose this name. It was a short one month that God "lent" us Siti Kauthar.... (born 9.8.99 and departed 9.9.99 Al fatihah!)It's all fated and we accept it! God knows best!!! Well she's there now in heaven waiting for us! :)

Child No. 4 - Muhammad Ibraheem

Named after one of the Prophets who rebuilt Kaa'bah

Child No. 5 - Muhammad Umar

Meaning - "prospering, thriving"

Named after one of the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who was the second Caliph.

Child No. 6 - S*** ****r (if a girl)/**k****r (if a boy)

***wait and see lor!!!***

msau the meaning of SQ and Kiki

shopping mum the meaning of Justin and Isabelle

Judy Chow Terry

Shannon Rachel

Samm Gordon and Malcolm

Sasha lil J

Mott 2 Monkeys

Fatty Poh's Fatty Boy

Kd NAMI & MIMI

D Abg Z Abg H Princess & Litle D

DadofFour Siti Khadijah, Muhammad Yusof, Siti Kauthar, Muhammad Ibraheem and Muhammad Umar

Now, who shall I tag? Her goes...

MinahCeloteh

Superwoman

Halwafy

Thushara

Minah Songeh

Progress Report

2 0 0 7

It's almost half of year 2007 gone which reminded me of this entry I posted before the new year.

And guess what? I have not started anything substantial to add to my personal resume this year. Yes there was self-talk about picking up another language [Khadijah needs a sparring partner for French but then Yusof is not doing that great with his Arabic at school and Khadijah has been out of touch with Arabic for almost six months now] but this thought has not materialised. So I have decided (isn't this very autocratic?? Some time you need to be ! LOL) that all of us at home (minus Umar) learn Arabic to add to each of our personal resume this year!

I spoke to the Ustaz who teaches my kids read the Quran, a month an a half ago, to teach us Arabic and he had agreed but I have yet to give him the commencement date.

OK it's time to put the rubber to the road and walk the talk....!!! Will update on this!

Overdue Piccies from Makkah

I have been procrastinating on this...and my three days' hiatus is due to work and family commitments which are unusually too big for my plate at the moment.

I know I owe the prawn briyani recipe (please be patient as I will get wifey to post on her blog or email me the recipe - when you read this dear wifey, as a gentle reminder, please post on your blog or email me the recipe..LOL; wonders of technology!!!!) and a meme to do (D I will do it this week!).

In the meantime, enjoy the piccies.

p/s BTW D-I-L was finally discharged yesterday evening! He's doing well and thanks for all your well wishes.



The house where the Prophet (pbuh) was born


One of my stops everyday on the way back from Masjidil Haram for kebabs, fresh fruit juices and sandwich

One of those days longing for ice cream - Movenpick ice cream whilst enjoying the view of Fatah Gate of Masjidil Haram

View of Fatah Gate from Movenpick ice cream stall. A triplet-tower-building under construction next to Makkah Hilton

A sign at Jabal Thaur where the cave which the Prophet (pbuh) hid when he fleed his home

Jabal Thaur

Jabal Rahmah - where Adam and Hawa were runited after 400 years

Fully adorned Jamal (camel in arabic) at the foot of Jabal Rahmah. I rode one in the year 2000

Ji'ranah Mosque - one of the meeqat place

An interesting sign at Ji'ranah Mosque

Where Gua Hira' situates - the first revelation

One of the biggest Camel farms outside Mekkah (near Houdaibiah). Milking the Camel!

Close up - smile!!!

The camels at the farm

More camels

Tasting and buying fresh camel milk - i bought three bottles; yummy! Tastes a bit like light cocunut milk but sweeter

One of the arches of the original Houdaibiah Mosque

What's left of Houdaibiah Mosque

Where artefacts from the two holy Mosques are displayed

A very old mobile staircase to the Ka'abah door made of teak

Kibash briyani cooked by wifey's cousin, Najwa, whose mom has been staying in Mekkah since the mom was 13. Their house is 10 minutes' drive from Masjidil Haram. Can't wait for them to visit us this July.

The "floating" mosque in Jeddah. The mosque which Malaysians will stopover before adjourning to the airport before departing for Malaysia

This machine gun greeted us at the airport entry.......

Prawn Briyani 101

Mmm not exactly a tutorial on prawn briyani.

Spent half the morning yesterday, on my birthday, in an unlikely place for me - the kitchen! Wifey had an order for prawn briyani for 50 people...I decided, with her condition (5 months' pregnant) it was a husbandly duty to at least accompany her in the kitchen....It was an enlightening one for me too....At least I knew roughly how one of my favourite dishes is cooked...If you asked me the ingredients now - i'd say prwan, basmathi rice, onions, some spices, ghee, mint and corriander leaves, evaporated milk and pureed tomato. I'm sure there's more but I wasn't a good student yesterday! LOL (if you want the recipe, e-mail me ....!)

Wifey cooked a separate pot for us to wallop....Invited a couple of friends for a mid-night snack (how can I call it a snack when we devoured at least 3 plates each) last night....Even though we only had the rice and dhall (normally wifey would make raita or achar and spicy deep fried chicken , we left the pot clean to the brim!

The prawn and onion

Spices for the rice with screwpine leaves before the basmathi rice is mixed with them

The dhall

One short of forty

I turned one year short of forty six hours ago ...and very proud of it!

As usual my birthdays are like any other normal days. I like to keep it that way. My first birthday card was given last night about 9 pm when I sent my accounts assistant home and it was signed by both my secretary and her. Thanks J*** and In***. It was totally unexpected.

Today is also the birthday of my brother-in-law! If you are reading this, which I doubt, "Happy Birthday and many happy returns". He has cancelled his trip to Langkawi with his family together with d-i-l and m-i-l as d-i-l met with an accident last weekend.

D-I-L will get discharged today if everything is ok. Wifey and I are supposed to bring him home since we have a "lorry" (this is what I call my MPV - friends have jokingly asked me to upgrade to a mini-bus ever since wifey is pregnant with no. 5 and seriously they have a valid suggestion; we need a bigger vehicle!!!!)!

NB : Thepicture is taken fromwww.betterphoto.com and the copyright of Khawla S. Haddad whose website you can visit here

Mumbai Se...NOT... Mumbai Grill

This is Mumbai of a different kind. It's Mumbai Grill at The Ampwalk, Jalan Ampang (it's part of Passage Through India restaurants). Stumbled upon this Indian eatery when I was scouting for new office premises.

Mumbai Grill offers Bollywood fusion food hence the dedication to Bollywood actors and actresses on a huge wall of the eatery which is the focal point of the restaurant. I could only recognise Aishawarya Rai, her father in- law and Salman Khan as I don't follow Bollywood movies. It's strange that Sharukh Khan was not on the picture collage. But then again I may have not recognised him there....

They serve set lunches ( at least there were seven varieties) as cheap as RM11.90 before taxes (Note : MONDAYS to FRIDAYS only and not available during public holidays). The set lunch comes in the form of a soup, main dish and a drink of your choice.

I had difficulty in choosing my food. The chicken briyani ("Dum Briyani") appeared brilliant as it's cooked in a sealed mud pot over coal (at least that is what was described on the menu). My first choice would be lamb...Apparently they don't cook the lamb the "Dum" way. It's cooked separately from the rice briyani (which is cooked using the "Dum" method). Of course I was distracted a bit and wanted to try the Persian set which consists of two kebab rolls, one chicken and the other lamb....I didn't bother looking at the rest of the sets for fear of having to spend three long hours mulling over which one to choose. Had the chicken "Dum" briyani in the end and Mango lassi to go with it (the soup was a clear but spicy chicken soup which is quite different - that's fusion for you! The service was really fast....

Verdict - the briyani was very spicy which I love...The chicken (three chunks of them) were tender, fresh and succulent and of course spicy to the bone. The side dishes were raita (with a twist - I couldn't tell what was different to this raita unfortunately), some pickles (extra spicy), half a boiled egg and pappads - excellent!

Mumbai Grill is located at G-02, Ground Floor, The Ampwalk, 216 Jalan Ampang. Tel : 21623885

Nice and very clean restaurant

The set lunch menu

Yeehaa...Chicken Dum Briyani