Lazy Food#1 - Pâté Sandwich

This got to be one of the easiest & satisfying meal to assemble up when you need a quick bite.

Although this Pâté may not be easy, you can certainly get them pretty easily from supermarket here (Singapore). Otherwise a can of China Mailing brand Luncheon Meat would do just fine for me as well. Add some salad greens like baby spinach, or lettuce, batavia or my favorite, the Rocket(Arugula), but I'm always kinda slow when it comes to shopping ... they sells out pretty fast grrrrrrrr.....

Sometimes, when I'm in the mood, I would love slices of red onions, dash of Vietnamese nước mắm (Fish sauce) & bit Chili padi to up the Scoville scale for a little more kick!

Usually baguette (prefer Vietnamese type) is the way to go. But during rush hour, I would grab whatever staple that's available.

Happy Labor Day!

===The End===

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Early Autumn Mitake

A mere mention of Japan, and it's not uncommon to see people starting to conjure up images of cosmopolitan city of Tokyo.

But I'm not a city person. Nested deep inside is a really simple, down-to-earth person, longing to be at peace with nature.

Tokyo? Don't really interest me anymore, fortunately, while attempting to get away from all these modern madness, serendipity found me.

About 2 hours away to the west of Tokyo (via JR Ome Line) lies the mountainous region of Okutama (奥多摩).


Being early in the autumn, when splendid fall colors are still asleep, these wonderful wild mushroom harvests begin showing up at make-shift stall. I haven't done a mushroom hunting myself as yet, hopefully I will have some opportunity in the near future.


Beautiful Tama river(多摩川) still flowing with torrents of icy cold water from the mountains.


Further up the Tama River (多摩川), families were having fun fishing out river trouts.


These poor thing will end up as lovely BBQ lunch for these happy families. Sprinkle some salt, perhaps a few branches of herbs like rosemary ~ marvelous! What a wonderful, lazy life I'm longing to be with.


But I am not with family nor equipped with fishing gear for battles with these lovely fishes. So I would buy a piece here to satiate all my needs.


Oh, did I mention Mitake(御岳)? Mount Mitake(御岳山) is one of the attractions in Okutama(奥多摩), but I'm fully mesmerize by the surrounding that's tantalizing all my sensory. I never made it to Mount Mitake hahahaha ...

Alright, I do Mount Mitake next time I'm here again .. heh!

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JB Beef Noodle

Delicious food need not necessary be located in the most convenient places (e.g Big shopping malls, building etc). Sometimes, run down places gives you unexpected surprises. And one of my favourite hunt got to be Beef Noodle stall in JB.


The location is quite out-of-way for those who don't have their own transport. Even you've reach there via Taxi, I'm not too sure how you going return as I hardly find any taxi around, maybe hitchhike? heh ...

CLosing up, you see my favorite JB Beer Noodle stall on the right. The duck rice (Left) is pretty good as well.


For RM5 (small), you get small bite size beef which are really nice & tender. RM6 (big) gets you more ingredients like tendons & other spare parts of moo-moo. And what makes this especially delicious is probably the special dark sauce, which I think it's a combo of dark soy sauce & braised sauce from beef. Simply delightful.

Queues are long, so be prepared to wait about 15mins or so. And they are sold out usually by 2 or 3pm.


LOCATION: I realize the google maps are really outdated. there is no way to go via Jalan Lumba Kuda you see here. This path has been cutoff due to construction of new Johor custom & immigration Building

But you can reach Jalan Lumba Kuda via another route further up of Jalan Tun Adbul Razak. If you can't figure out how to go, drop me an email then.

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Bloody Week!

Actually it started last weekend, but we couldn't do much until more support are available. Fortunately, issues finally closed, and I'm close to completing all the paperwork. Yeah, paperwork is really important, as the saying goes ~ No Job's Finished Until the Paperwork is Done *sighz*

Incidentally, I bought some Italian Blood orange recently. Being superstitious often, I wonder if they are the cause for my latest predicament *silly me* lolz


Blood orange hails from land of Mafia, Sicily ... aha! I wonder if the red color are any of their "good" doing! But no, really, the red colored are actually due to presence of Anthocyanin, the wonder pigment that suppose to be a powerful antioxidants.

The most common types of blood oranges are: the Tarocco, Sanguinello and Moro. Probably there maybe more hybrids or crosses.

The one I got was probably Moro, sweet, less acidic & packed with antioxidants ~ that's the way I like it! Unfortunately, I have already left with my last bloody strain. I'm wondering to have it neat or try blending them with some green fairy spirits *grinz*

Well, we will see .....

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Popcorn Parable

As I was still pondering over the lesson in The Parable over some popcorns recently, some new lessons seems to sprout out from my head again.

Isn't it amazing how a small raw corn kernel can puff up into many times its size by mere application of heat?

It's the same with life - you need at least a seed, an idea to build into something of grandeur scale. If you do not have any seeds or ideas, you're simply an empty popcorn bag or vessel with no direction in life, no dreams, no living.

With this seeds, they will allow you to expand in all directions - no I don't mean anatomically but the direction in life leading to your dreams.

The heat refers to your plan & action. Needless to say, not all popcorns will pop. So if the seed don't pop, don't waste time to apply more heat, discard them!. Again, in life, there is no point in holding on to unrealistic dreams, when ideas don't hold, it's better to discard early and move on.

And so what if there are too many seeds or ideas - just do them in batches, step by step you achieve without them overwhelming yourself

Several lessons can be pickup from here.
1. Everything starts from an idea
2. If idea is unrealistic, discard & move on
3. If there are too many, plan & execute step by step

Lastly, if you are lucky to have enough popcorns for yourself, share it around. Your kindness to friends / stranger will surely gladden everybody hearts.

p.s: btw, I just ran out my last pack of popcorn, would you be glad to share your popcorns with me ;P

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Ejector Room?

Hmm ... I often wonder what goes behind the door of this Ejector Room? Heh ...
(The End)

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Tanglin Halt Chicken Biryani

Queues don't lie, this is especially true when comes to food. And so, when I chanced upon a queue at Blk 49 Tanglin Halt Rd, Peking Room Kopitiam, I wasted no time to join the queue.


Surprising, Peking Room Kopitiam don't sells Peking food, not even typical china food. There's a chinese porridge & malay food stall which was closed when I was there for lunch.

Tanglin Halt Roti Prata was named so probably because they sell Roti Prata in the morning (One of Singaporeans' favourite breakfast & supper).By noon, they also sells Biryani for the lunch crowds.

When the plate of Chicken Biryani arrives, it sure doesn't looks so appetizing. I took my first bite anyway and pleasantly surprised at the soft textured rice. It reminds me fondly of Bario Rice (Highland rice that are only grown in Kelapit Highlands@Borneo) which I bought from Kuching last year.

Another bite at the chicken showed up another surprise - it's very tender and it would seems like the meat fibers have been shredded internally, though it still looked as complete outside. These tastes wonderful!

Curry is fine, flavorsome but bit tone down for my palate. Overall, I enjoyed this Biryani and will be glad to be back for more.

WHERE: Peking Room, Blk 49 Tanglin Halt Rd


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Earth Day 2008

Earth Day falls on 22 Apr. Hopefully by now, everybody should be aware that our dearest Earth is falling sick rapidly. One way to help is to keep yourself & others informed on the ongoing environmental issues as well as learning ways we help to reduce these damages.

In conjunction with HBO Asia, National Library @ 100 Victoria Street will be screening the An Inconvenient Truth
Venue: National Library Imagination Room
Date/Time - Sat, 19 Apr 2008, 3.00 pm

If you missed this, you can still catch it at Singapore Botanical Gardens
Date : 20 Apr
Time : 11am - 1pm ; 2pm - 4pm
Venue: Function Hall, Botany Centre

Source: http://www.climatecrisis.net/

And if these are still not enough .....

National Nature Society is organizing Earth Day celebration at Yishun Park on 26 Apr 2008
NSS: Celebrate Earth Day at Yishun Park

Singapore Zoological Gardens are having special events during Earth Day
Singapore Zoo: Celebrate Earth Day 2008

National Geographic Asia also having special programmes on this special day
NGCAsia: Earth Day Specials

And how about trying this cool software called, Localcooling, said to help optimize your PC power consumption!

As for yours sincerely, having watched "An Inconvenient Truth", I'll probably will be lazing around elsewhere doing nothing, consuming nothing & hence wasting nothing. After all, from the look of this noticeboard, I'm not sure what I can do other then nothingness? In fact, they even wanted me to walk there too!!! ;P

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Remembering Songkran

I was in Bangkok for Songkran during 2006. Fun time though I must say, it's really too wild & too HOT (i.e the weather) for me.

This Year, Songkran falls on 12 – 15 April 2008. Yes, it's happening right now. More info in the following link
Songkran.Net

Though I will won't miss the truly mad water battles, I sorely missed the Khao Chae (Rice in cold Jasmine scented water, served with various delectable condiments) that are only available during summer.

The web link shows the official performance during Songkran with Grand Palace in the background. For the unofficial water battles, check out my slideshow :)

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All Blacks

It's seems like a black day for me, I seeing a lot of black today LOLz

I was having my Javanese Nasi Padang, and this black cat comes around, coaxing me for some Sambal fish that I was having. I'm surprised this blackie seems to be able to handle the fiery hot chili. I remember feeding spicy fish to cats elsewhere, they wouldn't take it at all.

Isn't she a lovely cat!? Reminds me of Everready Batteries LOLz


Elsewhere, I spotted a cool Harley Davidson VRSCDX NIGHT ROD SPECIAL


Oh, there was a BLACK SLK200 Roadster parked nearby, but somehow I wasn't so interested in that ;P

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Turkish Delights

Someone have been touring Turkey & gorging on copious Turkish food & delights *so envious* and all I got was this. *sighz* ;P

From 080413-Turk

Oh, I found this Turkish Sweets at NTUC, love the slight spiced taste. Unfortunately, I no longer could find them again at NTUC :(

p.s: Please ignore the Read More in this post; It been appearing ever since I add extra codes to hide/expand long posts. Quirks of Blogspot that never got improved ever since I left them a year ago. Good thing they finally added Category (via Label features)

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The Parable

I'm sure many have already read about the Mexican Fisherman Parable, if you have't done so, you could read from here, here & here. I like this parable but since most have been written from western perspective, I thought I just writeup an Asian edition as well too ;P

So here goes ......

While touring around Northern Thailand, a modern Asian tourist stumbled upon wonderfully aromatic & delicious rice cooked by a Thai Villager. Upon further queries, he learned that the villagers have been harvesting wild rice in a secret spot amongst the mountains. He complimented the Thai for the fantastic rice and asked him how long it took to harvest them.

"Not very long" replied the Thai

"So why didn't you stay out longer and harvest more?" asked the puzzled Asian

"Because it already sufficient to support our family daily needs"

"But what do you do with the rest of your time?"



"Well, I have long afternoon naps & tea with my lover, play with children a little, soak in hot spring bath, enjoy driving around the mountains. In the evening, we go village to visit my friends, play guitar, sing songs & be merry ..... "

The Asian interrupted. "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you achieve greater success! You should start harvesting longer every day. You can sell extra rice your harvest to generate more revenue.

"And then?" asked the Thai

"With extra revenue, you can employ more people. This will brings in more harvest and hence even greater profits. After which, you can start export the rice yourself, expand your geographical reach for even better profits! Then, you can leave this small village and head to big modern cities, setup big enterprises to make even more money"

"How long?"

"20, perhaps 25 years?

"And after that?"

"Now, this is where it gets interesting. Once your business becomes really big, you can IPO and start selling stocks to make millions & millions of dollars"

"Oh really? Okie, and after that?"

"After that you'll ve able to retire, live in small village, have long afternoon naps & tea with your lover, play with your children, drive around and spend evening with enjoying with your village friends."

************* Self Thoughts *****************
Quite often, we have been locked in that silly rat race, trying to achieve success & happiness as defined by others. Did we stop, step out for a moment, and asked ourselves what we truly wanted? Who knows, we may already be there!

The original Mexican Fisherman story is a inspiration for me, It has taught me not to be blind follower of herd in the pursue of success & happiness. Instead, we should define for ourselves what truly ours.

Hopefully my asian edition is close to what it's trying to teach.
********************************************
Notes about Photos
All photos in the slideshow are taken during my trip to North Thailand (Mae Hong Son) during 2002. They are taken at various places - Mae Chaem, Pai, Mae-U-Kor. The Mexican Sunflower fields are spectacular.

More information can be found in the following website.
Travel Mae Hong Son

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Chow Time!

Tucked in the HDB heartland Kopitiam in Ghim Moh, Western Chow cooks up Hainanese style Western food that were once served to British Colonial Masters of yesteryears.

I have a go at their Hainanese style beef stew. At $6, I do think it's a steal! Gravy was delectable & vegetables wonderfully done.


More importantly, the stewed beef are incredibly tender, just look at those teeth marks of mine!
I surely be back for more favorites like Hainanese Pork chops, Ox-Tail Stew etc soon!

ADDRESSES
Blk 134 Lorong Ah Soo
#01-454
Singapore 530134
http://www.westernchow.com/html/main/maplorongahsoo.html

Blk 19 Ghim Moh Road,
#01-229
Singapore 270019
Closed on Every Tuesday.
http://www.westernchow.com/html/main/mapghimmoh.html


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New Millennium

I adore traveling, trekking, food, photography & bit of booze, caffeine. Okay, good spring water too, especially after my trip from Kyushu savoring spring water from source.

I worked very hard so as to afford all these pleasures within my means. But something went wrong, terribly wrong in fact. There seems to be less & less time for all my favorite things, not forgetting the perpetual tiredness that comes along the way. And as the song "Millennium" by Robbie goes ....

Some say that we are players
some say that we are pawns
but we've been making money since the day that we were born
Got to slow down,
cause we'll low down.

Yes, indeed its time to slow down. Maybe temporary, wish it will be eternity though. Here I am, trying to find the laziness in me. Not the laziness as in loafing aimlessly, but "laziness" as being more efficient so that I can laze around more often with my favorite things.

Efficiency is intelligent laziness. ~David Dunham

And so, Finding Mr Lazy was born as an exploratory blog, in search of intelligent & creative laziness. Needless to say, it will be dotted with my favorite things too!

However, due to my new found "laziness", this will eventually be a weekly weekend updated only blog. But I'm sure you'll understand why :)
........................................................................................
I had a short stint in Sydney during Millennium 2000. A gorgeous sunrise greeted me one fine day. It was a beautiful day .............

Welcome Aboard!

p.s: And oh yes, I will experimenting with Adsense stuffs as well too. Cheers!

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