Welcoming The Lunar Year of the Rabbit

Abalone strips adorn vegetables and garnishing on plate in foreground above.

Steamed sago bubbles are bathed in a mixture of coconut milk and sweet Malacca palm sugar (above).

Above, roast duck cutlets ala Hong Kong from the Asian roast meat outlet in Sydney's suburbs.

Below, the Straits Chinese favourite of lobak, deep fried spring rolls wrapped with both vegetables and meat.

The yee sang, or literally fish alive, is made only at Lunar New Year time.

Basically a sashimi salad, laced with fine strips of various carefully selected ingredients like pomelo grapefruit bits, crunchy stuff and salmon pieces, the mixture creates different sensations for the palate. Families and mates gather around this dish, each person with a pair of chopsticks on hand, to collectively stir through this concoction in a symbolic act of generating dynamic wealth and health.

All dishes above were photographed at the home of Susan and Boo Ann Yap in Carlingford, New South Wales on 2 February 2011.

Georgetown's Hotel Penaga

The penchant for boutique residences, holiday lifestyles and heritage restorations all meet at a junction along Hutton Lane in the old quarter of Penang Island's Georgetown. A whole block of early twentieth century double storey terrace houses has been renovated and rebuilt into a unique experience for visitors seeking an alternative to hotel chains that apparently offer more of the same around the world. Low rise in structure, utilising lots of dark coloured wood panelling and suggesting an ambiance of times gone past, the Hotel Penaga infuses and blends both its external and interior decor with memories of British, Straits Chinese and Malay influences - much like this tropical isle itself is.

There are the obligatory bar and dining areas - with names like Tanglong (meaning 'Lantern") and stark white tablecloths. We had martinis, tia marias and cofffee. Also on the bar list were Pims and Bombay Sapphires.

Outside, a south Indian coffee shop was chock-a-block with youths watching intently a football match on the ESPN channel. Light rain moistened the tarred roads outside, matching the rather quiet elegance of the hotel functional rooms inside.

Antique Straits Chinese window frames form the center piece as one checks into the lobby. There is generous use of stained coloured glass, brass knobs, ornamental lamps and carvings inspired by the likes of the Malayan peninsular and Bali. Looking from outside, some of the character of the original British Malaya architecture is retained, although now topped up discretely by hints of southern Chinese roof styles. There may be plumbing issues to over come though - the taps were not exactly user friendly when we visited.

Hotel Penaga has attempted to evoke a time of when tea and pepper merchants crossed paths with colonial government servants, South-east Asian royalty and Australian naval officers. Today it tries to lure bond and currency traders, political brokers, internet professionals and new China hands to its corridors.

Nan Tien, The Southern Buddhist Heaven

Illawarra Beaches - Bellambi Point

A Malaysian Food Trail

A refreshingly cold drink on the hottest January day in about twenty years. This concoction, called the three flavours, is an ice shaving mix drowned in milk, black jelly strips and green coloured crunchy bits made from mung beans (cendol). Cendol is ubiquitous on the street food stalls in South-east Asia from Vietnam to Indonesia. A dessert that also serves as a quick teatime snack, it is a necessary tool of defence to cool down the palate, body and temperament, especially when temperatures soar above 30 degrees Celsius. It is also highly effective when taken with curries and deep fried foods. The concoction has to be stirred thoroughly before preferred through a large sized straw, to allow the bits and pieces to be slurped through, accompanying the drink portion. We had our share of cendol this time at Albee's along the main strip of Beamish Street in Campsie, south-west of Sydney CBD.

Joyce's Mum, Rosie, had just returned from Penang, Malaysia and we reckoned we should check out some parts of greater Sydney that was hardly frequented. I was fascinated by this unassuming mural (above) painted on a back wall beside a side street off Marrickville Road in the multi-ethnic suburb of Marrickville. The musical instruments depicted on this mural reminded me of some of the traditional instruments used in multi-racial Malaysia, except for the one with a duck shaped handle. You can spot Indian drums, Chinese pipas and Malay violins. The vegetables offered on display in Marrickville (below) seemed to be wilting under the harsh sunlight, but contribute to the variety of stir-fried dishes often complemented with condiments, garlic and ginger on the wok.

One of my favourite supper or lunch snacks back in my hometown of Penang Island is the Cantonese-inspired wat tan chow hor, soaking in a delicious egg-based gravy poured over an aromatic mixture of prawns, cut choy sum vegetable stalks/ leaves and stir fried wide flat rice noodles (hor fun). For this dish to have a kick, it has to be eaten whilst warm and with vinegar-soaked cut green chilli rings - and the wok used to stir fry the noodles must have been going for several hours. Home kitchens rarely produce a mean and really rewarding quality of this culinary creation. In my mind, this chow hor is associated with a fun trip with Papa and brothers, the kids in pyjamas, going for a special treat in a car in the latter part of the night, for a quick meal in Georgetown before turning into bed.

Mum makes the best mee rebus, and interpretations of this South Indian inspired dish can vary with different crunchiness of the battered shrimps, the smoothness of the potato-based gravy and the spiciness of the dish.

Rebus is to simmer, and yellow Hokkien noodles are preferred, with fried shallots used as the garnish.

The experience is heated up with an optional dollop of paste made from pounded chillies and shrimp. Above image, the dish made at Ginger and Spice in the Chatswood Chase in Sydney's upper north shore.