My Heart Sweated Bullets

My heart sweated bullets. Not kidding and Benjamin certainly described it aptly.

I was in a housekeeping frenzy. I see too many draft posts sitting around ~ blogger keeps a new draft of the same title each time when I quit halfway through a post. And in my moment of blurness (the nick missyblurkit obviously comes with a reason), I clicked "ALL" and happily deleted all my 50 blog posts. That was at 11:25p.m.

OOOOOPSSSSSSS

Oh My God

Panic attack. Heart stops many beats.

Dang...what am I going to do?

I googled. I yahooed. I was frantic. There does not seem to be a solution for deleted blog post under Blogger unless I was on a content management system or something.

Walked around my house...what do I do? Look at my plants, my 2 terrapins and my furkid Shalom. Hoping very much to find a solution from them. And saviour (I'll like to think so) Shalom started walking between her toy baskets. She was doing her usual habit of transferring toys or shifting her treats (which she sometimes forgets where she keeps them so hubby and I have to go around the house with her to look for them for her).

this is Shalom

Voila! It hit me that surely Blogger will still have it around somewhere. All I should need to do is to look through my browser history to see if I can find the link of my last edits. Luck was semi with me. I found 1! The only one that I edited right before my revisit to Central Market toilet and to have my hokkien mee fix. That was at 7:03p.m. 3 hours before I did the unthinkable.

I clicked on the link in my browser history. Fingers, eyes and toes crossed...I hoped it will work. Yes it worked!

My draft post was alive. I click "save now". Opened another browser...and yes the draft post was resurrected. Unfortunately, only 1 was resurrected as I was working on another browser previously which I did not save my browsing history. Aaaargh! Consolation...one is better than none!

So which was the lucky post? Ol Skool Dim Sum at Pudu Cafe which I posted this morning.

Meanwhile...thanx to Pummkin I discovered MacJournal and LiewCF I discovered MarsEdit. I am going to play with this 2 and decide which is better for me. Thanx folks!

Ol Skool Dim Sum at Pudu Cafe

And with my monochrome adventure in Pudu, I am treated to dim sum ol skool style. Hidden at Pudu market is Pudu Cafe. A no frills shop, I am greeted at 6:00a.m. by a packed shop. Yeah its seriously packed at this hour. Its also non stop steaming of dim sum to cater to the clients.

Every table, I see people enjoying their dim sum. It can be an uncle slurping his porridge with his wife for company. On another table, someone else is enjoying his pow and cup of chinese tea while browsing the newspapers.

Needless to say, I am ravenous after my morning walk with my camera and bag. I have a peep at what's steaming and quickly return to my table to start picking the dim sums.

Here's a glimpse of some of the items we ate.

Not overly sweet egg tarts

Yummy radish cake

Creamy woo kok with a generous stuffing of melt in your mouth char siew

what's inside?

lo mai kai with a generous portion of chicken, pork, sausage and mushroom

fried lobak. basically its fu chuk (beancurd skin) with meat stuffing

stuffed chilly

chicken soup for breakfast. super yum yum for the soul and tummy

satisfying & bouncy fishball (yee wak)

siu mai

rather strange shaped lai yao bao

its not the oozy drip all over type of filling but it has a very nice corn custard taste to it

braised fu chuk with stuffing. the sauce is yummy.

braised chicken feet

My faves? Porridge. Char Siew Pow. Pork ribs. Chee Cheong Fun. Lotus Leaf Rice. Stuffed Bittergourd.

We ordered 3 servings of the pork ribs and the confession is that I ate one on my own. The meat is tender and is well marinated. You can taste the awesome taste of the flavourful black dace in every bite without even biting into the black dace.

The char siew pow is fluffy. The filling is not too sweet and the meat is juicy with a light hint of sesame seed. Lean meat is used but its not dry.

I admit that I wasn't too keen on the idea of chee cheong fun initially. This I reckon is because of the amount of fried onions that I saw on it. However I took a bite (after pushing aside the fried onions) and was wowed. Silky and smooth chee cheong fun with fragrant soya sauce. Take it with the sambal on the side. This is awesome! Yes it was good...we ordered another plate!

What is dim sum without porridge? Pudu Cafe serves wholesome thick porridge with a generous amount of minced pork and century egg. Of course there is salted egg. Just that you don't see it. Proper way of cooking is to mash the salted egg with the porridge so you taste it but don't see it with your naked eye.

an old uncle with his bowl of porridge

thick hot porridge

yummy...

The lotus leaf rice is a must order. The glutionous rice is aromatic because of the lotus leaf. It is also aromatic because of the generous fillings including salted, lean meat (healthy shop!) and chinese sausages.

a dainty parcel wrapped with lotus leaf

fluffy fragrant glutinous rice

I love stuffed bittergourds and Pudu Cafe serves them the way I like. Huge generous amount of fish paste stuffed into a ring of bittergourd. The bittergourd is soft and coupled with the firm fish paste. The fish paste is as original as you can get. Its pure fish meat that is minced together sans any flour whatsoever.

And if you're around that part of town, hop over to this ol skool shop:

45 Jalan Pasar Baru

Off Jalan Pudu

Kuala Lumpur

~.~

I am glad "This Fella" invited me to check out the market at such an unearthly hour (well 5:30a.m. is seriously unearthly for me) and resulted in my play with monochrome pictures and a gastronomic experience. Thanx buddy!

Monochrome (Almost) Tale in Pudu Market

A good friend asked me yesterday if I wanted dim sum at 5am. He promised me that it would be good. But more so, he promised me that I will enjoy an adventure which I'll love at that hour. Mind you...I am not much of an early riser especially during weekends unless there's a drive or a trip somewhere.

So here I am waking up at 430am so that I am at Pudu for my morning adventure at 5:30a.m. I must admit that I wasn't too keen with the smell:P However, when you see the hustle and bustle at that hour, you forget the smell. Its amazing.

For a change, I opted to shoot in monochrome. Something I've not done for ages. Here's some pics taken:

this boss is perched up on a high chair and folks will come to him for a quote or place their order

not sure why he gave the stunned deer look

uncle making his selection

someone's peeping while working

smiley lady cutting chicken

aunty sorting out the "xiao bai chai" that arrived

uncle slurpping very yummy porridge

aunty making fish paste "yee wak"

slicing up a huge stingray

this was at 5:30a.m. this guy made many trip delivering the seafood that just arrived

Since I wasn't all too confident shooting in monochrome, here's some coloured pics.

sundry shop

the jalan yew entrance to the market. awesome selection of fresh spices

fresh coconut milk

no idea why he was "firing" the chicken

bunga kantan that you can smell from a few feet away

6o sen for an apple

awesome ripe pumpkin

crab anyone?

siu yok and char siew galore

crispy siu yok

packing the fish paste that is freshly made on the spot using only fish meat and nothing else

fishmonger

entertainment and comfort when the weather turns hotter during mid morning

all sweaty after moving the stocks around

fresh meat

very calourful lady. i love her hat

chicken!

This has been a fun Sunday morning. Will I do it again? Of course...but I must ensure that I have a good night's sleep firstlah:P