Sunday Lunch At Restoran Ma Chai, Menglembu

Every Sunday, our church worship service ends around 12 midday. After that our group would gather at a chosen eatery for lunch and fellowship. We have a few places to choose from and for this particular Sunday, we chose Restoran Ma Chai in Menglembu.

Restoran Ma Chai is a popular place especially on weekends. The place will be packed during lunch time and especially on public holidays. On that Sunday, we managed to get parking bays for our cars and were able to secure a table too even though it was crowded.

Hubby's plain flat rice noodle (chee cheong fun) with stinky beans sambal (sambal petai) plus curry gravy, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

My plate of stuffed flat rice noodle (chee cheong fun with filling). I added some fragrant spicy fried chicken meat plus mushroom gravy, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

A piece of crispy deep fried chicken, well marinated and flavourful, for both of us. The outside is crispy and the flesh juicy and tender. I didn't take snapshots of other member's food.

All the food are displayed in a glass casing and customers are to line up and give the orders. Pay as the plate of food is handed over to the customer. The popular crispy deep fried chicken is on the right side.

More varieties to choose from. Plain white rice and flat rice noodles are both available to go with all the side dishes.

There are many types of spicy food and curries. There are chicken curry, octopus curry, wild boar curry, sambal anchovies, etc.

There's the stinky beans sambal (sambal petai) and the dish upfront is the spicy deep fried chicken which is my favourite.

Bull's eye eggs fried in this patty tray.

These are the stuffed flat rice noodles.

White radish cake at the background. Taro cake at the front.

Our desserts - shaved ice jelly, sprinkled with sour plums powder.

And ice blended red bean sweet drink.
Here ends our Sunday fellowship lunch. Looking forward to our next Sunday fellowship lunch at another eatery, keeping our fellowship with on another strong and warm.

So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught

from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship

with the Son and with the Father. And in this fellowship

we enjoy the eternal life He promised us.

(1 John 2:24-25, New Living Translation-NLT)

Growing Bauhinia Kockiana In My Garden

Bauhinia Kockiana or Bauhinia Coccinea is a tropical, woody plant or vine. It is also known as Kock's Bauhinia, Climbing Bauhinia or Red Trailing Bauhinia.

Bauhinia Kockinia has dark green leaves and bright striking orange flowers.

Bauhinia Kockinia is a climbing vine and its branches need to be supported.

This climbing vine grows well in normal garden soil with good water drainage. It also loves the sun and needs regular watering and fertilizing.

The beautiful flowers bloom in clusters. They are gorgeous and very eye-catching even from afar.

These are how the leaves and flower buds look like.

The flowers start from yellow, then they change to orange.

Then from orange they turn to orangey red in colour.

When I first planted my Bauhinia Kockinia plants, they took a long time to flower.

But once they started to flower, they have been flowering faithfully.

Bauhinia Kockinia flowers throughout the year round.

This is the seed. In each seed pod there may be one to three seeds. The seeds are flat and round, about half an inch diameter. When the seeds are matured, the seed pod and seeds will be dark brown or black in colour. The seed pod will then explode open and the seeds will be dispersed.

It is not easy to propagate this plant. I have collected the seeds and tried propagating by using seeds but the success rate is very low. I have also tried propagation with stem cuttings and it is also not very successful. I am hoping to try marcotting to see if it works.

So far, only those seeds that have dropped onto the soil and germinated on their own have a better success rate.

Here is one seedling which has sprouted out from the soil on its own. A few times I have dug out some seedlings but they didn't survive. I hope this will not be harmed by the extreme heat.

Due to the extreme heat in my area for the past few weeks, my Bauhinia Kockinia plants have suffered "heatstroke" and the leaves and flowers have curled and dried up. The leaves are falling all over and my plants are almost bald. This has happened before a few times whenever the weather is extremely hot. But after I have trimmed off the dried parts, the plants sprout new shoots again and after some time with much care and watering, the plants are back to normal again.

Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot -
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him -
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
(Isaiah 11:1-2, New Living Translation-NLT)

Growing Pink Fairy Lily Or Rain Lily In My Garden

In one of my previous post about 2 months ago, I shared about my White Fairy Lily plants, click here to read.

Today I will be sharing about my Pink Fairy Lily plants, Pink Fairy Lily is also known as Pink Rain Lily or Zephyr Lily. Its scientific name is Zephyranthes Grandiflora

My first Pink Fairy Lily plants were from my sister's garden. She gave me a clump of bulbs or corms and I brought home to plant in a pot. Later, when the bulbs or corms multiplied, I transferred them onto the ground as front borders.

Pink Fairy Lily grows well in moist, rich and well drained soil. It likes full sun to bloom beautifully. I fertilize them about once every 2 to 4 weeks.

Propagation of this plant is by bulbs or seeds. My first plants were by bulbs/corms. This seed pop has 3 segments, the other has 4 segments.

The leaves are green, flat and narrow. They are about 10 to 12 inches long. The leaves look similar to the leaves of chives.

The flowers are pink, consisting of 6 pink petals which is about 1.75 inches long, with light green centre. Each flower stalk which is about 12 inches long supports a single flower.

The flower has 6 yellow stamens and a style supports a stigma which is divided into 3 white parts.

My Pink Fairy Lily have been faithfully flowering and then they just stopped flowering. I increased the flower inducing fertilizers yet the plants refused to bear flowers.

I was planning to redo the front garden of the small garden patch and I thought of removing the lily plants if they are not going to flower. But before I remove them, I stopped the regular watering and fertilizing. I also watched to test and see if it will also forced the plant to bloom or not. Just one last chance...

I didn't water the lily plants for a few days even when the weather was so hot and dry. After that we had rain for about 2 to 3 days. And then one morning, I noticed flower buds appearing among the lily leaves. There were quite a number of them.

After the buds, the flowers appeared and I was so happy. Now I do not have to discard the lily plants. I will dig up the plants and replant them again to make the place neater. I need to make time to be able to redo the garden patch.

Even those bulb/corms growing in between flower pots are also blooming happily.

Here is a photo of my White Fairy Lily blooming among the Pink Lily. These are taller and the flowers are bigger too.

Are you able to see the seeds? There are two seed pods here. I have not tried propagation by seeds or tried to collect the seeds. Mostly probably the seeds dried, drop back onto the ground. Even if they germinate, they did it naturally.

The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life;
a wise person wins friends.
(Proverbs 11:30, New Living Translation-NLT)

Gathering At Old Town White Coffee, Bandar Medan Ipoh

One evening, after dinner we received news to meet up with friends at the Old Town White Coffee at Bandar Medan Ipoh. It is located somewhere behind the Ipoh Garden Tesco shopping mall.

We reached this place around 9.30 pm and we chose a table first while waiting for the rest of our friends to arrive. I took this photo from our table which was just in front of this counter.

The waiter came to give us the menu. Since all of us had taken our dinner, we just needed some drinks and some light snacks.

We took some time to browse through the menu. Before we could really decide what we want to order, it was almost 10 pm. At 10 pm, the waiter started to collect back the normal menu and started to distribute another menu for "set order" - a main dish + a drink (from the listed items only).

Set 1 - A mini plate of nasi lemak + a glass of iced lemon tea.

Set 2 - Garlic butter bread + a glass of cold chocolate.

Set 3 - Polo Bun with butter + a glass of iced white coffee.

Polo bun with a thick slice of butter from Set 3.

Set 1 & Set 2 - both nasi lemak & garlic butter bread is good.
Set 3 (below) - we like the polo bun and coffee - very oomph!

This place closes at 12 midnight, so we moved on to another place for more chit chat and more drinks.

We walked over to the next road. The tables were placed in the open space under the starry sky. We joined two tables together. Those who drank beer sat at one table and those who drank Chinese Tea at another table. Our tables were facing this power sub-station.

Fortunately for me, I had that glass of white coffee to keep me wide awake till the wee hours of next morning. By the time we dispersed, it was about 3.30 am. It was a record breaking for me, and most of my friends were very surprised that I could keep awake.

And Jehovah said to Moses, "I have heard their complaints.

Tell them, 'In the evening you will have meat and

in the morning you will be stuffed with bread,

and you shall know that I am Jehovah your God.'"

(Exodus 16:11-12, The Living Bible-TLB)