It’s August already! And the kids will be back in school at the end of the month. How the summer has flown by. Of course, if we weren’t in a pandemic, we would still be vacationing in Singapore, eating all that yummy food, sweating in the heat and humidity, spending time with family we haven’t seen since last year…oh well…

Perhaps to make up for that, we decided to try out a new-to-us Malaysian eatery. Well it’s not entirely new to us, but an “express” version of the sit-down Malaysian restaurant we’ve been to a few times. This branch only has a few meal choices, rice dishes and noodle dishes, not the big dishes served family-style that the sit-down restaurant has.

We went with:

Hainanese chicken rice, Nasi Lemak (coconut rice with beef rendang or a stewed beef with spices), Seafood Kari Mee (a spicy coconut milk broth with noodles, seafood, vegetables). 

Unfortunately, the chicken rice wasn’t very good. The rice wasn’t flavourful enough, and it was too wet. Disappointing! The Seafood Kari Mee was chockfull of ingredients but needed more coconut milk. The Nasi Lemak was probably the most tasty and authentic. 

Another new place we tried sells rice bowls and wraps but with a Korean twist – not the bulgogi taco route but they had things like meatloaf wraps served with either egg fried rice or kimchi fried rice and macaroni salad (all inside the wrap). 

I especially liked their “cocaine chicken bowl” which reminded me a bit of sweet and sour pork, full of little crispy nuggets of chicken that are coated in a spicy sauce.

Other than all this eating, we took a day trip to the beach, for a change of scenery, a chance to take a breather and do something different.

It’s about an hour plus drive to Pescadero beach, the tide was high, the pelicans flying, the wind gusting at us. The beach, this being Northern California after all, had lots of kelp and mussel shells. The seagulls kept pecking at things in the sand as the waves pulled back from the shore. 

We enjoyed some homemade sushi by the beach. 

It was cold and gusty in the morning, but as we drove further south to Davenport and Santa Cruz, the sun was out – NorCal microclimates! – the sea was a glorious azure, sparkling in the sun.

And there was Shark Fin Cove, the beach requiring quite a hike down a steep path, but from where we were we could see quite a few people in this small beach… not ideal…luckily the kids had had their beach fun earlier (on the cold Pescadero coast), digging in the sand and finding shells and stones, that they were fine not going down to this busy beach.

In these strange times, we wore masks when there were people around (some parts of the beach were empty, thankfully), made sure to bring a small bottle of soap and some water to wash our hands with (the beaches have vault toilets – ie no running water). 

Currently…

Reading:

Watching:

Umbrella Academy. 

Listening:

Eating:

I had homemade walnut bread for breakfast

Drinking:

Tea with milk

Cooking:

We still have some hotpot soup leftover from Saturday. 

I was thinking of cooking gyudon, a Japanese-style beef bowl

Last week:

I read:

Ghosts of Greenglass House – Kate Milford

Shuri Vol 1 – Nnedi Okorafor

Beach Read – Emily Henry

I posted:

Library Loot (July 20 to August 4)