a conversation with cafe aunty

rumours been spreading around saying that cafe is closing down and a new management is coming to take over! But, everyday i passby cafe and sometimes i makan inside there STILL da same person... so...

a NON-FOOD post

well, if u happen to listen radio or watch news on tv, u will know whats happening over USA recently. It is just so sad that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have collapsed and hence being nationalized, then few days after AIG also kena nationalised, JP Morgan Chase repayments, loans to bank via Fed's Term Auction Facility and bla.....

OMG!!!!! USA u think urself very rich??? u are just pushing ur citizenz into a deeper debt!!!! really wanna scold F word!!!

You see I do not believe that we are on the edge of a total collapse. Some key credit barometers, although at fear levels, are actually below the point that they were the other week. For instance the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill is above its low of the other week. I take this as a positive, because if we were really on the verge of a total banking collapse then you would think this would not be the case. It makes me think that this crisis is not as bad as the bailout creators have warned.

Secondly, if the market continues to drop from here we will get a real end to this bear market and a cleansing for the economy that will set the stage for true sustainable and healthy economic growth. Yes it will be tough times for another year for the economy and it would mean lower stock prices in the short-term, but I much rather take this kind of medicine now than have this economic mess continue for another five or ten years and end with a possible hyperinflationary collapse in the dollar. What could lie at the end of a bailout that could means trillions of dollars added to the deficit is a hell worse than what happened in the Great Depression.

The debts for the bailouts so far add up to $1.6 trillion dollars. That is 12 percent of GDP. The current account deficit stands right now at 6.7 percent. In the next two years both figures would likely double if the bailout package had passed. That trend would cause the dollar to drop in value and would bring us to the edge of a bull blown dollar crisis - if not into one. Instead of the banks going down it would be the value of the dollar that implodes - and that would totally wipe out your savings.

No we don't need a bailout. And if you opposed the bailout then you need to call your Congressman right now. Find out how he or she voted and if they voted against the bailout congratulate them and tell them to continue to resist the agents of Wall Street. Buck them up. They will need it in the next few days if the House leadership brings the bailout plan up again for vote.

Last night I said to myself to just forget about the news and look at the charts to figure out where we could go. Well, the market drop is certainly picking up and suggests that we on the verge of a mini-crash. Crashes come when selling gets out of control despite signs up pure panic in the market. The VIX for instance is in the 40's - a sign that there is pure panic in the options market. Internal indicators show extreme selling. By these indicators there is so much fear in the market that it should bottom right now - if it doesn't then the selling would get out of control and morph into a crash with a few more days like what we saw yesterday.

But if that were to happen we would actually see an end to the bear market! We would see a drop similar to what we saw in the summer of 2002 when the Enron and WorldCom news broke and caused huge selling that marked the end of the 2000-2002 bear market. Right now such a selling climax would probably take us to the 950-1000 area of the S&P 500, but such a drop would most likely bring us to the end of the bear market. From there I would expect something similar to what happened after the 2002 bottom to occur - a big counter rally back up and then a retest of the low. We would then see a few months of sideways action and the start of a new bull market sometime next year.

This is what the market would do without a bailout - it would fall another 10% or so - but then bottom and go into a sideways consolidation range that would set the stage for a new bull market.

Personally I much rather see this happen than see a bailout.

if we get a bailout then we'll have a rally here that we really won't be able to trust. Every rally we've have seen the October 2007 top has occurred due to government intervention and each has failed.

A natural bottom would give us a real bottom!!

An artificial bottom simply helps bankers, prolongs the agony of this bear market, and will bring us to a full blown dollar crisis down the road, which will be worse to live through than a credit crunch.

Two hundred of the nation's economists wrote a letter opposing the plan, including former FDIC Chairman William Isaac, but of course you won't hear this on CNBC.

We need a real natural bottom. And if the bailout isn't brought back up and/or we see continued big selling in the market in the following days don't be afraid. I know there would be panic on TV and more cries for a bailout and it'll look scary, but if you ignore the fear you'll know that what you are seeing is a process that will take us to the end of this bear market.

There is light at the end of this tunnel as long as the government doesn't shut the door so that some bankers don't have to realize their losses like grownups.

Call your Congressman to keep it open. Congress voted no against the wishes of the banking lobbies, the President, and the Senate and House leadership that is owned by the banks. They did so because of the voice of the American people. It is proof that we still live in a Democracy. It shows that your voice can count if you use it. You can protect your children and grandchildren and ensure that their generations aren't saddled by debts that they will never pay thanks to the greed of the Wall Street bankers. You can protect the value of your own savings and dollars. You can stand up and act now.

We are on the edge of pure fear and panic when it comes to the stock market. By just about every indicator you may use to measure the market it is extremely oversold and ready for a bottom. The number of stocks below their 20, 50, and 200 day moving averages are at extremely low levels not seen in decades. The ratio of down to up volume on the Nasdaq was over 95% two days last week, hitting 97% last Monday, which is a level I've never seen before. The VIX is above 40 and has been at an elevated level for the past three weeks. According to the Investors Intelligence Survey there are more bears than bulls in the market, which is a positive from a contrarian standpoint.

I read through lots of commentaries and listened to several podcasts over the weekend and just about everyone is saying this. And when it comes to the general public the fear is out there. I have had several people call me out of the blue worried about their retirement funds and mutual funds. These are people who never call me about the stock market.

The fear is growing and this is the type of fear you see at important bottoms. The technical indicators are off the charts.

I do expect some sort of bottom to come in sometime this week, but I am concerned that this bottom may come after a waterfall decline. The fear and panic could morph into terror. This would be something I had never seen happen before, but we saw a glimpse of last Monday.

I believe the President, Treasury Secretary, and Fed Chairman may have created an extremely dangerous situation. All three of them - and throw in the Democratic Congressional leadership - claimed that the stock market would collapse and the economy would go into a depression if the Wall Street bailout bill did not pass. This talk succeeded in terrorizing Congress into caving in to Wall Street and has also disturbed the American people. It has created a sense of unease and insecurity in the United States.

Some desperate people have convinced themselves that all will be fine when the bailout bill passes. FOX News has been running 2-hour news "specials" with titles like "Saving the American Economy" in support of the bailout bill this weekend. If the stock market falls hard in the next few days it is possible that these people will panic. The fear created by those in support of the bill could turn into terror and irrational panic as unreasonable expectations have now been created for what the bailout bill can do.

George Bush played with fire when he gave a primetime speech to the American people in which he said if you do not pass the bill the stock market will crash. He may have created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I was against the bailout bill, because I do not believe it will fix the situation and believe that it will pile up so much more debt on to the Federal government that we may see a full blown dollar crisis down the road.

We have already seen multiple bailouts this year and not a single one of them has stopped the credit crisis or put an end to the bear market in stocks. At this moment the costs of all of the bailouts totals $17,000 per every single American household. You will pay for this through higher taxes or higher inflation.

The bailout bill is not going to fix the economy. As Reuters reports, "experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again."

The problem is that housing in the United States is in a bear market and the bear market in housing is not over. There is still too much excess inventory in what were the "hot markets". You can find actual ghost towns outside of San Diego and in Nevada. Take a trip from Las Vegas to Laughlin Nevada and you can go off the main road and find a ghost town.

When the Fed lowered rates in 1998 to bailout the Long-Term Capital hedge fund on behalf of Wall Street they created an artificial bubble in the stock market. They pumped excess money into the economy and that money flowed into technology and Internet stocks. As a result they created an unsustainable bubble and when that bubble burst the Nasdaq went into a two and a half year bear market.

That bear market ran its course despite the Fed lowering interest again to the lowest levels seen in decades. The rates were so low that banks went crazy lending money. As a result a bubble in real estate formed in the United States as speculators bid up the price of condos and homes in a dozen or so hot markets. Prices went to irrational levels and of course when this happens a bear market follows.

That bear market will not end just because the Fed bails out banks. It will end when the excess inventory created by this real estate bubble is slowly bought off the market and prices come down to a level that makes sense from an investment standpoint. Home prices are not going to bottom because people all of a sudden start to throw money at houses with the thought they are going to make a big return when they appreciate in value. The bottom will come when investors can buy properties with the intention of making a profit from renting them. The condo flipping game is over and is not coming back.

We are probably a year away from the bottom in real estate.

What this means is that the bailout bill will do absolutely nothing to help the real economy.

That is why after the bill passed the stock market fell anyway.

For more information u can visit Mike Swanson website.

Quoted from Mike Swanson, WallStreetWindows, retreived 8th October, 2008 from http://www.wallstreetwindow.com/content/node/8095

Food in Nottingham UK

Hello everyone! Greetings from Nottingham UK's Jubilee Campus. Sorry that I've been M.I.A for ages! OK. Right now, I'm back with updates about food! (obviously) Haha.

The cafeteria/catered food over here is much better (and fattening too!) and they're feeding us (Sara & I) well over here.

We were provided with nutritious food - carbohydrates, protein, fats, calcium... etc for every meal. Breakfast - lunch - dinner.

On weekends, we have brunch instead of breakfast and then later lunch. Here's what I had on Sunday.

Tomato, Scrambled eggs, Beans, Mushrooms, Sausage & Bacon

accompanied with :

Green leaves salad!

Then on weekdays, we were provided 3 meals a day.

Let me first start off with breakfast.

For breakfast, we were given 5-6 choices of cereals to choose from, and milk. There's also croissants and butter, jams, toast breads too - white plain bread & wholemeal bread. In addition, there's also hard boiled eggs, orange juice, fruits - apple, banana, oranges, coffee, tea, white coffee

This is what I had for breakfast today :

Chocolate cereal with milk, white coffee, 2 hard boiled eggs

AND...


a piece of toast bread with jam.

You can have unlimited toast bread that you want and all... It seems like there's no limit for breakfast.

Lunch time, I had....

Everything vege! No meat.
Orange juice, Garden salad, fried potatoes & some vege thingy. (Ling Yok! I'm joining your vege team! lol)

Then for dinner....

Banana, Orange juice, Spanish style potatoes, Garden salad & Salmon Pasta.

I didn't take dessert today...

My friend's dessert was :

HAHA JUST JOKING. This is something disgusting. Mixed with some stuffs. Yuck. Totally inedible!

Tell me.. how can you not get fat with all those food?

Okay, that's all for my meals today (06.10.2008) and I'll be back for mooooore updates soon! Stay tuned!

UNIMC Cafeteria Closing down!!!

WOW!! This 2 weeks can consider as a HISTORICAL WEEK for Unimc. This is because the Unimc Cafeteria is closing down, stop serving their BESTEST food services, BESTEST food quality, HIGHESTEST level of hygiene, BESTEST price and bla bla bla~

ALL THIS "ARTIST IMPRESSION" MENUs... LOOK SO FAMILIAR! RIGHT??

i tell u, u gonna miss it!!!

well, indonesian fried rice, one of my favourite here~ lols...

hmm.. this new aunty arr... Oways showing a BLACK face... =.=
do i owe u money?? rm10??

Our CHICKEN RICE n ROTI CANAI section... i m looking forward to the new management~

Our WESTERN section, is closed!

This is gonna be my last tasty meal! SINGAPORE MIHUN

I GONNA MISS U

old time breakfast~

Although it was a simple breakfast, but i enjoy eating it! It has been a long time i din have such simple and nice breakfast, a bun with frozen butter and kaya!! what i usually eat was nasi lemak, mee goreng, bak kut teh, chee cheong fun and bla....ish..so heavy breakfast.. no wonder i am physically heavy too =.=

Inspired by ah-xian from astro channel 301, we decided to have some old-style breakfast! So we jus bumped into rawang downtown in the early morning! ** hello jhen, i passed by ur house! **

Rawang, further down from selayang, which not much differences as compared with few years ago~

i have tried my best to look for the name of the kopitiam.. obviously it is a name-less kopitiam~

this is the first time i visit this kopitiam, surprisingly FULL HOUSE. I wonder reli that nice?? and..when i first stepped into it, all are aunties and uncles! i feelling so YOUNG inside! haha

Kopitiam with some n-years-ago furnitures and electrical goods

This is my FAVOURITE!!!! lols... half boiled eggs with soya sauce and pepper powder! Yummy!

hmm, this kopitiam located right opposite Poloklinik & Surgeri Jit. u may ask ur frens who stays in rawang for exact location~

This kopitiam actually not that nice, their milo is too sweet for me and kopi-o is sweet and tasteless.... i wonder why there are still so many customer coming in... Mayb jus the old-style feel?? or mayb like what i said in the beginning: " Although it was a simple breakfast, but i enjoy eating it... "

Some starchef keep looking for another greater taste and thus making the taste more and more complicating... but, i wonder how many people can remember the exact taste of 5Star dish from those 5star restaurant?? but, u sure know the taste of a half boiled egg! ^^

After that was around 8.45 morning, then we went bandar country homes for this Jin-Long-Bao. It was even more quiet in Bandar Country Homes! lols..can consider here as a place for retirement! =)

Duck Rice Lover? @ Restaurant Sun Ming Cheras

Are u a duck rice lover? hmm, i can recommend u this place. If u still remember, i had introduced restaurant Heng Huat in " There always some reasons why my keep fit plan went failed again n again... " post. Heng Huat could be an alternative option if u stay nearby selayang area. If u dun mind about petrol price and wanna try nicer food, can actually visit Restaurant Sun Ming! Sun Ming can be said as the master in making roasted duck! i been visiting this restaurant for 15 years, and their quality never dropped! I am not kidding!

Their staffs are busy at all the moment because customers non stop coming in! One thing i wanna mention here, other places like kepong, those roadside roast duck, they selling at around rm20 to 30, here about rm48 each. Mayb u will feel #@&^%%$^% , but it is definitely worth for it!! ^^

From one shop, now they expanded to 2 shops, but still not enuff place for us to be seated. I would recommend them to make it 2 floors in the future! U see... even take away have to queue up~ SO.. Believe what i said!! lols...


i would recommend u to visit there and find out urself whether i m a liar !! lols...
it is at taman connought which is opposite Giant Cheras, when u see a BHP petrol station is on ur left hand side, it is time to slow down ur car n make a left turn, u will see a Suzuki showroom. Sun Ming is jus beside the show room! =)

Five Ways To Trick Yourself Into Eating Less

Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell UniversityFood and Brand Lab, has spent years studying the unconscious thought processes that lead to our sometimes unfortunate eating habits. Among his findings, published in "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" (Bantam, 2007) we're bound to think food tastes better if it's described with more flowery adjectives; we eat less when it's warm; and if food is left in front of us, no matter how bad it tastes, there's a good chance we'll keep picking at it as long as we're just sitting there. But fear not, Wansink has also come up with some easy strategies to for us to trick ourselves into thinking we're eating more than we are.

1. Buy Smaller Plates : It's all about presentation: If you put the same amount of food on a smaller plate, it'll look like a bigger serving. Simply switching from a 12.5" plate to a 10.5" plate will make you unconsciously serve 20 percent less food. "A smaller plate suggests what's called a smaller consumption norm," Wansink said. "It suggests a smaller amount of food that's normal, typical and appropriate." A larger plate does the reverse; it suggests that a big portion is normal. Similarly, if you repackage jumbo boxes of cereal or spaghetti into smaller plastic containers or baggies, you'll cut down on the amount of food you pour onto the plate in the first place, according to Wansink.

2. Don't Clean Your Plate. For a Super Bowl party, Wansink and his graduate students laid out a spread of buffalo wings and let a crowd of hungry MBA students have at them. Throughout the night, they had waitresses occasionally clear the bones from some tables, but leave the other tables' remains alone. The students who were left sitting in front of a plate of bones could see exactly how may wings they'd consumed and that knowledge was reflected in how much they ended up eating. Those whose places were cleared ate seven wings throughout the night, while the students whose places weren't cleared, had five each. Wansink adds that readers have emailed him with tips they've come up with to combat this phenomenon. "If they're eating candy, like little candy bars, they'll keep the wrappers in front of them," he said. "If they're at a party, they'll keep caps of bottles in their pockets so they can remember how much they've had to drink."

3. No Bagging It: Eating straight out of a bag of snack food is dangerous because you don't get a sense of how much you're consuming. For example, Wansink's team gave two groups of adults half-pound and one-pound bags of M&Ms, then had them eat as much as they wanted while watching a video. The people holding the half-pound bags ate 71 M&Ms, on average; in the same amount of time, the people eating the pound bags ate 137 M&Ms, almost twice as much. So, to avoid mindless consumption, don't grab a bag of chips and settle in for your favorite show. Instead, serve all your snacks on a tray or in a bowl.

4. Watch out for Group Grazing. In general, if you eat with someone else instead of alone, you'll ingest 35 percent more than you normally would; if you have seven or more dining partners, you'll eat almost twice as much as you would alone. Why? "You pay less attention to what you're eating," Wansink said. "You're not monitoring how much you eat, compared to when you're eating by yourself. And you tend to sit a lot longer, and the longer you sit the more you tend to eat." When eating in a group, try to start eating last and pace yourself with the slowest eater--that'll ensure you ingest the least possible volume, Wansink counsels. And leave a little bit of food on your plate so you're not tempted to get another serving you don't really want.

5. Don't Trust Your Own Judgment: Most people dramatically underestimate how many calories they've consumed. And their assessments are particularly inaccurate when they think they're eating at a healthy restaurant. Wansink surveyed McDonald's and Subway customers to find that the Subway diners—who assumed they were eating at a healthier restaurant—didn't pay attention to calorie counts and packed on fatty extras such as mayonnaise, potato chips and cookies. As a result, they consumed a third more calories than they thought they had. The McDonald's diners had a more realistic assessment of their meal; they acknowledged that they hadn't chosen the most health-friendly lunchtime locale and only underestimated their calorie intake by 25 percent. Wansink, who calls this effect the "health halo," said its repercussions extend beyond lunchtime. "Later on, some people end up indulging with snacks and even a larger dinner, believing they did their body right [earlier]," he said. Wansink's tip: Double the number of calories you think you've eaten and you'll be much more accurate in your assessment of your intake.


Tina Peng, Five Ways To Trick Yourself Into Eating Less, NEWSWEEK, Published Sep 23, 2008

Roast Chicken at finger tips!!

I think most of u very familiar with Chicken Rice in malaysia, most of them serving roasted chicken. Do u ever thought of doin it by urself at home??

First of all, i would like u all to know that marinating is the core process, just like a foundation is most important steps for every building. U will need soya sauce, black soya sauce, pepper powder, 1/6 teaspoon of salt and oyster sauce. =)

then oven it for 12 minutes 200'c each side. (top and bottom)

Cut it into the ur favourable sizes! =) Dont u think roast chicken is easy NOW?? haha.. TRY it!!
or u can actually prepare some black pepper sauce and make it into blackpepper chicken or chicken maryland~ lols...

All the best in UK!!

On behalf of

onlyfoodie.blogspot.com

wishing two of u

ALL THE BEST!!

Rachael Lim

" Not any ordinary girl next door. Funny. Witty. Is a right hander and wears her watch on her right hand, which is a rare norm for others."

quoted from R.L, http://susurruscanorous.blogspot.com/, 16 September 2008.

Sara Eoon

" A charming, elegant, beautiful, beautiful eyes, and humble girl who always wears a smile on her face!"

by onlyfoodie, 2008

::::::::: SEE U ALL SUMMER 09 :::::::::

旺角 。。。 一点都不旺

L&G, i abit upset with my lunch just now... It was below my expectation tho...
i already din expect much on that, bcoz 80% of my frens who tried WongKok also given them a not-that-delicious grade... anyhow.. how come u cant even pass my min point??!! OMG!

well, if u do understand mandarin, i guess u know what m goin to discuss about. Lets translate the title into english. 旺角 means the name of the restaurant, WONG KOK; and 一点都不旺 means that restaurant totally not ONG (in hokkien speaking)...
why i say so?? =(

Well, WongKok no longer a new term for HK style restaurant in klang valley, it has established quite a long time d, but i had no chance to try it out. all because i m kinda a stubborn fellow, once i tried a nice restaurant, ll jus stick to it for a period of time. The only HK style i prefer is U-village in sgwang! mayb some of u do not agree with me, mayb u prefer KimGary, or even WongKok! lols.. This is ur choice!! =)



The advantage of this restaurant is, their interior design really impressed me!! u know, i was really surprised by their design, it is undeniable that this WongKok is the asia most uniquely designed HK style restaurant( according to them) . Somemore they have a really GREAT view to kl city center!! as what u see from photo!! U imagine, 31st december, sitting in this restaurant, enjoying ur meal n fireworks!! But just too bad, their foods arent that "great" as their view~


u know, to be a HK-style based restaurant, u shud know how to make a nice milk tea! This is a very BASIC drinks in HK ok??!! Their milk tea was too SWEET!! sth like.. drinking ais-kosong tambah manis! Secondly, i ordered a french fried rice + extra rice + fried egg. When the waiter served it to me, i was like :" #@$%@$, extra rice wor! what the xxxx why still so small portion one??!!!" well, after that i comfort myslef: " mayb HK ppl measurement is vary from msian... fine.." ( and that extra rice cost me rm3.5)

Bad thing doesnt end that fast... The rice is so000 sticky, totally same like when u put too much sauce into it n all rice stick together.. OMG!! was that suppose to be a fried rice??!!! Do u know fried rice suppose to be able to seperate it one by one!! ( haih....) , And they cant give any excuse that too many customer waiting n need to rush n bla bla bla... cause at that moment, less then 6 customer in that well-designed restaurant!!

so... please think twice when u are goin there for a meal... but if u goin there to gathering n hav some drink.... still consider as a good place..

WONG KOK, please upgrade ur standard time by time la. And ah-wong is ur ambassador leh, dun spoil his name!