Tamarind Springs

I'm a little behind on my post for Tamarind Springs as Bill and I went Friday night. Now that I think about it has almost been a week! The week has flown by. We love Tamarind Springs. The atmoshpere is so different than what we have ever experienced and the food is good, too. It is located in Ampang about 20 minutes from our house in Desa Sri Hartamas...give or take depending on traffic and rain. We have our driver take us there so we can fully enjoy the wine...I mean experience :). It happened to be raining Friday night which made for an even cozier night. Our driver, Nathan used the word cozy. It was funny. Tamarind Springs or should I say the entrance is up on a hill. There is a neat little gate and water fountain surrounded by lots of jungle. This is the place Bill and I saw monkeys when we were here in May. Lots of diplomats and such live up on this hill in Ampang. It is a little secluded and very beautiful. Anyway, after walking through the gate, there is a long walkway/staircase down to the restaurant. The walkway is just slightly descending so not many steps but it is a very old brick/paver walkway surrounded by jungle, a lit candle here and there, and many sounds of nature. The water dripping from the rain on the treesand plants, the water fountains surrounding the restaurant and the little night creatures all make for a very relaxing atmosphere. I wish my camera would take good pictures here, but alas it is too dark. You walk in the restaurant and to the left is a large balcony that portrudes out into the jungle. This is where we have sat both times. We've had table #8 both times - I assume you can request any table and it is in the very far corner of the balcony or deck. The place is all wood, wood floors, wood beams and railings and they have gold indonesian statues and pots carefully placed on beams and tables surrounded by candle light. There are candles on the deck railing and candles on the table surrounding a gold statue. It is all very pretty. I must say the only downside for me personally at this restaurant is the smell. Somewhere they have incense of some sort burning and I personally prefer to smell the food I'm eating rather than anything else. Still I will go back over and over. Prior to dinner they serve the chinese chips which remind me a lot of some chip you can get in the US, but I can't remember what they are called. Bill would know. It's like a puff - almost like styrofoam, but here they are good. They serve them with a spicy, sweet, tangy dipping sauce like you can get with egg rolls. I think they call them shrimp chips here. Something like that, but they are good and I think Chinese. For dinner this night we share the crispy crab and shrimp spring rolls which are served with a lime/cilantro/pepper sauce and they are delicious. I could eat 12 of them. For dinner I order the stir fried beef with lemongrass and pepper. Bill orders the Laotian beef soup, Tamarind river lobster (replaced with river prawns due to availabilty issues and we order garlic fried rice and sauteed asparagus and garlic. Lots of garlic? Yes. Delicious? Definitely. Our waiter tonight got our order a little mixed up, but they ended up bringing everything we ordered. We were a little disappointed with that, but everything else outweighed the mess up. My beef was very good. For anyone not adventurous eating Asian food this would be one of the things I would recommend. It is very good and from what I know does not contain anything weird. Bill's Loatian beef soup was wonderful. He decided that was his favorite thing of the night, but he loves soup. Yes even in the heat and it was a little spicy. SO my sweet man was sweating it up. It's a little warm eating out, he's eating hot soup, and it is a little spicy. But I did agree with him it was very tasty. Bill had the Tamarind river prawns and they were good as well. There were about 4-6 large prawns (grilled I think) and then served on top was the Tamarind sauce...a little sweet, tangy, smoky. I really can't remember too well, but it was very good. You do have to get used to seeing heads here. Almost all shrimp and fish are served with the heads on. I'm used to the shrimp. The fish not so much. I love Nemo! Our garlic side dishes were very tasty. The rice was wonderful and even though I'm a grilled asparagus kind of girl, the asparagus and garlic sauteed side dish was very good. Yes Bill and I could have killed people with our breath I'm sure, but we didn't care. We so enjoyed our dinner. I had coffee and dessert. The coffee was good and brought out on a cute little ceramic serving tray, with matching mug and bowl of sugar. The dessert was ok. They have two other restaurants down the hill - Italian and...I can't remember. For dessert you can order from the other restaurants as well. I chose tiramisu and it was just ok. I'm not a big coconut milk, fruity kind of dessert person which is very Asian. One note on Taramind Springs...duuring Ramadan they have a buffet. It contains food from all 3 restuarants. I checked it out and it looked pretty good, but we passed on it. All in all we really enjoyed the night. We walked back up the long pathway surrounded by the night and stopped at the top to admire the water fountain and tree frog staring at us. There was another frog making lots of noise, but we couldn't find him. I'm posting a few pictures I took back in May. They didn't turn out so well, but maybe you can get a sense of the ambience.

Learning new things..

I learned today that...

we have a very diverse complex - on our street we have people France, Africa (mgmt specified white so I assume South Africa?), and the UK. Behind us lives a German family and then up the next street we have a Korean family and an Italian family. Pretty neat. I can't wait to speak to all of them!

we have smart house - apparently you can program the lights in the carport, living and master bedroom to go on and off at certain times. cool!

Just when I was down...

God lifted me back up. I was feeling very homesick yesterday, but things turned around for me - alot of things. I felt someone shouting keep going, keep going, things will go your way. And they did. Thank you God.

Birthdays

My kids birthdays are right around the corner and I trying to think of how to make it special. Reid will be 4 and wants a firetruck birthday cake. We don't get our sea shipment until after his birthday so I can't make him a cake. If you know me then you know how sad I am to not be able to make my children a cake on their birthday. Especially Georgia since she will be turning 1. I'll need to put the word out to see where a good bakery is for birthday cakes. Now that I have some mom contacts, I don't think that will be too hard. I know their birthdays will be here before you know it and I need birthday presents and decorations...I can't remember what we bought Reid for his first birthday. Am I a terrible mom? I'm sure it was something small, maybe that's why. I also to think about what to do for him at school. The encourage healthy snacks so I can't bring cupcakes. Maybe I can bring assorted muffins instead? I'd also like to bring some kind of little goodie for the kids. Since we don't have any furniture or toys I can't really have a birthday party. I guess we could all just sit around and stare at each other. I just don't feel organized enough to do a party. We'll see. Oh yes and it is 5:27am. Why can't I sleep? Looking back a picture of Reid on his first birthday.

Reid is off to school

Today is Reid's first "full" day at school. He goes from 8:30-1:30. I can tell that the morning routine is going to be my back up work out. Carrying Georgia and all his school stuff while rushing him up the hill and the 3 flights of stairs to make it on time definitely breaks a sweat...all this while I see other moms all dressed up like they spent 2 hours getting ready just hanging around. These are the true Asians that probably have a maid, a nanny and a driver. We are SOOOO not there...yet. :) So last night I got Reid's backpack all packed up for him. He needed a towel, a change of clothes, kleenex, hand sanitizer, wipes, a toothbrush, toothpaste and cup, a snack, a book bag, a pencil bag, and a water bottle. Oh yes and a hat and I was supposed to send flips as well - which I forgot. Oh well. They probably won't do any sand and water play on the first day anyway. So yes I got all of those things ready with his name on them and thought, thank goodness they are providing him with lunch! Crap that is a lot of stuff. I was able to pull everything together before his first day - whoo. That shopping is done. I am so hoping he has a great day. We had a difficult time listening yesterday and caused quite the scene, I'm sure, at the bank. I reiterated this morning the lesson I hope he learned...to listen the first time so Mr. Balfour does not have to say things twice....yeah right. So yesterday we make the bank as our first stop as I needed more cash to pay for his lunches and his school supplies that I can get at their school store. I go to the ATM with the kids in tow and of course Reid says I want to help and I said no as I'm putting in the card. He says I want to get the money for you and I said no, do not touch it. So what does he do. As a whole stack of money comes out - 20 bills to be exact- he grabs them and they all fall on the floor. If that isn't a flashing red, blazing light to say come rob me please I don't know what is. I was furious. I'm sure we were quite a scene. Those people thought I was crazy. If we were at Hogwarts(sp) I think Reid would have burst into flames from my stare. He got a spanking in the car and again when we got home. If I didn't have Georgia with me I would have gotten him right there in the bank. So Georgia is sleeping now, I need to go shower, and the driver will be here in 45 minutes. He is taking us to Selangor to see a furniture store where I am soooo hoping we will find a couch. I'll get to see a new part of Malaysia. I'll try to take some pictures.

What I'm not finding

Good q-tips - we go through alot around here and the only ones I've found are like sticks. I've already called in a 4 box order from mom!

Hellman's mayonaise

Tampons - I'm sure there somewhere secretive

Velveeta

Baby food other than the basics like sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears

Sound machine - we had a noisy cheap fan in G's room in the US to muddle any sounds outside her room. The fan seemed to really heat up the transformer in the outlet so I unplugged it. I have not been able to find any kind of sound machine like white noise and such. Their fans are way to good to make any noise. So...I'm on the hunt for a little cd player and a white noise cd. Her room is right on the stairs and next to the playroom so at nap time we are all a little too careful for my comfort.

What I'm finding where

Since I didn't have a resource like this when I moved here, I thougt it a good idea to help other people out. I'm not sure if anyone will ever happen upon it, but I know my friend Mollee was very appreciative of the Hong Kong info she found on someone's blog. So this won't be an interestin read at all unless you are Ashley Kelly who I am so looking forward to meeting this month.

Baby stores
Mothercare at Bangsar shopping centre - the new one. I found good wipes and baby lotions here. They also have a good assortment of toys, clothes and baby accessories. I used Huggies wipes because they were thicker and hate the wipes I found in the grocery here. The are labeled with a M. I think they are the mothercare brand. I just started using the lotion on G and I think I like it. It is called Buds for baby and it is organic. Both of my kids are prone to eczema and I have always used Aveeno. Anything less and the eczema shows up.

Mom's care at 1 Utama- this is where I found the best baby gates for us. The are Little Boen brand and they carry the extensions as well.

Safe n Sound at 1 Utama - this is also a baby supply store, but the important thing I found here are the bolts for the tension gates I bought. We have very thin ballisters that are made of metal. These have little pacman shaped mouths that stay put on the thin ballisters. The are compatible with the Little Boen gates.

The trick to buying baby gates is being able to get them to your car. Most malls of shopping carts if you can find them, but if you are like me you are already pushing a baby stroller. So we buy them when Bill and I can go together.

I've been shopping at The Gardens mall lately and the Robinsons department store had a large baby section that I wish I had known about.

Grocery stores
Every mall I have been to as a Cold Storage grocery store. Just like any other chain some locations are better than others. We use the one in Solaris Mont Kiara, but I think we are going to start using the ones at the Bangsar malls. It appears they have a larger import selection. The Bangsar shopping centre (new) also has the Gourmet shopping area which is really nice. We have yet to try two different meat markets/butchers we have seen. One is in Mont Kiara called LasVacas- beef it up and the other is in Solaris Mont Kiara called MeatWorks. I know Meatworks is Halal or no pork, but not sure about the other. Per the name it may be just beef.

Malls
Bangsar new and old
1 Utama
The Curve, E Curve and Ikea - has an Ace hardware, a computer store, lots of restaurants, Harvery Norman (electronics and furniture) Authenteak, of course Ikea, a Maxis for phones...etc. This place is large so it is a little confusing getting from one section to another.
KLCC Suria