KL Marathon Fellowship Run 2013

The postponement of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon due to the recent haze was much regretted by the organiser. When it comes to safety and with SCKLM being the largest sporting event (running) in Malaysia, there is very little chance to take risk should the Haze suddenly return and cloud (no pun intended) the race day. Even after a week of the haze clearing up (Thursday June 27, 2013), it has made a come back since July 3, 2013. The photo below was taken at 8am of July 3 and at 9.30am of July 4, 2013 respectively.

July 3, 2013

July 4, 2013. Bukit Besi missing in the back ground

 This is how Klang Valley looked like on a haze free day, taken about 4 weeks ago.

June 7, 2013

So, if you ask me again if the decision to postpone the race by SCKLM organiser and sponsors was a good one, I would tell you it is the best decision ever taken in view of the health and implication it may bring should the race went on.
This is not about the race

The moniker "KL Marathon Fellowship Run 2013" were coined by Yum Kin Kok in his Facebook Status after the run that was organised by Terence Poon Running Club (TPRC) as a small gesture to the friends that came all the way (overseas) for this run.

The SCKLM Race director made an appearance together with a few volunteers dishing out water and isotonic at KM5 of the run. Such gesture are highly commendable.

SCKLM Race Director Rainer with Kelvin

This is as good as race day!

I've reviewed Honda Freed before. Versatile MPV!

The run was the usual LSD route that are taken by runners. Usually we start from Bukit Aman. In the spirit of the (postponed) race, we started off from Dataran Merdeka at 6am in the morning.

One would be thought if the race actually happened!

From my estimates, there is no less than 100 people that attended. My camera was not wide enough to capture the whole width of group photo and it has to be taken at three shots. This is not counting some other groups behind the original crowd and those that joined much later (started late)

The U-turn point was at Hartamas Petronas and that station might had seen the highest sale in recent month with most runners entering the stations to buy refreshment.

The run ended at Padang Merbuk with the Pacesetter groups playing host. Water were boiled and tea/breakfast were served. It is truly an unplanned effort by various party and the effort were very commendable. 

As for myself, it was a good LSD training for me to run this route again. It been a while and running in a large group is surely fun. I ran with a few different individual and interacted. It was a good outing.

For this early morning run, I brought along the MicroFlare which I attached to my Camelbak Octane18X. Maximum visibility for people running. Wait up for the review of the FibreFlare range of product soon. 

For more photos taken during this run, click here. This is from my camera only. I ran out of battery half way and apologies for missing out the second half photos of the run.

PD Triathlon

If any of you will be at Port Dickson this weekend for PD Triathlon, See you all there!

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MyDulang @ OldTown White Coffee

With Puasa month coming and in Malaysia, the Buka Puasa is a big thing, sometimes it is bigger than the religious obligation of fasting. Many would spend a lot of money buying food to break fast. From the like of Pasar Ramadhan where food hygiene is often (for me) a question mark to the upscale hotel buffet that can cost a family of four hundreds of ringgit. Such opulence is unseen and unknown until as recent as 8 years ago. With more disposable income and parents of family working, the pattern has shifted from buying instead of cooking at home.
So what do we do?
Once in a while i get invited for food testing and restaurant opening. I often look forward to this opportunity as I seldom eat out because of my eating habit. I see these invites as a chance to see what is normally served out there and their value for money.

Old Town White Coffee was founded in 1999 and started off as a 3-in-1 drink manufacturer. In 2005, the cafe-style or "kopitiam" style chain took off and to date, there are no less than 200 outlets throughout Malaysia and the region.
Starting from July 8, 2013 and in conjunction with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan, Old Town White Coffee has prepared a set menu for those that will be breaking fast starting next week (expected to be July 10, 2013).
My approach to this food review, apart from introducing what Old Town White Coffee has, is to look from the health perspective and perhaps, offer some changes or improvement to us as consumers.

How it all started for OldTown

MyDulang
The concept of a wooden platter or tray used for dining purpose, filled with dishes and shared among family member is the concept of MyDulang @ OldTown. It is designed and inspired by the old home feel of Buka Puasa back in the Kampung for some of the folks growing up with this concept. 

MyDulang - The Concept

Presented in two choices of Individual Dulang or Family Dulang, it is priced rather well at RM16.90 and RM39.90 respectively. 

Image from Old Town White Coffee - The above is the Family Dulang

How consistent is the photo above to what was shown to us blogger? I would say it was almost spot on (apart from the Ice Kacang shown below that has melted as i arrived late after work)

What was shared with the bloggers - the Family Dulang

For RM39.90, you will get all that is shown above which consist of:

·         Rendang Chicken/ Rendang Beef

·         Curry chicken with potato

·         Chicken Satay with Satay Sauce

·         Fried Lekor

·         Cucumber strips

·         Egg Skin strips

·         Cooked Long Bean

·         Kangkung Sambal Hae bee (dried shrimp)

·         Nasi Kunyit

·         Sambal Sotong

·         Lekor Chilli Sauce

·         Belacan Chilli

·         4 Beverages: 2x Rose Nata Selasih + 2x OldTown White Coffee/ OldTown Teh Tarik

·         2 Desserts: 2x OldTown Ice Kacang with Rose Syrup/ 2x OldTown Ice Kacang with Gula Melaka (Add a scoop 

of ice cream for RM 1)

The choices of Rendang, Drinks (Coffee or Tea) and Ice Kacang

The Individual Dulang were consistent between what was shown in the promotional photo below and what was shown to us blogger.

Indivdual Dulang

Again, short of the melted Ais Kacang and the bigger Dulang that was used, the content and consistency was there on what was presented to us.

What was shown

The Individual Dulang is at RM16.90 and it consists of:

·         Rendang Chicken/ Rendang Beef

·         Chicken Satay with Satay Sauce

·         Fried Lekor

·         Cucumber strips

·         Egg Skin strips

·         Cooked Long Bean

·         Kangkung Sambal Hae bee

·         Nasi Kunyit

·         Lekor Chili Sauce

·         Belacan Chilli

·         1 Beverage: Rose Nata Selasih/ OldTown White Coffee/ OldTown Teh Tarik

·         1 Dessert: OldTown Ice Kacang with Rose Syrup/ Ice Kacang with Gula Melaka (Add a scoop of ice cream for RM 1)

Offers the same mechanism as Family Dulang. You get to choose your drinks and dessert

Now, why am i stressing so much about consistency? As OldTown is a huge franchise, the challenge here is consistency for all the outlet. So far it was good!

The Tasting

Contrary to popular beliefs, I do eat. While my eating habit has changed dramatically and drastically, I still have to eat to survive. What really changed is being selective of my food and this is where my review of MyDulang will set it apart compared to how other foodies may approach it. So, bear with me. To start with, I ordered the Individual Dulang with Beef Rendang and Ais Kacang served with Gula Melaka. I did not had the chance to change my drink to Coffee black as it was already served when I arrived. No issues about that as I ordered a cup of cold water. 

MyDulang

I decided to eat with my hands - not because I was trying to impress others that were present, but it was to feel if the food were oily. Things I do for health!

Digging in

The Nasi Kunyit was really fragrant. I can see that they take pride in preparing this and it was not as oily as I thought it will be. Often, it is easy to overdo the rice with butter or margarine, but this one was really subtle. There were minimal residue of oil on my fingers on first impression.

Nasi Kunyit

Luckily my fingernails were clean (and short) ;)

I observed Rebecca and noticed that she finished the rice. This is something rare as she is not a fan of carb. This goes to show how good the Nasi Kunyit was, even to the pickiest foodie.

Hmmm...

The Individual Dulang is really sufficient for two person if you are not a big eater. Ladies might want to take note and share the portion out. There is enough of cucumbers, boiled long beans and sambal kangkung hae bee (or dried shrimp) to feed two person. I finished off these three vegetable dishes as there were good as they are. 

Jemput Makan

The beef rendang was of expected quality typical of OldTown. If you have been eating here, you will notice that the sambal served at the restaurant is on the sweet side. It is also not as spicy which is suitable for most Malaysians. I must commend that the portion of Beef Rendang served to me were all lean beef and it was not fat.
Did someone tell them I am coming?
The coconut smell and taste of the rendang was unmistakeably there. If you like the wetter variety of Rendang, this could be for you. The serving was sufficient for me. It was not as oily as some rendang I've encountered that literally swim in fats. This is good from my personal point of view.
Next up was the Sate. It is served only in Chicken variant and most of us that has eaten sate outside would be very wary of how the sate is made. Many out there, unless you eat from specific sate restaurant, has a section of skin or fat in the middle - that is how they skim on the lean meat and gives you something you wouldn't want. Obviously, I took the more careful approach and instead of ONE bite, I took two bites off the sate to verify the middle section.

OK! Pass!

PHEW! No fats! The sate sauce (peanut base) were sweet and not as spicy as you would had expected. There is minimal oil (or unseen oil layer) on the gravy. Perhaps the whole concept of reduced oil is also an operational decision, as it takes more effort to wash off oily dishes and it will also overload the existing grease/oil trap in the F&B outlet. Perhaps?
For me, it is all good. I can eat this without feeling very guilty (I skipped my run for this). Lastly the Ice Kacang. You see, I (used to) have sweet tooth. I took a bite (or two) of this and I must say that the Gula Melaka used were real (because some melts brown sugar and call it Gula Melaka) but a bit diluted. Palm Sugar is actually good sugar as it contains other minerals in it, which explained the darker color. I would say to go easy on desert like these and really, share them out like I did. But of course, if you really want to eat it, go ahead, after all, once in a while is ok, I guess.

The Fight To Resist

Value For Money?
Some might argue that the price for the served sets were on the high-side. It could be if you are comparing to the typical Pasar Ramadhan where an usual serving of anything is about RM5. However, how many of you, honestly, stop at buying ONE item for breaking of fast? Typically, someone would spend close to RM15/outing and that is considering the food were prepared hours before breaking fast and most looked better than it actually taste. 
MyDulang @ OldTown White Coffee (this is not hard sell) is priced correctly in my opinion. The amount of food served commensurate with the price. Shared between two person, it is actually pretty affordable for a meal in an air-conditioned restaurant with free Wi-fi. 
The Family Dulang comes with more servings (both chicken and beef) and with extra drinks. While it is recommended for 2 to 3 person, I see a fourth person sitting down and share the servings. They key to breaking fast, again, is moderation. A body that has been deprived of food and liquid deserves to be treated with respect and do so by eating sensibly. Smaller portion shared between friends and family brings more joy that sitting down gorging down and regretting later. 
Calorie wise, I estimated the Individual Dulang to run up close to 1,200kcal. This is due to the drink and dessert (estimated at 180kcal and 250kcal each, with balance calories from the main dishes). If you can find ways to share this, it will be a less guilty option. 
The biggest challenge, in my opinion is the ability of OldTown to churn these out consistently. Nothing is more crucial than this as many of us know and experienced that photos are often decieving and can be a let-down when the real food were served. Let's hope the QA and QC will be good!
Lastly...

OLDTOWN White Coffee will be giving away complimentary RM5 voucher with each MyDulang set and an exclusive OLDTWON Duit Sampul (Green Pack) for every customer who spends RM20 and above on a single receipt from 1^st July 2013 to 31^st July 2013.

RM5 Voucher and Raya Green Packet awaits you

MyDulang @OLDTOWN will be served from 11AM daily at all OLDTOWN outlets and priced at RM16.90 for the Individual Dulang Set and RM39.90 for the Family Dulang Set.

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Homemade Walnut Cranberries Biscotti

Remember this?

Almond Cranberries the first time

Light biscotti perfect to go with a cup of coffee in the afternoon and as a light snack. What you will typically get out there are laden with sugar and not so much cranberries or nuts. Indeed making them at home is easy and takes at most an hour including baking time. The challenge here is to prevent the freshly baked biscotti from finishing in less time that it takes to prepare.
What You Need
Brown Sugar - 60-80grams (roughly about 4 tablespoon to 6 tablespoon)
One large egg
140grams flour
1/2tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder or nutmeg powder or allspice powder (we used both cinnamon and nutmeg)
Handful of cranberries or raisins or dates. If you want to use dates, make sure you slice them and remove the seeds
Handful of nuts - we tried with walnut this time, crushed into smaller bits.
Grease paper and a baking pan
How To Do It
First, preheat your oven to 180deg C before starting.
Next, you crack the egg into the sugar and use a hand blender to mix it at medium to high speed. This is just to dissolve the sugar with the egg.

Don't worry, it won't foam up like cream

You whisk it until the content is thick and form a trail aka when you stop the hand mixer and hold it up, a trail of the mixture will flow down as opposed to drops of the mixture

Trail of the mixture. This is good enough. Roughly about 2mins on med and high speed

Take the measured flour and sieve it into this liquid mixture. Sieving ensure smoother consistency and the mixture do not form clumps or lumps. We use organic all purpose flour for this preparation.

Shake it all out

Then you take a handful of cranberries and nuts (in this case, walnut) and throw it into the mixture. A handful is roughly about 50 to 60grams. Resist to put more as what it will do is make the later stage difficult. Moderation please.

A handful of cranberries

Likewise with the walnut. Shown below were crushed with (clean) hand.

Smaller would be good too

You then fold the mixture in and make it into a smooth dough. Use your hand or a spoon.

Mixing them all in

Then you lightly flour your hands and the working surface and shape the dough/mixture into a foot long squarish shape. Flatten it slightly.

Massage it with love

Once it is done, place the dough onto a piece of grease paper. You can use a lightly grease pan with butter. We decided against it as to minimise washing. :D

Biscotti 50% done

Place the dough into the oven and bake for 18-20minutes, or until golden yellow. Re-check the oven temperature setting as you do not want to over bake this cookie.  After 20minutes, remove the biscotti from the oven and let it cool for 2 to 3 minutes.

Slightly over baked due to my mistake

Slice the biscotti to the thickness you desire. To maximise the amount (for a small party we organised), we sliced it to about 1cm thick. The semi-baked biscotti will hold pretty well at this stage to be cut. We use a bread knife to slice it.

Then you place the sliced biscotti back onto the tray and put it back into the oven for the final baking of about 10minutes.

Good to eat at this point too

Once the 10minutes is up, the edges of the sliced biscotti will be lightly toasted. Take them out and place it on a wife tray to cool. This will prevent moisture from the heat to soften the bottom side. What we did was stacking the biscotti on each other for airflow.

Ready!

Once it is cooled, you can serve to your guest. :) Enjoy!

Good with coffee or just by itself.

 What can be done better.
1. sticking to almond bits or sliced almond. This is because walnut bits, even when crushed is harder to slice through
2. monitor the bake timing - i left this a 5minutes longer and it became a bit too dry and crumble as I cut it.
3. Reduce amount of sugar by 1 or 2 tablespoon.

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Do It Like A Man : Intermittent Fasting

An ex-colleague read my #HealthyPuasa blog entry and sent me an email. I must say I am totally honored that she reads my blog! In the email, she asked me about doing fasting and she read a book about it. However, the book did not offer any guidance on how to start. Here is her email (name removed) and my response. See if this will help you to start doing Intermittent Fasting.
-----
Her Email to me:

Hi Ee-Van

 

How are you??? Hope things are getting better for you after XXX.

Btw, where are you now and what are you doing (job wise i mean)..;-)

 

Anyways, i happened to read your blog about 'healthy fasting'. I've been trying to do that but am not sure of the right ways to go about. Infact, i was at MPH 2 weeks ago looking for a book from this doctor in Canada..

i can't remember his name but the book is called 'Fast Diet'..whereby you only need to fast 2 days in a week and the other 5 days you can eat whatever you want. I went thru the book but was dissappointed as it did not really gave me step by step instructions of what to eat and how to fast.

 

Any tips and ways???

 

Hope to hear from you soon. Take care Ee-Van and God bless.

My Reply:
Hey YYY!

:) Office is in Bangsar. Company named ZZZ. An US company and back into Consulting. Leading the Environmental division in KL with another colleague (Just the two of us!). Office has about 30 people doing other things as well... :D 

On Fasting - thanks for reading that blog entry. It was a result of engaging a few doctors and dieticians on Twitter. 

I do IF or intermittent fasting once a week where i refrain from food and minimal liquid during the day. 

If you want to start, first determine the hour you want to do it. I suggest you start with perhaps half a day first. say from time you wake up (example 8am) till say 4pm. So, you have breakfast before 8am and then refrain from food until 4pm.

If you are comfortable with this, you progress to stay off food until 8pm. 

Allow yourself water, as we are fasting not because of religion but more of health. 

For breakfast, rolled oats or low GI food is good as it takes longer to digest. fill half your normal cup with the oats and trail mix (like the one i showed you back in XXX) with some milk or just water.

You will grow hungry of course - but this is due to the "brain telling you to eat at your normal hour". Take a cup of water or just a few sip to kill the urge. Control is the key here ;-)

Once you are familiar and comfortable with doing a ONE day fasting, you can try on Day 2. 

Please stick to good real food instead of loading on anything (and everything).

As for the proposed book to "fast two days and eat whatever for 5 days", my opinion is to AVOID doing that. It totally defeats the purpose of fasting much like people EXERCISING to eat. Moderation is the key and practice good control. 

If you want to feel fuller or what we call "satiated", take a bit more protien based food aka meat, nuts etc. Carbo do not fill you up. Fat certainly doesn't, but protien gives you the "final push" to fullness. Haha. I know what you thinking, Dessert? ;-) Fruits or a bar of chocolate doesn't hurt once in a while. 

Good luck and God Bless!

EV

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SCKLM 2013 : Bumping Up Your Training For September 2013

As most of you already know, the race is now officially postponed to September 29, 2013. This gives everyone extra time and space to train. Yes, Puasa is coming and the religious obligation is more important. I was also told by a friend that "My Prophet fought a war while fasting". :). I subsequently do a check/research and yes, it is legit.

Screen capture from http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2004/10/Did-The-Prophet-Fight-During-Ramadan.aspx

Some of you might remember my sharing on "4-Months Plan To Run A Marathon". With the postponement, you have technically 12 weeks or 3-months to bump up the training. If you have slacked or been slacking in the past months running up to this race, it is time for redemption.

Start From Week 5 and above

I would assume you already have the very basic fitness having to know you did wanted to run the Marathon (42km) and were afraid of the non-existence or limited mileages that you did. So, you can essentially pick up from say, Week 5 and beyond. The mileage at those days are very workable and do-able.
The biggest challenge here is to find the opportunity to re-peak and then re-taper for the race in September, more so with the Muslim Fasting month of Ramadan looming within the next 10 days. If you are looking to make this fasting practice from a different approach nutrition and eating habit wise, you might be interested with the #HealthyPuasa posting here.
Incorporating exercise regime and fasting is possible. I often train on "empty" as a way to teach the body to utilise body fat as fuel. You can read it here and here.
Take the SCKLM 2013 postponement as an opportunity to bump up the training and perhaps, change the diet and lifestyle for the better. 
Drop me any questions and I will be more than happy to answer them to my knowledge and ability.

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