Jackie Miao

Do you love the variety of things at ConsFood but can’t be bothered to deal with the parking problem in Damai? To all the foodies, bakers, housewives and expats of Kota Kinabalu, behold the spanking new ConsFood concept store at Jalan Tuaran!

Located just near the entrance to Taman Yakim Jaya (across the street from Tai Seng Supermarket, on the other side of Jalan Tuaran), the brand new 5-in-one ConsFood Concept Store features a Cold Storage, Baking Ingredients section, Chocolate and Patisseries section, Bread Bakery, and a Cafe that serves hot food.

I had a chat with the owner of the establishment two weeks ago and here’s an overview of what’s on offer.

Cold Storage
A selection of imported cheeses, cold cuts, milk, cream, nuts, dried fruits, a range of international condiments, fresh vegetables, imported frozen meats (Aussie beef and lamb), fresh poultry, frozen foods and more. This is a halal food market without pork.

Bakery Ingredients
Various types of flours, ingredients and cake decorations for commercial and domestic use just like the one in Damai.

Chocolate and Patisseries
The Chocolate and Patisseries section is a nice little place to escape from the scorching heat for some coffee and cakes. There’s wifi there, so it makes a great place for folks to have business meetings. You can get cakes to go and also order bespoke cakes for weddings and special occasions.

Bakery
The bread bakery section carries Asian-style breads, buns and European crusty breads that are baked fresh daily. I’ve yet to try their European breads, so the jury is still out on that one but it’s great for KK to have another alternative to the Hyatt bakery as far as Western breads go.

Cafe
At the corner, there’s a cafe that serves gourmet sandwiches, hot foods and ice cream. The owner mentioned that they will be serving their own brand of gourmet ice cream so keep an eye out for that.

ConsFood officially opened on 15th August 2010, so if you happen to pass by Mile 2 1/2 of Jalan Tuaran, do check them out. They are open from 9am to 9pm daily.

Here’s a list of the best coffee shop foods in Kota Kinabalu, as submitted by a reader called Ah Bing. If you’re always getting asked where are the good places to eat local food in K.K., now you have a handy link to pass on. Enjoy!

Visit AhBing.com

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Snagged from hubpages.com. Shows blood glucose levels over time after a meal that is high or low in GI

Life got ultra busy again and I couldn’t log what I was eating for my apparent diet. Saying that I’ve been having better carbs as much I can, but it was a challenge during the Chinese New Year week with so many face-stuffing parties.

So what I did was pay attention to the total GI and GL of my meals. If there was a high GI dish like mashed potatoes, I would pad two spoonfuls of that with half a plate of low-GI veges to lower the GI profile of my meal.

Saying that, I’ve been making better choices on an everyday basis. I asked a friend at the gym who had lost heaps of weight how she changed her chubby genes to show a skinny body and she said, “Make better choices!”  and that’s exactly what I did; I made better choices.

Switching from white rice to brown rice, cutting out potatoes, no bread, ho fun noodles, glutinous rice, or flour-based cakes. I also substituted sugar with honey when necessary, and chose to drink calorie-free freshly brewed Tazo teas instead of lattes at Starbucks.

The verdict? My energy levels were steady and I felt my mood was more stable.

In fact I cheated yesterday, and took a few mouthfuls of some my grandma’s Ho Fun and I kid you not it made me feel so edgy, anxious, moody, and restless. I felt so uneasy that I spent an hour at the bookstore feeding myself positive attitude quotes to overcome the foulness of the carb crash. Why does Malaysian noodles have to taste so good and give you the worst carb crash ever?!

Perhaps I’ll substitute my favorite noodles with their lower-GI cousin the bean thread vermicelli, which is also called glass noodles or Tanghoon. I reckon I’ll be eating low-GI foods predominantly from now on to avoid feeling like fecal matter from the backside of a Saharan mammal. Whether or not it makes me lose weight is secondary because I just feel better after eating low-GI foods.

Mestemacher bread is yummy toasted

Here’s the 7 guidelines of Low GI Eating taken from page 183 of The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index – the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health:-

1. Eat seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
2. Eat low-GI breads and cereals (I eat Mestemacher breads (see left) and oats for breakfast).
3. Eat more legumes including soybeans, chickpeas and lentils.
4. Eat nuts more regularly.
5. Eat more fish and seafood.
6. Eat lean red meats, poultry and eggs.
7. Eat low-fat dairy products.

Alrighty hope you are making better choices!

This is the 6th and final part of my Hong Kong series.

Maybe this is really late, but it was supposed to be my very last post on my Hong Kong trip and life just kind of got in the way. People tell me that you don’t leave Hong Kong without having dim sum and so that’s exactly what Rachel and I did for my last day. We went to West Villa Restaurant in Causeway Bay, which is said to be a favorite for local celebrities.

Here’s what we ordered:-

Rachel was craving for some Char Siu Bao so we got some. The top of the bun is like a Mexico bun and the filling inside the bun is a Char Siu pork filling with sweet gravy. I really liked the texture of the bun as I could really taste the freshly baked goodness from the first bite.

We also got some steamed Pai Kuat which tasted classic, unpretentious and good. I was however most impressed with the Siu Mai. The pork meat and big prawns were really fresh, juicy, springy and delicious. I’ve never had Siu Mai quite like it; not in Malaysia, not in New York, not even in London. It was arguably the best Siu Mai I’ve ever had in my life (so far) so if you eat nothing else in Hong Kong, eat the Siu Mai at West Village Restaurant.

Perhaps what was the least familiar to me was this Dim Sum style frittata. The glutinous rice with meat is coated with egg and fried like a frittata, then sliced and eaten with a dipping sauce. Apart from the virginal visual sensation, it was not bad but something that will probably come in as the last choice if I had to order it again.

Since I was missing the ritual Sunday dim sum sessions at Yi Ban and The Laureate in London, seeing this Kuay Tow wrapped with Cheong Fun dish on the menu was a pleasant delight. I was glad we ordered it because it was crunchy, chewy and had the subtle flavors of five spice. Chewing through this made me think about  how incredibly well the British-Chinese have tried to retain the best of Cantonese food and offer it to Britain.

Finally, Rachel insisted that I have the Tau Foo Fah. OUT OF THIS WORLD, glad she suggested it! I’ll be sure to head over for some Tau Foo Fah on my next trip because it’s really so smooth, silky and absolutely beautiful with the shaved palm sugar topping.

Overall, the meal was beautiful. I’m really glad we had dim sum on my last day because now I know what the big deal is. Here’s how to get there:-

West Villa Restaurant
Room 101-102, 1/F., Lee Garden Phase 2, 28 Yan Ping Road
tel: 852 2882 2110

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog series on Hong Kong. I love it so much I will definitely be back for more munchies and partying!

According to Wikipedia:-

The glycemic index, glycaemic index, or GI is a measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion and release glucose rapidly into the bloodstream have a high GI; carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI.

The New York Times Bestseller by the World's Leading Authorities on the Glycemic Index

After spending the last three posts sharing the recipes of what I made and ate for my Low-GI experiment, I realized it is impossible to make all my meals at home or lavish at that. The Low-GI diet is just a matter of knowing what to embrace and avoid and I’ll try to introduce some of the concepts to you throughout my experiment this week.

Breakfast 8:00am – 9:00am

I had an Anjou pear with an orange sprinkled with lime juice and cinnamon powder. At first, the sweetness of the fruits seemed counter-intuitive, but the point of my experiment is to eat foods that are published to have a low G.I. effect even if it seemed counter-intuitive. I also made 2 eggs, had 2 slices of flaxseed bread with a bit of rocket and cherry tomatoes, and a few ounces of the leftover bean salad I made the day before.

How I Felt for the Morning

With 5 hours sleep again, I was feeling tired before breakfast. After breakfast though, I felt really energetic. It was as if I had been given an energy drink. Again, I think it may have been the sugar rush from the fruits but the surprising thing was that I didn’t get a sugar crash and my energy levels were good. My heart rate was steady, I didn’t feel sleepy and it kept me full until 1:00pm.

Lunch 1:30pm

For lunch, I just took some of the leftover brown rice from the night before and put 50% vegetables and 50% rice and stir-fried it with a little bit of canola oil. Knowing that brown rice has a medium GI but high GL (Glycemic Load), I made sure I didn’t have too much of it. The effects of carbohydrates on your blood sugar is not only determined by the type of carbohydrate you consume, but the amount as well. That’s what the GL measures and so I had a medium-sized plate of it.

Snack 3:30pm

I kind of faded a little about an hour after lunch and nodded off once. I’m wondering if I should have thrown in some protein into the rice to bring down the GL even more. I wasn’t hungry by this time but I definitely had that moment when I felt the blood left my head and rushed to my stomach. I’ve read that adding some slow-releasing beans will regulate insulin levels so I snacked on 2 spoonfuls of leftover bean salad. I also had a cup of freshly made ginger juice with a teaspoon of Kamahi raw honey and cinnamon. After that snack, I got my energy back without any of the dozing off sugar crash.

Dinner 7:30pm

The snack from 4 hours ago sustained and maintained my energy levels. By dinner time, I had some of the rice I made in the afternoon with half a plate of green vegetables, and some pork bones and lotus root soup. This time my meal had some meat and a lot more vegetables.

Snack 11:00pm

Didn’t feel hungry so there was no need to snack on anything solid. I didn’t get the sluggish feeling from dinner like I did momentarily after lunch, and I think it is because of the added protein and increased fiber in the meal. I had another cup of ginger tea with honey and cinnamon to help with digestion and went to bed right about midnight.

Summary of Day 2

The brown rice meal without protein actually made me nod off. The Fresh Ginger Tea with Kamahi Honey and Cinnamon was really good. It was spicy and I could feel it helped with my digestion…