cny reunion dinner

In case you do not know, my DiGi line is real sucky (hence the snail pace of my blogging activities) and what's even suckier, those people at TM Net are taking their sweetest time processing our Streamyx application, they ought to be shot.
And shot again.


Before I pull out my shotgun, since today's Chap Goh Mei (last day of CNY), I've decided that no one shall die today.


I'm in fact grateful that I finally get to post this particularly for the sake of my cousins, Sophie and Jonathan whose necks must have already grown to the length of a giraffe's, waiting for this.


It's about my family CNY reunion dinner at 'Family Heritage Cafe' on 13th Feb, together with mum's side of the family. We reckoned that with grandma's recent passing, it'd be good that more people spend time with grandpa this reunion, so he feels the 'love and warmth' from family during CNY.
If there are 2 tables at any family dinner, it'd usually be one adult table and one for the kids. I think I should be grateful they put me at the kid's table...ok, maybe NOT so kiddo (they were mainly late teens anyway), but I still felt kinda OLD amongst them. huuhuu...
Until big bro Vic and Irene came straight from Singapore to join us halfway through dinner. Yey.

This is my cousin, Weng Yiu who just began his National Service in Singapore. One year and ten months is how long he will continue to look like a cooked lobster, under the hot sun in boot camp. Well, at least you get a feel of handling a real gun, dude.

A boy can only show this funny mindless expression if he doesn't know how to react to a girl who is so attracted to his crew cut.

I had no idea my cousins, Jonathan and Sophie were bloggers too!

Talk about starting dem young, I only discovered the meaning of 'blog' some 3 years ago.

No doubt they were Pose King and Queen for the night.

Cousin Mei Yee just loves hugging people so here I am just giving back.

Nah, this one's not my uncle.

He's my Uncle Richard's friend from US, Robert who has been holidaying with us for the past 2 months. Funny thing is, when my uncle was visiting him in the States, he attended Robert's aunt's funeral and Robert happened to be here too for grandma's funeral.

Cousins all together now...

Here were our reunion dishes.

It was a decent averagely priced meal, though a full attendance from family members was what mattered most in a reunion dinner.

One with grandpa.

I had Baileys + fresh milk which was a real smooth mix, I was dying for more.

But someone had finished all the milk and I wasn't too happy about it.

Now, where was I....

*hic*

glorious food at flower drum

singing: ..."I should be so lucky...lucky, lucky, lucky.." to have one of those rare opportunities to dine in a fine Chinese restaurant, Flower Drum.

A much talked-about place that supposedly serves really gooooood Chinese food at quite a hefty price. I recall having a really satisfying durian pancake here umpteen years ago. Don't ask me who paid for it though.

This place is so posh, one must really mind one's manners here. Which also meant I had my quietest lou hei ever.

"Mmm, this place is part of Tai Thong group of restaurants, so should be good", me thinking.

"Hope we're not having the abalone yee sang coz me no take abalone," me thinking further.

It was a CNY set dinner and they served us the Salmon Yee Sang (yey!) instead.

Here's the rest of the very impressive dishes from our chosen set, each in its own class and superb taste! 10 out of 10!

Braised Shark's Fin Soup with Crab Meat and Bamboo Piths

Deep-fried Crispy Pig Trotters with Sea Moss

Steamed Red Snapper with Mushrooms & Beancurd Skin

Baked Tiger Prawns with Butter & Spicy Sauce

Stewed Mixed Vegetable with Dried Oysters

Master Fried Rice with Assorted Waxed Meat

At this point, we were stuffed and had to tapao the rice!

Double-Boiled Ginger Tea with Aloe Vera & Glutinous Rice Balls

(a fancy name for something we the Chinese usually just call tong yuen)

New Year Sweet Delights

(so THIS was what they referred to as 'sweet delights'....I was half expecting CNY cookies already)

We even got FREE red Wine! But how come we always need to ASK for it geh, instead of them giving it to us right away...hmm

That night, I also learnt how Chinese mustard (known as kai lat) can be a great dipping sauce for lots of things like fish or even your bowl of shark's fin. Same effect as wasabi.

A very happy me after dinner... :P

Either Mark is so damn full or he needs to run to the loo.

You too would be smiling like this fella if you just had a dinner soooo sumptuous.

Especially if it was a RM 698++/table dinner, and you needn't pay a single cent. :P

lou sang 2010 at 'jui mao'

'Tis the season to 'lou sang' and wish for better things to come. With so many restaurants offering this specialty dish, a few of us colleagues and ex-colleagues decided to try out the famous 'Jui Mao' restaurant in Queenspark, Jalan Peel. I thought it would be directly translated as Drunken Cat Restaurant, but instead its English name sounded like something that if not pronounced properly, would make Mr Kee a very angry man.

I know there are certain wishes to chant even at the point of pouring out the condiments or sauces, just can't remember what. Probably like "pour properly oh...don't let the sauce drip outside the plate ah....distribute equally all around...not too much oil...not all the sour plum, wait too sour...." or something along those lines.

Then everyone grabs hold of their chopsticks, stands up and starts clearing their throat for...

shouts of wishes for anything under the sun! (or moon in our case since it was dinner).

If only it was that simple.. :)

I made it simple, I just wish to stay happy all the time :):):):):) (see, it's working already)

With everything tossed up in the air, around the plate and outside the plate, we got this nice crunchy mix of sweet and sour that everyone enjoyed sinking their teeth into!

Some enjoyed it a little bit more than the rest.

Food galore!!

The glossiest pack of ribs I've ever seen.

*UumPH*

Can you see the similarity....of their noses?

A resonable price of RM 185 for 6 dishes and a Yee Sang.

Most important, we all got to eat till our hearts content.

Good companion, good food - a roaring start to Year of the Tiger!

Happy cny, world.

sun all over the place

Thursday, 11 Feb - As I went to work this morning, it looked like it just rained 'The Sun' as pieces of the newspaper were found scattered all along the road in front of Wisma Goldhill.
Either that or Superman happened to fly past as the Sun delivery guy was taking out the papers from his van.

How else could this have happened?