Last Saturday, a group of us got together to celebrate two of our friends' Birthdays! This took place at our friend, Ernest's house - again! Once again, Ernest has volunteered to cook for us. How sweet of him!
The get together started at 3pm. When I arrived, the table was already set for tea with a variety of "Nonya kueh", a contribution from the Birthday Boy. Kueh is a Hokkien and Teochew term for bite size snack, or dessert food - the equivalent of the western pastries. Nonya is a term defining the kueh's Peranakan origin.
Those who were early had tea and kueh while waiting for the late comers.
After the afternoon tea, we decided to get the birthday songs and cakes out of the way. We know that after dinner, which is bound to be heavy, we are not likely to do anything else. There won't be space for anything else.
There was a Birthday girl, and a Birthday boy. So we had two cakes. They tasted as good as they looked.
A 'fruit cake', and the other a three layered cake - a light chocolate layer at the bottom followed by a layer of cheese cake, and topped with a layer of 'jelly'. Both cakes are light and very nice.
This was the menu for that night's dinner.
Lotus soup. Boiled pork ribs with lotus roots and red dates.
Pan fried Seafood (prawns, scallops and abalone) with butter and garlic.
Steamed belly pork with prawn paste.
Prawns mixed with fish paste wrapped in tofu skin and pan fried.
Spinach fried with century egg, salted egg and an egg, with a sprinkle of wolf-berries.
Curry chicken - a local favourite. Another contribution from the birthday boy.
Baguette. This is the first time I had baguette that is so fresh and so soft. It is so nice you can eat it on its own. One local way of eating baguette is to dip the baguette in curry sauce. For those who haven't tried that, I recommend that you give it a try, sometime.
Hokkien yellow noodles. They went very well with the chicken curry. There was also rice. But as you can see, there was already too much food.
We had a leisurely dinner, working slowly through each dish. But we were not able to finish all the food. The remainder were take-away.
After dinner, we continue with our chit chat - about everything and nothing. With seven grown ups, and over 300 years of living, you can understand that there is no lack of things to talk about. It was about ten in the evening when we called it a night. I always felt a bit reluctant to leave. But there will always be another time.
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