Saturday, March 22, 2008

Attended a dinner in celebration of my uncle's birthday last saturday, which was a real busy day for me..

Went for dance and wushu class then left earlier at around 4pm, reached home at 5pm and went out at around 6pm.. Hehe..
The dinner's held at a Toa Payoh seafood restaurant in a pretty ulu-ulu place.. but heard that the food is nice..
Sat at the vegetarian table with my grandma, aunt & parents.. Haiz.. I wanted to eat meat one loh.. But my uncle arranged for an entire vegetarian table to cater to my youngest uncle who's a vegetarian, but the thing that he dont quite understand is that true vegetarians cant stand the most vague hint of meat in their food. So the utensils, cutlery right down to the pots & pans used to cook the dishes have to be those that only touches non-meat produce. My youngest uncle didnt turn up for the dinner, cos of busy work schedule, but then again, we didnt think he'll eat there even if he turn up.

Later, 2 of my cousins Mei qin & Mei mei joined our table.. Hmm.. they aren't vegetarians too, none of us seated at the vegetarian table are..
There's where the funny part of the dinner starts~

Asking cooks at a seafood restaurant to cook a vegetarian meal must be torturous~
So u know how the food will turn out..
Horrible.. They just bought vegetarian food from the supermarket and deep-fried them kinda thing. They don't seem to know that stir-frying green veggies will be a better option & there's 101 varieties (maybe i'm just exaggerating the number, but there's really ample options) of mushrooms that make tasty vegetarian dishes.

There were really loads of deep-fried fake meat.. Eat until sian, and as i said they sort of buy vegetarian meat from the supermarket in the form of 1 big value pack, so the whole dish is made up of only 1 ingredient. Arghs! Why can't we have 5 or 6 different ingredients in my platter like those served on 'normal' tables?? Haiz, the cooks really have no idea on what's called vegetarian food. I've tasted yummy vegetarian food before cos i've relatives (on both paternal & maternal sides) who're vegetarians, so CNY reunion dinners are often vegetarian in order to accomodate them.

Mei qin & Mei mei's brother Wei long came over to kaypoh about the vegetarian table's food, he tried a lil to get a taste of the food as he was wondering why there was still so much food left in the plate. We jokingly told him to bring the dish to another table and he really did~ Lol.. He just went to another table and put down the dish & came back with their dish. Oohs! Meat have never tasted so yummy~ hahah.. Needless to say, that plate was 'wiped' clean^^
He did that quite a few times & seemed to enjoy it. Bringing dishes from the other tables to our table, though some dishes look barely touched & he said he 奉命令来的... Haha relatives from other tables can't eat much?!
Until those waitresses who came to clear the table got confused.. They went.. Eh? I thought this is the vegetarian table???? How come got this dish here?!?
Lol.. We explained to them that the vegetarian eater isn't present, so we just eat whatever we like lor^^
Once, a waitress served us a whole chicken to our table.. Oohs.. Real chicken lor, such a nice fragrance from the chicken, we thought it can't be vegetarian, must be some mistake. Yeah it really was.

Even my grandma's maid got confused, she thought the vegetarian dish of fried pork cutlet is the real McCoy & didnt dare to touch it, until we told her it's vegetarian.

In some way, we got the best of both worlds~
Get to taste 2 variations of dishes, without even needing to move around, cousin WL kept bringing them over^^
Later cousin Kui mian also came over to chat, but he just looked at the vegetarian dishes, he didnt even want to try, haha.. staunch meat lover..
So WL & KM are like 'fighting' for the right to bring over half-eaten dishes over to our table..

When the fake prawn dish arrived, KM stood up & looked at the real prawns being served at the other tables. He said 真的虾在呼唤着我,我要过去啦! WL also stood up & quipped我也要去吃真的虾! Before leaving our table for awhile to devour their fav. prawns. The real prawns cooked by seafood restaurant cooks tasted really good^^ Yeah i ate quite a lot, cos of contributions from 2 tables. So effectively there's like 3 plates of prawns on our table. 2 real 1 fake~
Real vs Fake. Real ones beat the fake ones hands down~

Last dish after the dessert of yam was birthday cake. Durian cake!!!!!!!!!!!! Woots with real durians inside! So tasty!!!! *Licks lips* But WL detests durian & he stood metres away from our table for 'safety'.


Cloud had an interesting dinner.. yes! literally!

yunn. at 9:30 PM