Ramblings About My Life..

"Oriental Dinner Party"

15th October, 2005 AD

1136 hours
Lisa invites me to a dinner party at the Endcliffe Vale Flats. I refuse to go because everyone who is going is contributing an Asian dish - and I can't bloody well cook to save my life! She asks me to buy Oriental takeaway - but I feel that it's kind of wierd buying takeaway and bringing it to a party when everyone brought stuff that they cooked. I volunteer to be Wei Jin's trusty kitchen helper (read - slave) since he's cooking a dish to be brought there.

1530 hours
Lisa, Wei Jin and myself meet up at the Somerfield's in Broomhill. We buy our most of our ingredients there (the rest was bought at Fresh Asia, a store selling Asian foodstuffs). We then return to our respective Halls.

1630 hours
Had dinner at Halifax Hall. Got ready after dinner. Tried to get rid of my "dishevelled" look. Failed and swore never to touch hair gel ever again (unless it is an absolute emergency).

1815 hours
Went off to the Endcliffe Vale Flats with Wei Jin. Was stuck outside the door until Adi (is this how his name is spelt?) opened it for us. Went in, met Ranmaru, who was also staying at the Endcliffe Vale Flats. He was cooking curry, and boy, did it smell good! We started preparing the ingredients. Chopped up the mushrooms, chicken meat and wept over the spring onions. After we were done, we had to wait for Lisa, who had the sesame oil - we couldn't start cooking without her!

1910 hours
Lisa arrives! Hurray! Cooking of Wei Jin's "Chicken In Rice Wine" begins in earnest. We had several problems while cooking - at first, we couldn't fit all the meat and ingredients into the pan, then, we had to go around asking if anyone had sugar. Also, while cooking, Lisa's ingredients kept on spilling over to ours! We had several pieces of pepper in our frying pan that shouldn't be there! Anyway, she finishes cooking in record time and leaves us struggling at the stove.

1730 hours (thereabout)
We finally finish cooking. Wei Jin intended to contribute a dish, but he ended up contributing two separate and unique dishes as the result of the fiasco with the miniscule frying pan. He experimented with different techniques of cooking and different ingredients with the two separate portions that he cooked and ended up with two dishes, one not resembling the other at all! Haha! The more dishes the better, anyway. People start arriving with their dishes. I met some familiar faces there, such as Suresh, Tina, Kanako, Sunni and Hiromi - but I had never met the rest before.

1730 to 0000 hours
Everyone tucks in. Besides Wei Jin's two variants of "Chicken In Rice Wine", there was a minced pork dish, a vegetable thingy, omelettes with onions and curry, served with rice. All the dishes disappear in record time as they were delicious! It is a rule that every social gathering here should involve some amount of alcohol, and this dinner party was no exception. Beer and wine was served after the dishes, and although I had resolved not to drink any that night, I ended up drinking a pint of beer anyway. My "chaperone", Wei Jin, failed to prevent me from grabbing a can of beer and drinking it after I got bored of lemonade and Diet Pepsi. Hahaha... When the alcohol ran out, some people drank the Chinese rice wine instead - it's meant for cooking, for goodness' sake! Suresh comes to the rescue by volunteering to run out and buy a bottle of vodka. I didn't touch the vodka at all - I had too much experience of what would happen if I ingested hard liquor! After extensive talking, drinking and much picture-taking, we discovered that it was 12pm already - everyone cleaned up (very surprising considering that this was a party held by adolescents/new adults who are university students as well!), said their goodbyes and left.

Here are some pictures taken by Wei Jin at the party:


Group pic! I'm not going to type out everbody's names since I can't remember them...haha!


From left - Anna, Suresh and Wei Jin.


From left - a law student from Japan (yes, I forgot his name), Yuki, and myself.


A mini-group picture. Due to the lack of space in the kitchen, where this photo was taken was where we spent the most of the time. From left - myself, Wei Jin, Lisa, Anna and Suresh.


No, we're not drunk. Just fooling around with the camera.


From left - Yoko and Tina. Don't ask me why they were hugging each other!


Asia's Next Top Model photoshoot? I'm sorry, but you're in a kitchen of the Endcliffe Vale Flats. The studio's somewhere in town, methinks. Hahaha! From left - Nessa, Kanako, Tina (partly hidden) and Yoko.


From left - Wei Jin, Nessa and Adi.


Fooling around with the camera again.


From left - Tina, myself, Lisa and Yoko. Check out the beer bottles on the table - those were only representing a tiny fraction of how much that was consumed that night! The fruits on the bottom left of the table were untouched - healthy food has no place in a party. Hypothesis proven.


After the dinner, Sunni took out a scarf and draped it around her. Pretty soon, all the girls were going "Sunni, you look cute!" and "Take pictures of her!"...hahaha.. And so we did.

P.S. - Dad's coming up this weekend! Haha! Resupply time!

posted by yong chen @ 8:46 PM