USHERING IN THE YEAR OF THE RAT
The first day of the Lunar New Year is a day for visiting. As both Ah Ma and Ah Gong are relatively junior within their respective families, we had to make our rounds to all the elders' homes. A tedious, but "delicious and profitable" process. Isn't it great to have all the sweets and keropok to eat, and collect angpaos at the same time? I had a fabulous time.
Our last pitstop on that day was Grandpa Eddy and Grandma Nancy's house. As usual, Grandpa Eddy let me water his beloved plants.
That night, Grandma Nancy bought dinner at Long Beach Seafood Restaurant. There was a great big pile of chilli crab, drunken prawns, otah, roast chicken, tofu with a special sauce, mee goreng and fried rice... but I only wanted Burger King, so Mommy had to sneak fast food into the restaurant.
The second day of the Lunar New Year is a day for relatives and friends to visit us. Mommy's contingent of cousins arrived with their kids to wish Ah Ma and Ah Gong a happy new year. More festive goodies to tuck in, angpaos to collect and I had a ball playing with all the kids. Oh, how I love Chinese New Year!
That night, my Great Grandmother (Mommy's maternal grandmother) hosted dinner at Peach Garden, a restaurant in the Executive Club at OCBC Centre. It was an expensive meal, and the restaurant had great reviews at http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/peach_garden_ocbc_centre/, but my goodness, some of the dishes were really, really bad. The restaurant was very proud of its shark's fins soup which it described as "Double-Boiled Yoshikiri Fin with Shark's Bone Cartilage Soup". Apparently, they boil the shark's bone till it melts and turns the soup milky white, and they claim only restaurants with a certain standing are able to produce soup of this high quality. Unfortunately, the soup was shockingly smelly. Daddy took one spoonful and left the rest alone. He said it smelt like the yucky stuff which comes up when you try to unclog a blocked drain. Mommy and I couldn't agree more. There was another dish (I think it was the glutinous rice) which Daddy described as wet, matted dog hair. Oh dear. The service and view from the restaurant were first rate though.
Once a year, Ah Ma will bake up a storm in the kitchen and the whole house will be filled with wonderful smells of pineapple tarts, cookies and pandan cake. It's hard to beat the taste of a pineapple tart, fresh out of the oven with the pastry warm, buttery and crumbly, and the pineapple filling hot and sweet. This year was no exception, with Ah Ma working her 30-year-old Kenwood Chef mixer so hard that the antique spluttered and died. Poor thing (the mixer, not Ah Ma).
The first day of the Lunar New Year is a day for visiting. As both Ah Ma and Ah Gong are relatively junior within their respective families, we had to make our rounds to all the elders' homes. A tedious, but "delicious and profitable" process. Isn't it great to have all the sweets and keropok to eat, and collect angpaos at the same time? I had a fabulous time.
Our last pitstop on that day was Grandpa Eddy and Grandma Nancy's house. As usual, Grandpa Eddy let me water his beloved plants.
That night, Grandma Nancy bought dinner at Long Beach Seafood Restaurant. There was a great big pile of chilli crab, drunken prawns, otah, roast chicken, tofu with a special sauce, mee goreng and fried rice... but I only wanted Burger King, so Mommy had to sneak fast food into the restaurant.
The second day of the Lunar New Year is a day for relatives and friends to visit us. Mommy's contingent of cousins arrived with their kids to wish Ah Ma and Ah Gong a happy new year. More festive goodies to tuck in, angpaos to collect and I had a ball playing with all the kids. Oh, how I love Chinese New Year!
That night, my Great Grandmother (Mommy's maternal grandmother) hosted dinner at Peach Garden, a restaurant in the Executive Club at OCBC Centre. It was an expensive meal, and the restaurant had great reviews at http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/peach_garden_ocbc_centre/, but my goodness, some of the dishes were really, really bad. The restaurant was very proud of its shark's fins soup which it described as "Double-Boiled Yoshikiri Fin with Shark's Bone Cartilage Soup". Apparently, they boil the shark's bone till it melts and turns the soup milky white, and they claim only restaurants with a certain standing are able to produce soup of this high quality. Unfortunately, the soup was shockingly smelly. Daddy took one spoonful and left the rest alone. He said it smelt like the yucky stuff which comes up when you try to unclog a blocked drain. Mommy and I couldn't agree more. There was another dish (I think it was the glutinous rice) which Daddy described as wet, matted dog hair. Oh dear. The service and view from the restaurant were first rate though.
posted by jinjin at 12:50 AM
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