All you can eat Hotpot

Australians like to call steamboat as hotpot. Once, I told my boss my plans for steamboat with friends during the weekend, he looked very confused. He replied with something about being on the Yarra (a river that runs through Melbourne city) etc. I quickly clarified that steamboat is a food related activity, so he does not continue to think about the method of transportation whenever I mentioned steamboat.

Tonight, my friends and I went for an all you can eat hotpot/steamboat dinner in the city for $23 per person. We were given a slip of paper and when we've marked the number of dishes we wanted to order, they sent the dishes to our table. This establishment being a mainland chinese place, the dishes and soup base were quite different to my tastes. We ordered the yin yang hotpot, which was a fancy name for one side of spicy soup and the other side of traditional clear soup. The clear soup had 'yong sam so' ginseng, unpeeled longans, and some other unidentified herbs. It was tasty and flavoursome though laden with msg. I became quite thirsty midway through the meal. The chilli side of the soup contained a layer of chilli oil on top of the soup, black beans and more herbs. I didn't really venture to that side of the pot so I couldn't describe accurately its contents.

We ordered dishes such as sliced lamb and beef (mainland Chinese does not prefer chicken in their steamboats), prawn, straw mushrooms (both of which can only be ordered once), vegetables, fish noodles, fresh tofu, calamari (no fish fillets), green mussels, crab sticks, black fungus and assorted fish, cuttlefish, prawn balls. I kept waiting for the clear soup to boil but somehow the chilli soup beat the clear soup to the boil most times because the thick layer of oil on top retained heat better.

We also ordered small cooked dishes such as braised peanuts, pigs ears (quite crunchy and tasty), shredded seaweed, chicken feet and chicken gizzard. The restaurant also has quite a good array of desserts. We ordered taro pancake, tong yuen (peanut and sesame), red bean 'tzim tui' to share. Overall, I enjoyed the time that we had together, especially since it's been a while since I last saw these friends and the food was good too.

Hako

Gary and I went to a Japanese place at Flinders Lane in the city after work yesterday. The restaurant was a rather quaint place, smack in the middle of the city, next to two Chinese dumpling places. The entrance is quiet in style and I had to look twice before I realised I'd arrived at the place. Hako has been reviewed by the Australian daily, The Age and has been given raving reviews. So I expected great things from this place. Plus I was so hungry! We ordered the following:

 

Gyoza with vinegar dressing topped with finely chopped spring onions

 

Grilled eel atop a bed of creamy scrambled eggs - I love eel!

 

Deep fried eggplant topped with miso sauce

 

Tuna steak

soba noodles with prawn tempura - my fried food fix
The best dish was the eel - it combined both my favourite foods; eel and eggs!

Bestest Service

Gary and I went to the photographer's yesterday night after work. We found ourselves unprepared for our photo shoot in Malaysia so we wanted to be as prepared as possible for this one in Australia. We discussed dress changes, the general mood of the photos, props to be used, angles that we like, logistics, our likes and dislikes etc etc. We ended up staying for about 1 1/2 hours having a casual discussion on the work to be done on the wedding day.

After the appointment, we had dinner at a small Malaysian restaurant in the middle of a dark shopping strip. Being Monday, all the other shops and restaurants were closed (restaurants normally took Mondays off in Australia, while other shops close at 5pm). Only Rasa Inn, the Malaysian restaurant I had spotted on the way to the photographer's place was open. As we pulled up in front of the restaurant, the proprietess got out of the kitchen and opened the door for us. She actually stepped outside of the restaurant and welcomed us into her shop. No one else was in the restaurant. I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

We ordered the mock vegetarian fish (Winner Dish of the Asian Food Festival 2001) and Home Favourite Ginger Flower Chicken. The lady quickly served us tea, and left a large basket of prawn crackers. I love prawn crackers, or anything crispy so I pretty much devoured 2/3 of the basket. It was good quality, not greasy and was fried with fresh oil (one can tell). The food came in due course, brought to our table by the ever smiling proprietess. The chicken was delicious, with a tangy taste that I couldn't quite identify. I can only think it being from the ginger flower (I've never tasted ginger flower). The mock fish was yam, cellophane noodles and beancurd wrapped in beancurd skin and seaweed then fried. It was very fragrant and filling.

We couldn't finish the dishes so we asked the lady to wrap them up for us. She placed everything separately in plastic containers (including the sauce for the fish) and guess what... included a tiny slip of paper containing instructions on how long to reheat the food, and the date when the food was packed! This is to avoid potential food poisoning due to inadequate heating of the food! We were quite impressed with the attention and care she took.

The best part of the evening was when we took the time to chat and got to know her a little better. She adored Gary because like him, she was originally from Hong Kong and have been living in Australia for a long time. She was also smitten with him because although he has been here since young, his Cantonese was so good, unlike her son's! She was particularly impressed with his choice of profession, commenting how smart he must be etc etc. I could see the glint in her eyes, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was checking him out for an unmarried daughter or niece.

Gary returned the compliments by leaving a largish tip, then we drove home. The restaurant is rather out of the way for us, so unfortunately for the auntie, it is unlikely that her unmarried daughter or niece shall see Gary anytime soon.

My Weight in Pigs

I haven't posted up any wedding pictures on this blog as I will be having another one in Melbourne with the same dresses so I don't want to spoil the surprise for the people here. However, what I can do is post up a similarly important event which took place in M'sia - giving of the dowry! In chinese, the ceremony is called 'goh tai lai'. This is where the groom's family presents sets of 'grand gifts' to the bride's family. The gifts consists of double sets of everything (one of which is expected to be returned) - fruits, dried seafood, coconut, wine or liquor, money, chinese wedding cakes etc. These were more or less the items involved in my gtl as well, except the coconuts.

We also did the 'three day homecoming' at the same time where traditionally when the bride returns home to her parent's house after 3 days in her new home, the groom would provide a whole roast pig and some gifts to the family (presumably in appreciation of the new bride). To a lover of roast pork like me, the pig was a dream come true! We gave all the best parts away to family, neighbours and friends, but still had loads to devour. Till the day we left for Melbourne, there were still pork bits and pieces stashed away in our fridge, which had ran out of space so there were some in a neighbour's freezer as well!

I wonder if there are no one who have thought about giving something of the same value other than a roast pig? How about giving something that the bride really likes? As much as I like roast pork, I had to face the fact that not all parts of the pig is suitable for roasting. So how about a couple of whole cod fish? You can betcha there won't be any leftovers!

Butcher in action

The groom's family got to take back: a pair of pants, head and tail of the pig, and single set of the gifts they presented.

Back to Work

Phew! I'm back at work after 2 1/2 weeks' wed-hol. Touched down at around 8:30pm and was stuck in the customs queque for about an hour. It was unbeliveably busy at the customs, and if it wasn't for the large picture frame (potentially bug infested wood piece), we wouldn't have needed to queque in the slowest moving line ever. The frame was waved off and we proceeded to the taxi stand. When we finally reached home, it was 10pm. We went out for a bite of late dinner at good ol' Maccas, and bam straight into bed. I was out like a light.

Next morning, I struggled to wake up for work, struggling even more trying to remember my regular train time, directions to work, floor number, passwords to the work systems... I can't say I didn't have a relaxing holiday; so relaxing I forgot all work related matter.

I'm glad it's the weekend now (but I'll be going back to work on Sunday to get all my work done before Monday morning - I have a performance review discussion on Tuesday) and I can relax from the hard work I've done over the past two days at work.

And the good thing is... I get to do another wedding and holiday in two week's time. Looking forward to that!