GUNUNG RICE

Well, before you think I was pigging out in some mountainous area.. no.. no… I am not.

I just got home from a fantastic 6 course dinner, courtesy from the Party Girl in Pink Nails, to celebrate farewell party for Lay Nee, our dear friend who would be leaving for Penang next week to work.

Cooking for the first time for friends.. in her 29 years of age .. (oops.. sorry! Didn’t mean to reveal the party girl in pink nails’ age) – she did pretty good, except for making estimation for portions.

I was suspicious that she might be ta-pao-ing (Cantonese: Pack food) from some restaurant and lay the dishes nicely in plate, then, microwave them before we came. Oh well, probably I am just jealous because I cannot cook this well.

Being her generous self, she was worried we might not have enough to eat. She cooked 5 ½ cups of rice for 4 people. Good Lord! I hardly pigged on SO MUCH rice after refraining from taking high glycemic index food for so long.

Here is the menu, originally extracted from her e-mail to her chums:

----- Original Message -----
Party Girl with Pink Nails wrote:-
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: Thursday 30th June 7.30pm

Dear All

This is a reminder for our Thursday .. I am doing all the prep work now ... and so, be here on time, better still be early ...

See you then - tentatively, the following are my menu (might change due to availability of ingredients)


Danielr, can’t wait for his portion of curry chicken too!

(a) Steam rice - best Siamese smell-good rice
(b) Curry chicken - my own creation (very good one)
(c) Tom Yam Shrimps - I have only 1/3 bottle of the tomyam paste left and cannot find the same brand here in KL (so I have been going without tomyam for 1 week to save it for this Thursday)
(d) Vege - most likely baby spinach
(e) Soup - since we have chicken as above - I am thinking of lotus soup - more "cheng" and cooling
(f) Egg ommelette with "chai po" - my own recipe
(g) Drink - lim koon chooi (Hokkien: drink plain water) ok ... Chinese style, or if you prefer, i will go get oolong tea .. :)

After finishing our 6 generous course dinner, we had some fruits and blueberry muffins (pre-ordered from my good friend’s mom who baked me a blueberry cheesecake).

To finish the night off, Lay Nee was sweet enough to make each and everyone of us a small token of appreciation for throwing her a small farewell party.

Well, here’s wishing Lay Nee good luck and may she finds job satisfaction and good friends along her way.

Friends come and go
As the days unfold
We will always remember the old
in our hearts forever hold

P/S I am going off for a Taiping-Penang-Ipoh fei chai trip in 6 hours time. I hope.. after 5 different places of char kueh teow, I would live to tell you the tale.