Come together…

I had an invitation from Yan to a special dinner at her house the other night in conjunction with Chinese New Year…

…together with fellow-bloggers, Victor (Thanks for the lift, Victor!)…

…and Rubberseeds…

…as well as her staff from the office. There was an elaborate spread at the buffet table, all cooked by herself. That lady is really amazing!!!

There were a few seafood dishes, including this steamed freshwater fish – semah – that somebody in the Kapit office had given her…

These Kapit fish like this one or empurau are worth their weight in gold – easily some RM200 or RM300 a kilo!!! It was absolutely out of this world…and you can bet that I had seconds and thirds! Then, there was this dish of butter prawns that could rival any restaurant or food outlet in town…

I think I had at least half a dozen and thank goodness, I did not have any gout attack the following day. I stayed away from these steamed crabs though…

I couldn’t be bothered to go through the hassle of removing the shell, considering especially that it was a buffet dinner. The duck was nice…

…and so was the chicken, though I felt there was a bit too much ang chiew (red wine)…

I would prefer my steamed/boiled chicken plain like those at the Hainanese chicken rice stalls. Being the very health-conscious lady that Yan is, it came as no surprise that the poultry dishes came out skinless! (But I love the skin!!! Hahahahaha!!!) There was chicken curry too…

…which tasted nice but this is what I would refer to as Foochow or Chinese curry – a bit too watery and not very spicy. One of these days, Yan, I’ll host a dinner and invite you to come and taste mine. LOL!!! Perhaps that will have to wait till my daughter comes home for the holidays next month (…the poor girl missing out on all the yummy food mah!). I did not take a photo of the beef stew which was deliciously tender but it was served in a claypot casserole and everything was drowned in the gravy too. I would prefer it thicker and probably, a little bit less of it as well. Then, we had pizza…

…and Yan’s pride and joy – her chicken pie!

It was indeed very nice with its rich buttery taste…and I loved the pastry – very well done, simply perfect! Most of the time, my pastry will turn out too hard…

There was salad with its creamy dressing and as Yan was serving baguette with the yummy freshly-made peanut butter she had brought home from Australia, I told her that she could have mixed a bit of it with the salad cream to get something like what we usually have in the family for our salads. Hmmm…that’s another thing I can include in the menu when I ask her over for dinner – salad with the Dimong clan special dressing!

She made some garlic bread too but I did not try that, and there was a plate of fried midin (jungle fern). Believe it or not, the current market price of the veg is RM9 a kilo!!! I wish everybody would boycott and refuse to buy to force the sellers to keep the prices low, otherwise they would end up with a whole lot of withered unsold vegetables in their hands!

And we had champagne…courtesy of Malaysia Airlines!!!

The cabin crew got to know that she would be hosting a dinner function as she was planning the menu on board on her flight back from Down Under and as she was about to disembark, they gave her the bottle of champagne specially for the occasion. Well, they’re not the world’s No. 1 cabin crew for nothing…and one of them is a blogger-friend of mine! Thumbs up for MH – Malaysian Hospitality!!! (But then again, she was flying Business Class, so that’s a different story altogether! LOL!!!)

Well, it was indeed an honour to make it into your guest list, Yan! I’ll be taking next month (March) off…so I’ll host one around that time then. Your name’s first on the guest list, that’s for sure! Thanks so much for the delightful dinner…