Family…

In 2010, my missus and I were stranded in KL on Chinese New Year’s Eve, after sending off Melissa when she left for New Zealand. This year, Melissa and I ended up in KL on Chap Goh Meh, the 15th night of the Chinese Lunar New Year. ..when families would get together for another reunion dinner to mark the end of the festive celebrations.

Being her last night in Malaysia before returning to New Zealand for another year, I thought I would make it extra special for her and arrange a family gathering in KL and what better “family” do I have around than my radio family from the days of  “Pat and Mag in the afternoon” on TraxxFm…

We certainly miss all those terrific afternoons we spent over the airwaves with the two DJs when all of us would commune via smses and phone calls and have a whole lot of fun together.  The bonding over the years today has remained ever since and through good or bad times, we would always be there for one another.

I contacted Zul to arrange for a place for dinner and eventually, we settled for the Chinese restaurant at Novotel, KL…

This was the Chinese New Year special menu which did not come cheap – RM888 (Fatt…Fatt…Fatt…triple prosperity) but I told Zul to go ahead and make the booking as it would be sponsored by Vincent Tan, anyway (LOL!!!) and which father wouldn’t want the best for his daughter?

Dinner started off with the yee sang…

…followed by the sharks’ fins soup…

There was also the very nice steamed fish…

…but the fried prawns, though very  tastily done, were not that great as I could not detect the sweetness and the freshness of the crustaceans…

Then, we had the roast chicken…

…followed by the broccoli plus mushrooms that I liked a lot…

…but sadly, the fried rice wrapped in lotus leaf was a disappointment.

Ah well! It’s a known fact that I haven’t had any fried rice outside that is better than my own. Wink! Wink!

Finally we had the desserts – some lotus seed in soy bean plus deep fried kuih bakul (the traditional Chinese New Year sticky cake) slices which of course, came nowhere near the festive cupcakes that Mag brought for everybody…

I had the one with the lantern…

…and later another one – the one with the mandarin orange.

It certainly was a wonderful evening of a whole lot of fun and laughter…and when I went to pay,  Zul and Mandy came running and insisted on chipping in to foot the bill as they said it was way too much for me to treat everybody on my own…and sweet Mag even gave Melissa an ang pao, though not a Chinese herself.

There has been a lot of hoo-haa about the 1Malaysia thingy but talk is cheap. Here in my radio family, one can see the whole concept personified in all of us – Chinese, Malay, Indian, Portuguese/Eurasian as one… Together, we are beautiful.

My sincere thanks to one and all for everything. As Pat would always say everytime he ended the show, “Keep the peace and spread the love!”