So how was your Chap Goh Meh dinner last night? Lots of things to eat and enjoy? We had ours in advance, a day earlier because yesterday was a Friday in the season of Lent, a day of fasting and abstinence. As far as I know, even during “normal” times (before the pandemic), many families went out for dinner the night before for the simple reason that all the restaurants would be full on the actual night.
Yes, I did go out but a couple of days earlier, only to the fruit & food sundry/grocer shop round the corner, to buy a whole fish and had it steamed for the dinner…
As they say, Nien Nien You Yi! We had the ikan buris in the freezer but my missus does not eat that and there were a few slabs of salmon too but I wanted a whole fish. I sure was glad I did as on the morning of the day proper, there was such a HUGE crowd and I sure wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with all those people.
This ikan bawal putih (white pomfret), supposedly more prestigious than the black (that I do prefer) and the golden varieties, was only RM46.00 which I would consider cheap because I was at a fish stall before Chinese New Year where those were going for between RM60.00 and RM80.00 and the lady told me that around Chinese New Year, I would not get anything less than RM100.00!
I bought three lamb shanks for Christmas last year and my missus cooked two. There was one left in the freezer so I asked her to take it out and cook it…
…and it was really good, very nice and tender.
We also used whatever we could find in the fridge and freezer for this salad platter…
…to which we added the traditional salad dressing in the family…
My girl cooked this lovely pumpkin soup…
…and my sister brought this VERY nice ice cream for dessert!
No, we did not have much this time around, very simple – just these few dishes for the four of us but still, we only managed to finish the fish! Thankfully, there wasn’t all that much left.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
Time flies and CNY is coming to an end. Nice and simple Chap Goh Mei dinner. After having too much meat throughout the CNY celebration, I am hunger to have that plate of salad platter and pumpkin soup.
It wasn’t too bad this year. We used to eat so much and mostly meat that by the third day, I would just eat porridge and omelette.
Wow. I love the salad platter and pumpkin soup. Nice feast.
I cooked simple dinner for Chap Goh Mei. Nothing extravagant. Post on it up tomorrow!!
Ok, will drop by and look-see!
Yum! Very nice all the dishes. Ah! I must make that salad dressing again! I remember it was so very good.
Yes, it never fails to please!
The salad looks so yummy with so many prawns and hard boiled egg. The fish and pumpkin soup look good too! We dined out on Chap Goh Meh, luckily the restaurant we went to wasn’t very crowded. We had prawn rolls (ngo hiang), braised intestines, salted egg prawns and sambal potato leaves.
We did not have ngor hiang this Chinese New Year, supposed to be auspicious. My missus makes the best but she makes them so often, all throughout the year so eventually, we grew tired of it.
The fish looks great with all of those condiments on top.
It was all right. Very popular fish among the Chinese but not our favourite, just that at a time like this, I’m not all that keen on going out to the crowded market in search of a good fish.