When London brought us back together again

Warning! Reading this post may result in considerable amount of emoness.

Without much noticing, its the end of autumn term! And its time for celebrations. This year, Christmas was very special as I get to spend it with a bunch of old friends, staying together and gathered for a few awesome nights.

My house this year, is large enough to hold 5 guests staying over Wil Liam, Ai Woon, Chai Earn, Yiew Wen and Siang Ling.

It all started on the Saturday night where Ai Woon came over, and we started planning for the coming ultimate festive week. The fact that my housemates were back to their home countries, I asked for her and Brian's help to do some chores, cleaning up the house for the guests. But I just have to stress that my house is cleaned on a weekly basis okay!!

On Sunday night, we came out with a wonderful Christmas Menu and an exploding long list of items to buy. Armed with backpack and bicycle, we rode to the market early in the morning to start pumping up the items. Wil Liam and Chai Earn was expected later, and Ai Woon went back to get her.

That night didn't bring us far as it snowed quite heavily. I prepared some light dishes with the help of Wil Liam or should say their tastebuds?

This is the char siew which ranked a little bit lower than Ai Woon's ( or was it?). Made with pork belly marinated half a day with mixture of sauces suggested by online recipe and then grilled with a home oven.
If I would remember clearly, it was with half a cup of sugar, soy sauce, rice wine, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, five spice powder, pepper, garlic, and ginger juice.

Well, I knew that char siew wouldn't satisfy many, so I added a steam fish and some iceburg lettuce..

You rarely find fish like this in London

Wil Liam chopped the pork.


On this very same day, with the help of Brian, I experimented a special dish for Christmas Day itself. Marinating a duck for making duck confit!

The next day, before Angeline's arrival, we went to town.

I think there was a reason.... but lets just say, the reason was to visit

The colourful city of London!
Dinner was at GBK, I think Wil Liam shouldn't eat Carl's Jr anymore after he tried this.


The delicious journey continued on 23rd with Yiew Wen's arrival. I was home trying to prepare a nostalgic Bak Kut Teh dinner, with the others running around at Harrod's and Hyde Park's winter wonderland.

Actually, they are not the bad guy.... I ditched them because its too cold to go there.. haha

No! seriously, I was preparing dinner.

An aromatic herbal intense soup
and...

Spicy black version of Bak Kut Teh to tickle your tongue prepared by Min Ken.
I loved it, as it definitely spoils the diet plan if Wil Liam or Chai Earn was on one.

The big day comes now.... 24th and I thought it would be more challenging because I saw Yiew Wen and Ai Woon reading recipes for Christmas. Well, it seemed like they prefer leaving me the job. Imagine the world now.. the guys do the cooking......

Let me revise the Ultimate Christmas Menu!
Starters:
Jamie Oliver butternut soup
Smoke Salmon Bagel
Ceaser Salad
White Wine Mussels

Main Course:
Duck Confit spaghetti
Roast Chicken

Dessert:
Fruit tart.

Yes, we made this all by ourselves, no 打包, no cheating. Guess what, it took me one hell of an afternoon in the kitchen.

First masterpiece of the day:

Duck Confit spaghetti. Really draining all the time resource. The duck confit took 24 hours to soak in salt and 48 hours in oil poach. I got to step into the kitchen in the crazy freezing night to flip the side of the duck, forced to pause my prison break drama.
Then, the duck is poached in oil for few hours to cook before leaving it to mature in the fridge for few days. Not to include the frying of the duck again and the spaghetti.

Next, I should introduce you to Ai Woon's babies

She washed, brushed and crushed the worms individually for quite some time. The mussels.

And Chai Earn's masterpiece

Oops... not this one....

Smoked Salmon bagels.
See how she does it the pro way.

Creamy mayonnaise and horseraddish (wasabi's friend) top the crispy bagel. Then she lay a piece of smoke salmon and fried an egg cooked to just perfection on top... finally dressing it with some black pepper, garlic flakes and a fresh piece of parsley.

See how they recommend their dish. Every single bite gives the sensation of the spicy pepper and horseraddish together with a spike of smoke salmon covered with crispy bagel balanced by the smooth oozing egg yolk.
If you are tempted, ask her to prepare ok ? Anyway special thanks to Ai Woon ... the "founder" of this recipe.


The list goes on with the roast chicken where Wil Liam personally sodomized them with lemons

Not to forget massaging them gently with olive oil and chicken stock.

That night's dinner table

Chef Chai Earn's bagel

Ceaser Salad

Mussels! In aromatic tangy white wine sauce.

Roast Chicken

And a nice sweet dessert made by Angeline and Wil Liam

Both are equal proud of their creation.

As the saying goes, its so hard to judge because both of them are equally tasty.


And somehow, these monkeys came out with a special thing to wear that night

They got some twinkling tiny badges to wear and thought they look like VIPs. But yea.... VIP to our house.

Secret Santa gift exchange session for the night

Guess what? We missed the countdown to Christmas! Maybe some got partially drunk already...

On Christmas Day, we were locked in the house because there was no public transport on service. We ended up whole day in the kitchen preparing and eating and preparing for steamboat dinner.
Ai Woon made honey dew sago dessert, with her mum's recipe 10000km away. Through many trials and error, we got a very large pot of dessert. Brian was a great fan as he finished a lot of it.

We got lots of food.

Wil Liam made wanton with mince meat. There was too much of mince meat, he even made pork balls.

The next bit, I was very unclear of it. I thought that the whole time I was the one in the kitchen, but it turned up, just when I was upstairs for a little while, something "peanut butter" happened.

To elaborate about the peanut butter description we used, I have to tell you its origin.
When Yiew Wen first arrived in UK, she found out a way to pronounce a peanut butter brand name. It was so obvious but none of us found out until she told us.
YW:"See, this peanut butter... SUN PAT!! (38, 三八)"
Oh what a stupid name... sun pat peanut butter! hahaha

Back to the peanut butter incident that happened. They took my lovely vege and dance !!

I think she initialises it...

So I can only think of the stories that goes...

"Hey, vy is not here, what should we do ?"

"Lets annoy him and play with his (already very scarce amount) of vege he got."(blek)

Then, probably they don't know what to do, so they posed..

"Hey this is boring..." (Wil Liam probably rush into ken's room to on Just Dance by lady Gaga)
And they started dancing....

And there goes my vege........


Boxing Day this year was not as expected. We scared them from stories like World War 2 to suffocating in the tube station like you are stuck underwater. However, there were so little people this year, economy crisis hahaha.

So the ranking of Boxing day is
1. Yee Ai Woon
2. Ee Wil Liam (after catching up on the next day)
3. Yap Siang Ling
4. Me
5. Teoh Yiew Wen
6. Tang Chai Earn

ranking is based on the credit flow score strictly to GBP.

As much as I can tell now, and there goes the story of once a wonderful Christmas Gathering.

Project 365 (part 2)

Cant believe I am doing this for over 100 days now... I'm proud because I did it more than a lot of bloggers did. First term in 3rd year of university is now gone!

Part 1

DAY 100!! 20/12/2009 Sunday

Went for a little bike adventure to the west. We targeted to reach Richmond park but end up in Wimbledon Park. Its all icy, snowy and cold, but its really a chilling fun day.


Day 101. 21/12/2009 Monday

Wil Liam and Chai Earn reached London. I prepared roasted pork(char siew) and some dishes to celebrate our first reunion dinner in London.


Day 102. 22/12/2009 Tuesday

We were at the 'The Stupid Clocktower' again. Brought Chai Earn and Wil Liam to walk around the city centre. Initially the plan was to watch Avatar, but due to some noobness involved, plan failed, leaving me still a clean sheet in "never watching a movie in London before".


Day 103. 23/12/2009 Wednesday

Yiew Wen joined the fun today. We had a Bak Kut Teh dinner followed by drinking game. Look at the nice amount of alcohol which we finished that night!!

Day 104. 24/12/2009 Thursday

Its Christmas Eve! Spend almost the whole day buying and preparing for the Ultimate Dinner !


Day 105. 25/12/2009 Friday

There is no public transport today. So again, we spend the whole day preparing for a steamboat dinner. It was the first steamboat after Sungkai Trip in summer for some people present here.


Day 106. 26/12/2009 Saturday

Boxing Day!! As we spend the whole last night scaring them how crowded boxing day in Oxford street is, it turned up beyond expected. It was so much less people, and the girls have fun buying discounted items, well the guys as well!

Day 107. 27/12/2009 Sunday

Brought Yiew Wen, Wil Liam and Ai Woon to have their "last meal" before they leave. We went to Bayswater for the Legend...-wait-for-it....dary duck, but it wasnt that crispy therefore not so legend-wait-for-it-dary anymore. Time for everyone to go back to reality, the assignments and exams (emo 5mins 1 day)


Day 108. 28/12/2009 Monday

Counting the days left in 2009, time to start working!!


Day 111. 31/12/2009 Thursday

Preparing for Snowboard trip!!


Day 113. 2/1/2010 Saturday

Back to college to complete my interim report, with absolutely no one in the college. Come on, who goes to the college in this time?!


Day 114 - 121

Snow snow snow and snowboard trip!!


Day 122. 11/1/2010 Monday

Back to usual routine. Went to the gym to catch up with fitness lost during the trip.


Day 123. 12/1/2010 Tuesday

Sweet and sour pork! Back to cooking


Day 124. 13/1/2010 Wednesday

Snowing 'heavily' in London. Reminds me of Grenoble. Still enjoying the first academic week without lectures.


Day 125. 14/1/2010 Thursday

Went Paddington for futsal which surprisingly only 6 people turned up.


Day 129. 18/1/2010 Monday

My lectures finally start for the year. Obviously the attention span to focus in lecture is only very short and applies to first few lectures of the term only.


Day 131. 20/1/2010 Wednesday

Finished my Entrepreneurship exam. Although the person beside me was writing like he is doing a dissertation, I am happy because I think I can just pass the exam. Later, we celebrated at a taiwanese restaurant!


Day 133. 22/1/2010 Friday

Got these very very huge avocados, 3 for 50p. Each of them make a big smooth blend of milkshakes !


Day 134. 23/1/2010 Saturday

Perhaps a very bad unlucky start for my housemate Xuhua. His bicycle got stolen today where he parked outside our college building near Royal Albert Hall, one of the sightseeing stops for tourist, at noon time! The lock he showed us suggests a clean cut made by the thief.


Day 135. 24/1/2010 Sunday

I realised that days are much brighter now as sun sets later each day. I have 3 days of weekends this term. Although it was a Sunday, I went to college for a little project discussion.


Day 136. 25/1/2010 Monday

Went around taking pictures of cars for our project.


Day 139. 26/1/2010 Thursday

Found a ceiling fan in a lecture theatre in the department of computing.


Day 141. 27/1/2010 Saturday

Its pizza night! I think we all gathered to release stress and misery accumulated from last term using the common alcoholic way. It was indeed a lot of fun.