An Urge To Splurge

Return of the king
Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Well, everyone needs a little time away. So after a lenghty break from blogging, im back with new vigor and more enthusiastic than ever. Currently, its chinese new year and i have been looking forward for this occasion for so long. Not only because of the glorious food it has to offer but also a chance to meet various relatives and catch up on each other's forthcomings. This year turned out to be exceptionally good in terms of food as ive been eating a whole lotta garb this past few days. Here's an insight of CNY in my grandpa's house

Pre CNY:
Reunion dinner with my paternal family. Menu which consists of somewhat unorthodox chinese dishes.
1) Kiam Chai Teng (salty vege soup)
2) Chicken curry ( for CNY!!!..u gotta be kidding)
3) Gi Hu Cha ( this is supposedly the highlight of all the dishes..dont really know whats in it ..some sort of cuttlefish i suspect)
4) Fried prawn fritters
5) Siew yuk
6) Mized Vegetables ( cauliflower,brocolli, mushroom, all the stuff kid's hate)
Yup, that was it and longan for dessert. Needless to say, i felt like a bloated balloon (lol..wait, that doesnt make much sense...im bad at similies)

CNY Day 1:
Woke up really early today as I didnt wanna miss out on a single minute of the day!! The whole family was up and about by 7am and made our way to a temple in PJ. Customary visit every year as well as visiting my late grandma's grave to pay our respects.Then we converged to the headquarters, the nerve center of the operation: grandpa's house!! Yeap, he's the oldest in the family now, and you know what that means.. Everyone comes to visit him and not the other way round!!So all that us eager grandchildren had to do was just wait there and watch the red packets flood in!! What a great deal!! But by 11am when only 2 families had shown up, we were getting a tad impatient as usually by this time, the house would be so full there'd be no room to manoevour . On the visitors graph, things were decreasing at an alarming rate!!
Thankfully, things picked up by noon, although pickings were slim this year. But hey, beggars cant be choosers so, no complaints from me!! Next, it was off to Rawang to visit my grandps's brother. Life seems good in this part of the family as it turns out after reaching in front of his house and noticing a new Mercedes park right in front of the porch. The house was also beaming with new furniture and (again!) glorious food...without further or do i tucked in into
1) Mutton Curry ( Chinese food is really present in CNY ay)
2) Satay, ketupat with peanut sauce (here's another proof)
3) Rendang Chicken
4)Acar (msian salad)
5) Carlsberg ( White Man Chinese tea)
6) Fried vermicelli

After a satisfying lunch we headed home 0.5 kg heavier. After a short snooze it was another round of greeting and meeting the folks although this time with my mum's side of the family. We arrived there for dinner anticipating a huge feast and let me tell ya i wasnt dissapointed. For starters, we had yee sang. It like this fusion of colorful vege garnished with raw salmon. For a properous and fulfilling year, members of the family will mix this dish together whlist shouting good luck charms such as " wan shi ru yi " or " pei ngo fat tat" or the more common for the younger generation " why are we doing this and can we start eating right now!". So after yee sang, the main course was served. Tonight's menu was quientssential chinese as you can see
1) Pig stomach soup ( sounds rather gruesome but believe me its tasty)
2) Pork Meatball a.k.a Poh Yi
4) Fried fish
5) Grilled Prawns with Oats
6) Pig's Leg with Sea cucumber (aunty says sea cucumber is getting more and more expensive so i ate sparingly on this one)
7) Some sort of vegetable dish which i didnt bother to eat...who in the right frame of mind would want to eat vege in the present of all these GLORIOUS food
8) Chicken with soy sauce
9) Shandy (A local favourite)

After our feast, its all fun and games. LEt the GAMBLING BEGIN!!....the adults were playing cards with 10 ringgit per round bet, the youths were playing "gim ra mi" which is some sort of a card game featuring mah jong tiles with 50 cents per lost bet and the little tiddlywinks were (believe it or not) playing mahjong with chocolates bet. Everyone enjoyed themselves except the losers. Gambling seasion ended at the stroke of midnight and we left for home eagerly anticipating another seasion tommorow.

Day 2:
Woke up and went to our local mamak for breakfast. After collecting some ang pows, we headed of to another uncle house for lunch. Food here was less fattenning and much easier for the stomach. We had:
1) Chicken nuggets and sausages
2) Chicken Curry
3) Fried Rice
4) Fried Kuey teow
5) wu tau koh (Radish cake)
6) Whole lot of other bits and pieces which i dont remember because whenever i look down on the food i only see my tummy
After lunch, i decided enough was enough, no more food for the whole year!!!...so i did not do anything the whole day except sleep, watch some telly and count my ang pau's...

Day 3
Today is day 3 and i just had nasi lemak tambah telur, sotong and fried chicken for breakfast. Tonight would be another big dinner in my anutie house and to say im looking forward to it would be an understatment.You see, eating is what CNY is all about..forget about all the festivities, dragon dance and what not...it all boils down to the number of wan tons you stuff in your mouth. So, gong xi fa cai to everyone and keep those mouths pumping.... Here's a few pics..