Surprise? What surprise?

Had a little dinner party this evening. Guests just left. Best part was it was a lovely slow dinner and not too much food to prepare. I put together the dinner all within an hour. Also, little princess was entertained for 3hrs just playing her UNO card game. Pity the one who had to play it with her, except during mealtime.

I made a simple pasta dish, mini pizzas and some d-i-y tacos. The tacos were very well-received and I guess most of us are sick of Chinese food by now, so it was something different for our taste buds. There wasn't excessive food for the 6 of us and almost everything was wiped out except the pasta which we can have tomorrow.

We had a little cake for hubby to celebrate his birthday this week and princess chose a chocolate banana cake from Awfully Chocolate. It was a surprise thingy but she accidentally exposed it to Daddy when they were out for lunch today. However, thank God she didn't mention the cake, so that was the surprise.

We bought the topping for the cake last week and I initially wanted to bake something but decided not to go through all that trouble. I picked up a cake on the spur of the moment, when I passed by the shop yesterday, and it was real lucky that I did, as I am not up to baking cakes today. I was just too tired this morning.

Everyone loved the cake but I'm not a fan of their chocolate banana cake, even though I like bananas. I would have chosen the plain chocolate. We also had some lovely very sweet Korean strawberries. They are the only ones I will eat. :)

Reunion Dinner - Part 2

Well, I don't really want to post about the dinner itself, as the offerings are similar to my first steamboat dinner at home.

What I will share instead, is the tossing of the Yu Sheng (raw fish salad) - a Chinese New Year must have. It is a uniquely Singaporean dish created by 4 master chefs. Please read here for more info on Yu Sheng. Dad got it from Meidi-ya, a Japanese supermarket chain.

There's also the Chendol Agar-Agar which I saw from Peony's blog. (I got the serrated knife, Peony, it's gorgeous). I made it this morning to bring to dinner tonight. It turned out great, not too sweet.

Marina at Keppel

Today was the official opening of the Marina at Keppel by our Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. Regretfully, we missed the celebrations this morning as we had classes. However, we look forward to next week when the Clippers begin their journey, flagging off from the marina.

The Clippers are berthed at the marina till the day they depart which is next Sunday so try to catch a glimpse of them before then.

Here's our representative in the Clipper race - our Uniquely Singapore team.

One for those from Western Australia. ;)

Sis is leaving to go back to Perth tomorrow morning. :( Time sure flies so fast. First was the anticipation of her return and how quickly the time flew by and now it's time for her to go home once more. We won't see her till year end. Hopefully she'll be able to return then. I didn't even manage to have a steamboat dinner for her as there was so much to occupy me in the time she was here. Well, I believe the next time she's back I will have a lot more time to plan one.

However, I did manage to bake some cuppies for her February birthday, way way in advance. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that great. First time trying out a recipe from my new Cupcakes book. The cake was kind of dry but the frosting was nice.

This is the part I most looked forward to today. :D Usually dad will celebrate our birthdays by taking us out for a meal but in this case, he decided to cook and have dinner at home instead. He made sis' favourite prawns, bought some bbq chicken and otah from a Nasi Padang stall, cooked the veggies, some Japanese fry and an omelette for princess. And we all had a great delicious dinner. The chicken was so sedap and so were the prawns. And, as there were lazy bones amongst us, he did everyone a favour and peeled the shells off the prawns prior to cooking. ;)

Check out this very beautiful rosy mango. I couldn't get over the colour of it. Reminds me of an apple.

Time to blow out the candle.

Happy birthday in advance, dear sis. Hope you have a safe flight home. Can't wait to see you again. We never spend enough time with each other each trip. Hope next trip will enable us to do that.

Just want to share a beautiful sunset. Photo courtesy of dad.