Guests!!

Last Friday (12th Sept), we were invited to a church member's house for pizza but we ended up having Gary's dealers over for dinner. So guess what? I had to step up to the challenge of planning the menu and preparing food for 8 people. 

It's not a lot of people, but it's the first time I had to prepare everything by myself with no additional help - from marketing to prepping and cooking. Stress stress!!!

Here's the menu for the night:

1. Hainanese Chicken Rice (Primataste pack - courtesy of Renee)

2. Fried Bee Hoon

3. Braised eggs and tau kwa

4. Vegetables curry with french loaf

5. Bak ku teh soup (Vegetarian)

6. Dessert - Vanilla Pound Choco-chip Cupcake

I had a terrible start in the morning when I was preparing the braised eggs. My hard boiled eggs were not peeling prettily. Arrghh.. Out of 24 eggs, only 10 came out almost perfect. If the  eggs do not have a smooth surface, not only will they look ugly in the dark sauce, they won't absorb the sauce as readily. That's the beginning of my stressful day.

Once I reached back home after marketing, which is about 12.45pm, I had my lunch which I bought from the supermarket. It's something like 菜饭 - rice and 3 dishes, all for 6RMB. I could barely finish half of it - the portions are huge. 

Anyway, after that I started baking my dessert, which turned out great. In the midst of preparing the batter, I was boiling some more eggs and peeling them. This time it was better - 13 out of 15 eggs turned out ok. And I managed to find Tau pok and tau kwa in the supermarket, so I threw them into the braised eggs pot. 

Here's the completed dish: 

I got rave reviews for this dish! Thanks Mom for the recipe!

I was multi-tasking a lot - while I was preparing the braised eggs, I was also boiling the chicken for the chicken rice. While the 2 dishes were boiling or simmering, I was cutting vegetables for the curry. Busy as a bee...

I have to say though, that it was relatively easy to prepare the chicken rice as everything was provided in the pack, I just had to get the chicken and rice. The box asked for 1.5kg chicken, so I got about 1.2kg worth of chicken breast and some drumsticks because I don't know how to chop up a chicken. However, I neglected to minus off the weight of the bones, so we had a lot of excess chicken meat left. They finished the rice though, which was really yummy.

Next was cooking the vegetable curry. This was a first. I have not cooked vegetable curry before so I had to call home for help. Thank God, for my mom, who guided me through the steps on how to cook veggie curry.

After cooking it in a wok, I transferred to my slow cooker to simmer and soften for a while more.

Bee Hoon was next - lots of chopping also. Luckily I managed to fined shredded carrot so that saved me some time and effort.  Once again, I had to ask my mom for help. My arm nearly broke cooking this dish, as I had to constantly stir the bee hoon and veggies to make sure it doesn't burn at the bottom. But I forgot 1 important ingredient while I was cooking this dish. That explains why it was a little on the 'healthy' side - not very salty.

But it also got quite good response because it's very hard to find 米粉 here. You can find 粉丝 (which is 'Tang hoon') readily though.

At 6.30pm, I panicked because I was running late on my preparation. I should have finished then because that was the time set for the dinner but at that time, my bak ku teh wasn't cooked yet and I haven't prepared the frosting for the cupcake. And Gary wasn't home at 5.45pm like he said, to help clean up the house and set up the table and stuff. He arrived about 6.30pm coz of a meeting that ended late and also because of the heavy evening traffic. 

Thankfully in the end, the guests arrived at about 7.30pm, which bought us enough time to finish preparing and setting up. But I still didn't manage to prepare the frosting. *Sigh*

Anyway, once he got back, he started to tidy up and clear the living room, prepare the table, while William took evidence of my hard work and mess in the kitchen. 

               

Look at the whole dish of chicken meat next to the green Prima taste box. By the way, the hainanese chicken rice mix pack is selling for 65RMB here. Pricey I say.

We borrowed a portable table from a friend so that we could seat 8 people, and chairs from William's apartment. Luckily he stays next door, so it's easy to borrow chairs and utensils from his apartment.

All in all, the dinner is a success. Except, I got a bad back-ache standing  at the stove from 1.30pm till 7pm and I haven't had a drop of water during the entire time. I couldn't eat very much at the dinner but I'm glad it's over. And I get to sit down and drink some water to soothe my patched throat.

Needless to say, Gary volunteered to do the washing up, so I could rest. And William helped to clear up too. 

My man in action... He also vacuumed and mopped the floor. He's the man!

1st Pizza Delivery in Chengdu

After such a busy morning, I didn't feel like cooking dinner and anyway Gary's gonna be home tonight at about 8.30pm so we decided to order our 1st pizza delivery. 

It was such a funny experience that we agreed that we should blog it, so here it is.

I called and the person who picked up the phone spoke in English, and I thought to myself, 'Oh good, I can converse in English and not crack my head over how to say certain things in chinese'. 

So I said 'I will like a chicken pizza' and he said 'ok.' 

And when I said 'I will like another vegetable pizza', he paused and answered 'huh?' 

For a moment, I thought they don't do Veggie pizzas. Then I repeated again my order but he still can't get it. 

So I said ‘蔬菜’. And he went 'Oh 蔬菜 pizza, ok'. 

Then I said 'I want Fish and Chips.' He didn't get it though I repeated it twice. I was trying to translate it to chinese so I tried '鱼片和薯条.' And he went '薯条? Ok!' 

I nearly fainted. 

I said 'No, not fries, I want fish and chips.' I think he really couldn't get what I wanted so he asked me to wait while he asked his co-worker if they have that item. And when another person picks up the phone, I had to repeat my order all over again. But at least he got my order for fish & chips down. 

Phew, finally, with my order taken and address noted, I asked if there's any delivery charges, and he said 'No delivery charges, you just pay for our taxi fare to deliver your food.'

I paused for a while and confirmed what he said and also find out how much the taxi fare will cost. (If not, they ke-tok me, I also don't know.)

So he calculated the cost of the food and told me my order came up to 170RMB, so I can round up the figure to 200RMB to cover the taxi fare. Now, I think you can only find this in China, where prices are not really fixed and you never know when you are being fleeced. 

When the food arrived about 45 minutes later, the guy showed me the receipt for the food only and asked me for 200RMB. So I asked him for the taxi receipt and he said he forgot to ask from the taxi driver.

So I asked how much was your taxi and he said 13RMB. Firstly, how can I verify that he is speaking the truth? The taxi fare could be under 10RMB but he could quote a higher price without me knowing. Secondly 170 + 13 = 183RMB. I told him he should give me 17RMB change back. He looked so blank when I said that. 

I was so assertive that I even calculated for him and insisted to have my change of 17RMB back (not that I need the money, but I refused to be fleeced). I was so insistent that he took out whatever notes he had in his pocket (which was not enough to make 17RMB, by the way) and asked if I have small change, which i didn't. By that time, I was on a roll, and I couldn't back down and say forget it, keep the change. Until he said '170 + 13 + another 13 for return fare = 196RMB, I should give you only 4RMB change.'

'Oh.' I said. I forgot about the return trip. In my own little mind, I was thinking about the food and the taxi he took and that was it. I felt so bad at putting him at a spot and wasting his time, so I apologized and told him to keep the change. And he left.

Now, at this point, who's to verify if his taxi fare is really 13RMB in the first place and that he will be taking a taxi back? So I comforted myself by the thought that it's not a huge amount - just take the 30RMB as delivery charges. Now if they had set that as a standard, wouldn't that be much easier? *Sigh*

Anyways, here's our dinner:

Check out the really small portion of fish from the fish and chips order on the left side.

Outing with CIWC

Today has been really interesting. The CIWC organised a trip to the local wholesale wet market called 青石桥. And I went. I have to learn at some point to buy salmon for Gary, so here's my chance. 

My oh my, what an experience..... The market is big and has 2 storeys. On the 1st floor is where you find your seafood and meat (the meat is located in another wing of the main market) and there are lots of stuff that were squirming around on trays and buckets, etc.. I saw the meat market from afar, and I swore to myself that I will NEVER go anywhere near it. Different parts of the animals are hanging on rusty skewers and hooks.... a glance is enough to give me nightmares and the seafood area is enough to make me nauseous. 

I usually don't mind going to the wet market back in Singapore, after all, I made those trips with my mom frequent enough. But the wet market here has an awful stench. I cannot put a finger to it but it definitely wasn't nice for me. I saw lots of turtles, I think they are widely consumed here. Lots of crustaceans like crabs, lobsters - different sizes and also prawns. Fish of course can be found here, though not all are fresh - some are frozen. And I don't know what are those stuff that were in the buckets and trays, squirming around.

The 2nd storey is where I feel much more at ease. It's the fresh vegetables market and canned food section. There're lots of fresh vegetables and it's a place I will visit again for its variety. And I also found canned mushrooms! They are hard to come by here but who actually eats canned mushrooms when they have so many varieties of fresh mushroom. I must be crazy, you think. But I guess somehow, the canned mushroom brought comfort to me coz it's something familiar and a common thing that I eat back home in Singapore.

The canned food section is also not too bad, we can find a lot of western stuff, huge cans of tomato sauces, mayonnaise, ketchup, canned fruits, fruit sauces, etc.

I will take some pictures next time when I go with Gary coz I was so overwhelmed with the smell on the 1st floor and the exploration on the 2nd floor that I didn't take out the camera.

After that, we were brought to another place where we can find food stuff that are sold to hotels and restaurants. So I guess it should be cheaper or provided more variety. 

We were brought into a low-rise condo area where their storage rooms were. There were lots of stuff and we went into a room full of chocolate! Once you cross over the entrance-way, the aroma of chocolates just wafts to your nose. It was like heaven. 

I had to restrain myself from buying tons of it. Good thing for me was, the chocolate there were in blocks or button drops. I don't need them coz I still have those that Auntie Jess supplied. And the only dark chocolate chips they had was way too expensive...600RMB for 5 kg. It must be some good quality chocolate. So I just got my brown sugar and left.

Lunch was at a much-heard Indian restaurant called Tandoor.

I had been craving for Indian food since I watched a show on Discovery Travel & Living introducing various Indian spices and the food they cook with the spices. And my craving was satiated for the time being. The food here was really good and I have to remind myself to bring Gary there!

Fireworks!

For the past week, I have been hearing some sounds which seems to be coming from outside that sounded like heavy machine sounds from the construction site nearby but it also sounded vaguely like fireworks. As I will usually hear them when I am preparing for bed (about 10pm), I don't bother checking them out. Rather I'm too scaredy-cat to draw open the curtains to see what they are, for fear of  some morbid monster I may find hovering around my windows (I blame it on Gary coz he's gone off and left me alone in the creaky house).

Anyway, I was waiting for Gary to call on this particular night, which was way past my bedtime, when I heard the sounds again. The curtains in the study room was drawn open so I just stood up a little to see what is going on, when I got my answer to the mysterious sounds.....

Fireworks!

... by the river (I like to call it a 'long kang' though)

It was beautiful and of course, I ran to get the camera and took some shots. Apparently fireworks here occur quite frequently and this one lasted for about 3 to 5 minutes.

Dinner with the BIG Boss

There was an official dinner organized with Gary's CAT office's colleagues and bosses, to welcome the team to Chengdu as well as to appreciate the efforts of those who have worked tirelessly to set up the office here. The original plan was to exclude all spouses and children so that the men can do what they want, but eventually we get to go too!! Lol

Here's the view from the room where we are having the dinner - HUGE garden with a big pond to boot.. and the glass houses look very cozy.

The View

The Room

Since we were the first ones to arrive, we chilled at the really plush and comfy sofa in the room.

Great colour combi rite?

1st Coffee Morning by CIWC

In case you are wondering, CIWC stands for Chengdu International Women's Club and you can find out more about them through their website www.chengduiwc.com.

They hold monthly events that all female expatriates here in Chengdu can attend. And today was the 1st coffee morning for me. Today's event was held at The Bookworm. And boy was it overwhelming! For the 1st time in 2 months, I saw lots of foreigners, including fellow Singaporeans and women of all nationalities. It was just great!

Coffee was on CIWC, but too bad I don't drink coffee. Maybe i should.. (just kidding)

There were over 60 of us and I got to meet new people. 1 of which is a Singaporean who has been here for 5 months and stays at The Waterfront too. I also made friends with 2 korean students, just slightly younger than me. And a very friendly HongKonger who was staying in Melbourne before moving to Chengdu. I also met a few foreigners who stay at The WaterFront too. 

There are quite a lot of people whom I have yet to meet but I guess there is plenty of time for me to get acquainted with them. Till then...