I decided to have an early Chinese New Year dinner with my room-mates, Tim and Letisha (2 co-workers) today. I know CNY isn't till two weeks but I figured that the Singaporeans would do something that weekend (and it's also President's Day weekend so onni might be coming down too). I didn't want to do it next week because it's Fast Sunday and I needed to taste the food before I serve, right? (:p) So CNY celebrations with my room-mates came early.
According to them, it was FANTASTIC. Score for me! And score for them for being able to eat quite authentic Chinese food! I sound so hao lian (arrogant) to say this but you have no idea how worried I was that they would not like the food.
I cooked rice, mah po tofu (thanks for the idea Clarissa onni) and boiled wan tons, and then because I had satay sauce and curry sauce, I made fake kebabs (made of chicken, beef, pineapple and red peppers) so that they could dip in. I was soooo worried that they wouldn't like the wan tons (meat ones ah, NOT the cheese one. Hee hee) and the tofu (hello?! Americans are reputed to dislike tofu right?) but they ATE EVERYTHING. Even the mah po tofu. I think it's because we cooked tofu in a different and nicer way. I also served some Singaporean biscuits which are very hard to describe and hard for you to understand, but anyway real Singapore biscuits that my mom had sent over and they liked it. Wow! Even I was impressed. And they showed genuine interest in getting to know more about the Chinese culture by asking me many questions.
And no, I refused to serve Fortune Cookies.
Then I gave them each a hong bao/ red packet containing not $$$ (not married, very bad luck one) but two Singaporean candies. Plus the girls got to pick one Chinese "thing" (fans, purses, an Oriental-design tissue box cover) to keep. I'm so glad my mom sent all these over to give away.
The only 2 things that didn't go well was
1) The Home Teachers (2 church guys assigned to visit us) came to visit. I don't mind them visiting but they came at the time that I had set aside to cook, so dinner was pushed back. Plus they stayed for close to an HOUR! Dinner was to be at 5pm because Kristi's boyfriend had to leave at 5.45, but because the visit took so long, I had to rush once they left to complete cooking.
2) Because I was in such a hurry, I couldn't cook everything I wanted, like the Vegetable Curry, real Teriyaki Chicken and the char siew (I completely forgot about the char siew. Ha ha!). Oh well, maybe another time.
Even though the food was slightly Americanized and not the real stuff you get at home (thank you to Lee Kum Kee sauces!), it was so fun to be able to cook for them and just share with them a part of my culture.
Labels: Room-mate gossip
posted by Funkee Ego @ 9:00 PM
3 Comments:
dude.your roommates are so fortunate to have a CNY dinner prepared entirely by you. good job man!!!!!!!!
p.s. how did you make the mapo tofu.
Or the mapo tofu very easy one, as long as you have the Lee Kum Kee Sauce. Hee hee! Just cook the gorund pork, then add the tofu and the sauce in. Very easy one. It's not like, very very nice one lah but nice enough.
wa, good job! i looking forward till when all my midterms end and i have time to cook decent asian food.
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