Guess who's coming for dinner?

I had a dinner party tonight and I think the most number of people in my apartment at one time.



I spent all morning cleaning my place up (I even hung my Oz flag outside my apartment so the others could find my place okay), went to the gym, bought groceries and cooked up a mini storm in my mini kitchen. I made beef rendang, chicken & potato curry, some prawn & squid sambal dish (all courtesy of Brahim's curry pastes), bruschetta, a normal salad (broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, tomato with seasame dressing and a cucumber salad (with garlic and yoghurt). I also assembled a nibblies platter with crackers, camembert cheese, that laughing cow cheese, dried persimmon, dried fig and fresh strawberries. I also got Just Juice(!!) and a bottle of Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Shiraz from the foreign food store. Hmm Mmm

Cheryl brought tortellini with tomato basil sauce, Hana made stewed apples with custard (I'd forgotten how good hot custard is), Kana brought Beard Papa's chou-creams (these cream puffs are heavenly, not too sickening creamy but nice light custardy creamy), Miwako made chirazushi (yummo - my favourite! I was told this is a popular dish eaten for Dolls Festival) and rose wine, Sue Yen brought a sponge roll cake and Leigh brought a bottle of Wyndham Estate Bin 333 Pinot Noir with a selection of Cadbury chocolates. Hmm Mmm

Sue Yen wanted to take a photo so I quickly reached for the closest utensil to look all 'pro-chef-like' but I grabbed it funny and I look like The Penguin

Hana & Miwako

Cheryl & I kampai-ing our first bruschetta

Sam, Leigh & Kana

Miwako, Hana & Sue Yen

There was so much food. Yay for leftovers, don't have to cook for a week! We were all stuffed and just chilled and chatted. It was a nice change just relaxing in a living room and not in a noisy restaurant. Conversations included Fredrik in my toilet, Hana's starch ball experiment, the 'gun show', cassis - the alcoholic ribena and what is it? Being the killer sleuths we are, Cheryl and I jumped onto my computer and found out that cassis is the blackcurrent, and is classified in the genus Ribes - hence...Ribena!!! *high fives Cheryl* Geeks with nothing else better to do? Never! But we thought we should clarify it and explain our beloved Ribena to Kana and Miwako.

"Duhhh, it's made from Ribenaberries, didn't you ever watch the TV commercial? They like live together in a Ribenaberry bush and have parties and wear leaves as clothes."

Like all good parties, there had to be a spilt drink. It was red wine on my cream couch, cream carpet and blue cushion. Thanks for keeping it real, Leigh haha. I was in too much shock that I forgot to take a photo - it would have been quite funny actually. Cheryl immediately jumped onto my computer and google-ed 'remove red wine stains.' haha

In the end it was all good and Miwako did an amazing job, we placed the table over the wet patch and continued with dessert.

My cushion in the shower with salt

Thanks for the great night guys!! Let's do it again sometime soon.