Meri Kurisumasu With Iron Chef Klang

Served, swiped from williamnyk on Flickr.

According to the duty roster, it was my turn with hospitality ministry, so I was at church again on Christmas morning. But in actual fact, I had been helping out for the whole month due to higher absenteeism during the school holidays. Since mum had a hairdressing appointment at 2:00pm at IOI Mall, we had lunch there after church. Been ages since I ate at Esquire Kitchen. Business at that branch was quite brisk. We ordered the two-person value meal that consisted of chicken rice, sour vegetables and Foochow fishballs. I liked the fishballs. Wasn't too sweet and didn't have the over-powering aroma of sesame oil. But I couldn't same the same about the sour vegetables. Below par. No base broth and just sweetened with sugar. However, overall a good deal.



After settling mum down at the saloon, went to have milk tea with caramel pudding at Dong Cha with SK, CK and Apollo. Also did some shopping at Daiso. By 4:30pm, mum had completed her chemical treatment. SK sent Apollo home (he was supposed to join us for dinner but FFK at the last minute!) and mum and I went to do some grocery shopping at Jusco. Christmas dinner was arranged at SK's home. Among the guests were mum and I, TZ, Medie and most-importantly Gratitude aka Iron Chef Klang. He was the star of the night preparing an Italian two-course dinner. Bless his soul, he even went to the trouble of preparing an IBS-compliant version of everything for SK!





Even with just two hours of sleep, he managed to whip up mackerel ravioli with roasted pumpkin ragu and pork escalope in balsamic wine reduction with her potatoes, orange glazed carrots and roasted fennel. On the other hand, SK prepared fried fish and grilled chicken wings. Since it was a dinner for seven and SK had a limited supply of plates, we had to eat one dish, wash and clear before the second dish could be served! The plating process really reminded me of an episode Iron Chef! Honestly looked like a scene from Kitchen Stadium. Gratitude was a also a bit flustered that SK's home did not have any Christmas decorations and the table did not have a centerpiece. :P. Even the carols had to come from YouTube. LOL. We had our yum seng with a bottle or red wine from TZ. At the end of the night, we had gone through another bottle of white wine and a pitcher of Absolut vodka with mixer.



Our hostess even went to the extent of changing into a dinner dress halfway through. Huhuhu. My mother was quite impressed with Gratitude's cooking. And she noticed how dainty his hands and fingers were. Like a princess. :P. During our drinking session, we whacked a packet of Menglembu groundnuts and slices of French sausages. Cam-whored, cam-whored and cam-whored. A nice close to the night.