Triple Traditional Cheena Birthday!

Otousan already stated since our last birthday get-together in March that he wanted to have a Chinese dinner celebration for his birthday - the last time we had a round dinner table gathering was during lad's birthday in...2006? 2005? Oh goodness when was that dinner followed by Bangkok Jazz?!

Anyways, our birthday celebrations have been long dinner tables for a while now, and otousan's points out that we all don't get to really talk with everybody else, thus the round table style where everyone can listen in to everyone else's conversation.

So the mantle of OC was taken up by esteban, and did a great job of finding a halal Chinese restaurant and getting us all a room, and suggesting a theme that wasn't too far-fetched that would make everyone quail and not play along (no, we don't think everyone will dress up for a Goth theme). And everyone did dress up in traditional cheena garb!

As this party clashed with another birthday party on the same day, the Chief and us did the (as we think of it) 'married couple going for clashing weddings thing' - Chief went to represent us both on that side while we represented on this side.

The halal Chinese restaurant turned out to be Bangsar Seafood. The table was big enough to fit the 14 of us...

...with a lazy Susan on it, and a decorative piece that was placed slightly off-center that caused 'Vin to get so worked up over it because it was not properly centered, but because 'Vin just had his op he couldn't very well reached over to fix the centerpiece (and no one bothered about fixing it either haha).

Appetizers of kacang and lotus slices to whet our appetite.

We'd all chose the 'Great Value Promotion Package B'...

...which starts off with the [Chef Amuse Bouche]. Of course, being rather the meat eater we would have rather the cucumber be swapped for more dim sum but it did help build the appetite slowly.

After that, the [Shark's Fin Soup With Crab Meat]. As these things goes, we didn't taste shark's fin (or not in sufficiently large amounts) nor did we taste crab meat.

While we were all helping ourselves to second helpings (or more) of the shark's fin and crab meat soup, we saw two gigantic paus being brought in. Turns out to be the [Wok Fried Chicken On Homemade Bread]. Think large siew pau.

The [Steamed Sea Garoupa Fish 'Singapore' Style] was good. It's rather an odd thing how when we were young we hated fish and veg.

And the [Wok Fried Prawns With Dried Chilli] could have been better. The sauce was good, the prawn meat, meh.

Clean plates were given for the [Deep Fried Beancurd With Homemade Paste]...

...and clean bowls for the [Stir Fried Egg Noodles With Snow Vegetables And Shredded Chicken]. Two helpings. We think it was because it was salty enough to keep us going for more.

Desserts took hold as it was time for cake!

Followed by the essential group photo.

Then it was back to the desserts that we saw.

For the [Chinese Pastry Combination], the green pastry was, of course, yummy while we cannot remember much about the other one. Lotus paste, was it? Something sweet, of course.

And to finish off, the [Boiled Water Chestnut With Egg]. And most of us thought that the egg was actually crushed ice. Luckily it was only lukewarm.

There was a blackout somewhere early during the dinner that had some of us thinking that they'd turn off the lights and was bringing in the cake, and a rousing verse or two of Happy Birthday actually started before it died off. While the power came back on soon enough there was a problem getting the air-conditioning to start again! We would rather the lights were out but the a/c running. Thankfully things were soon rectified, and dinner was merry until the waitress interrupted our birthday-present giving ceremony to hand us the bill and inform us that they were closing soon.

More May babies to come!