Housewarming pictures
I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t have any pictures of people who came to my housewarming party. But, that means I had too much fun to take out my camera to snap away. I did have a couple of blurry ones but they look too dark to post.
From 11am to 630pm on Saturday, I chopped, marinated, skewered, grilled, stir-fried my guts out. I looked forward to having a big cookout and even jumped out of bed at 9am just to make the apartment party-ready. Cooking for 14 people is no small feat so I decided on easy dishes like fried rice and noodles and since it is summer, grilled chicken wings and kebabs seemed the perfect, easy choice.
My little Japanese fish grill certainly worked hard as there were endless batches of food going in and out. At 430pm, I felt a little stressed as I hadn’t even got halfway through the wings, and the kebabs looked like an insurmountable mountain of meat and veggie to climb.
I just took a deep breath and told myself, “It’s just food.” And the kangaroo was upbeat as usual, “Even if the food tastes terrible, there’s lots of booze to make up for it!”
This is my mini buffet…
My pretend Hokkien noodles. I scoured the Internet for a recipe that can be done at home and found a prawn-and-chicken stock one which looked easy. In the end, I think it just came across as stir-fried egg noodles that kind of looked like pad thai without the chilli.
I ran 15 minutes late to pick up my friends from the train station and zipped back into preparing the kebabs. After that, I just hung out with my friends and didn’t care to fuss about. I didn’t want to be one of those harried hosts who wants to make sure everyone has everything they need. Let’s just say buffet-and-bar-style works the best for casual dos at home.
One of the highlights of the evening was to make okonomiyaki, or Japanese savoury pancake/pizza.
Let me just clarify this bacon and cabbage okonomiyaki was made by my Japanese friend who taught me the finer points of how thick the batter should be and that the mayo should be an on-the-side option.
Another Japanese pal also suggested the nori (seaweed) provided in the set box wouldn’t taste good with it so we skipped that. I made another one but it didn’t turn out as round. In fact, we tried to make it into a star but the batter had already set in so it looked like a lopsided pillow. It was yummy all the same. The kangaroo requested for this to be a regular dinner appearance since we got a kickass Toshiba electric grill for this purpose.
Here’s how the box set looks like. This is the only brand I have seen in my neighbourhood.
Another delicious contribution was made by a Singaporean friend who whipped up some laksa.
I don’t have the end result as I was preoccupied with eating it!
Everyone sat in the terrace and there was a breeze most of the time. The atmosphere was fun and light, especially when the cocktails flowed.
The kangaroo started making slushy banana daiquiris and soon mango coladas and slushy chocolate cocktails were being blended. Oishikatta…
After midnight, groups of people started to leave but the kangaroo’s Aussie posse remained while they poked around his weight set and chugged down more whiskey. The kangaroo stumbled into our futon and woke up not remembering how he got there. A sign of a good party, eh?
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