CHINESE NEW YEAR EVE



What is Chinese New Year without mahjong? Haha! Well, unfortunately, we only have 3 person so the game had to be modified to be played. It is just like poker as 4 people is the perfect count. We played before the reunion dinner and later all the way to the early morning of the New Year.



I was leading in the first round. Check out that +64!!! The bad thing about playing with 3 people is the ease to predict your opponents' tiles. The final total score after three rounds is LL: +64, CH: -82 and DH: +18. I had a very bad last round with all the big bros not coming to me. I had to struggle with winning small.



The initial preparation for 3 dishes increased when my bro dropped by. He proposed we should have fried rice and since we have some leftover bakwa, there is nothing to lose. We ended with a dish of abalone, 2 vegetable dishes and a steamboat. We also had longan and peach with 7UP and Shandy as dessert.



My bro cooking his fried rice.







We had the abalone in the slow cooker since late afternoon.



We decide to have steamboat as the main dish.



Taiwanese sausage is one of the ingredients in the steamboat.



Japanese toufu.



Minced meat for the vegetable and mushrooms.





The sea asparagus is looking good.



Lee Ling in charge of the vegetable dishes.









The abalone served with cabbage.





We decided to use the dried bonito flakes, also called katsuobushi in Japanese in the steamboat. It was unfortunate that we forgot to have them as topping for the fried rice.



Fish maw for the soup.





The next morning, or should I say almost afternoon, we cooked the mee sua, a Foochow tradition dish to have for Chinese New Year with grandma's red rice wine. I guess the long noodle represent the long life we are wishing for. I may be wrong.



Chinese New Year is not so quiet in JB as expected. The battle at 12 midnight was quite good. We could hear fireworks everywhere as we also joined in the fun. As for the movies, we watched CJ7 and Ah Long Pte Ltd.