Our Chinese New Year Eve Reunion Dinner

Time to cook! The menu has been discussed and agreed on weeks before today and there is no turning back. We scrambled for the best seafood in Gadong Fish Market, shopped from morning to night to get new sets of the auspicious "red" attire for the new year...etc etc you name it! Now we're home and spring cleaning has been done, I think we're ready.

Before I embraced islam, the very much celebrated festive season was mostly Chinese New Year. Regardless of the religion I am in now, we're still celebrating it! This time, we do it for my mum! (We love you mummy!) I still cant help smiling when I heard my mum got all excited about my inlaws coming over to join us for reunion dinner. Rawan atiku mendangar. Whatever makes her happy, berkat jua bah anyway. Amin amin amin. :o)

How I see it, Reunion Dinners are similiar to any get-together. Something like Hari raya I would say. But the practise is that, after these dinners, you must have leftover for the next day. It symbolises continious flow of "reseki" the whole year. Among the other taboos are no fighting, scolding, shouting or any other negative actions/attitude to be displayed on new year it self. Or else, your life will be as such the whole entire year. Yesh, I dont want to go through that for very long. I will try to be on my best behaviour tomorrow!

And many thanks to Fel who dropped by earlier in the day with a box of sweet oranges! :o)

Initially, the dinner was supposed to be myself and my immediate family until my inlaws dropped by while we were busy cooking. Galat jua tu kalau inda invite so we extended the invitation lah. Hence, my "Self-service Table" on standby...

Arman *high* on milk! lol!

Tiger Prawns

Fancy some crabs?

Hubby takut2... or not...

Getting ready this fish for steaming...

prawns ready! Crabs ready!

Preping fish for Sweet and Sour (the sauce was the bomb!)


A little technique to ensure the steam stays put in the wok.

Mum chopping up the duck.

Food keeping warm before the actual dinner.

Aiman... all ready to eat. (actually he wanted me to take a picture of him when he saw me holding the camera!)

And there you go, the 10 auspicious dishes all ready to be makan! And Hubby cooked all most of the dishes. All that with a small stove (but we made a good team didnt we kan sayang?) hehe

Now, I know why this makes mum so happy. I would too when her kids prepared all (most of) these!

All in all, we had:
1. Steam Garoupa with Soy Sauce
2. Sweet and Sour Fish
3. Stir Fried Singapore Chilli Flower Crabs
4. Buttermilk Tiger Prawns
5.Mixed vegetables with Oyster Sauce
6. Sweet Corn Soup with Crab Meat
7. Stir Fried Beef with Leeks
8. Prawn Sauce Fried Chicken
9. Sambal Sotong
10. Crispy Duck


Nyamna kali ah.. *burrrrp* Alhamdullilah!

Bee-outch!