Dinner at Chong Pang

Had dinner with Slug at Chong Pang steamboat restaurant, which had moved from Marina South to the old Turf Club. Just when I thought the Marina Bay developments will permanently evict our favourite foodie haunt, we were blessed to come across it again!

Same old ingredients (especially my favourite chicken shreds in all sorts of flavours - chilli, sesame oil, black pepper and satay), except that the price has increased and ice-cream is no longer included (free flow of drinks though). We tucked in with nostalgic relish, reminiscing those days at the crowded Marina South steamboat restaurants and its casual atmosphere. As the restaurant has been occupying the current venue for barely 2 months, there were not many people and it was quieter.

Ready to start the feast

Aftermath - egg shells, chicken bones and lots of charred bits on the grill plate

Everything was typical BBQ and steamboat ingredients except for the crab which was somewhat disturbing - it had a strong ammonia smell, akin to the smell emanating from toilet bowls which have not been flushed for days. Maybe that was the reason why I had a mini diarrhoea later in the night.

Night Out with Daphne and Peiying

Finally hit the club after a 14-week hiatus. Was excited at visiting Powerhouse, but somehow, things seemed to have changed.

For one, Bellini was replaced by Firefly, which obviously was not interested in contributing to the Ladies' Night cheer by demanding us to pay the cover charge. That left us with only 5 free drinks from Powerhouse on Wednesdays, bummer!

And just as we suspected, all the ladies (some tackily dressed) flocked to Powerhouse. After we got in, we got a shock - at 11.30pm, what should be a dim and dizzy dancefloor with shimmying bodies and an intermix of Madonna and Sean Paul, turned out to be a quiet aerobics lesson delivered by some ang moh hip-hop guys. We stared at one another in utter disbelief. Did so many things change while we were gone?!

The queue for the free drinks got longer and moved slower as well. Took almost 30 minutes to finally get our booze, and luckily by 12am, the aerobics class ended and the desperate dancers infiltrated onto the dance floor.

Me and Dappy (my affectionate nickname for Daphne)

Me and Peiying

The music was a tad disappointing, and there was a couple (a Caucasian man and a Chinese slut) who was making such a nuisance out of themselves by intertwining their bodies together, groping all over and bumping into us. The free show was quite interesting initially, but we were soon disgusted. Decided that maybe we were not drunk enough (how to, with only 5 drinks!), so left for a toilet break and more drinks.

Dappy wanted to usurp my drinks coupons because we all knew that I have a tendency to start losing my memory with every shot, but ... isn't that the highlight?

Ended the night a bit tipsy, but sober enough to escape paying for the cab fare. Haha!

Night Out with HTF

It was the holidays and Practicum had ended, and the 6 of us (the HTF) decided to hold a barbeque ... because we missed one another!

We intended to hold it at Paolo's chalet, but he suddenly came down with high fever and checked out early, leaving an angry Gavin stranded with kilograms of marinated chicken wings and sambal sotong. To pacify him, Ai Kit and I decided to continue to hold the barbeque, but on a primitively self-constructed pit at Ai Kit's house in Simpang Bedok.

The three of us went to shop for the barbeque foodstuffs and other essentials at a nearby supermarket, which we then brought to her house to prepare. Then it was the setting up of the pit at a remote corner downstairs.

Gavin setting up the pit using two aluminium foil trays and bricks

Gavin proceeding to light up the charcoal

Foods to be barbequed included chicken wings, sambal sotong, prawns, crabsticks, hotdogs, otahs, sotong balls, and my newly created savoury treat: golden mushrooms wrapped with bacon strips. Ai Kit's mother was kind to fry us a tray of beehoon.

We started setting up the fire at 6pm, and finally managed to get some of the charcoal pieces glowing weakly after 90 minutes of furious fanning and lighting up of numerous fire starters. We were getting increasingly famished and so impatient that without waiting for the raging flames to die down, we had dumped the wire gauze onto the tray and proceeded to barbeque the food. It was a bad move because very soon, the flames disintegrated the aluminium foil that lined the wire gauze and left a sooty crust on the hotdogs. Yucks.

Night had fallen and still no fire

At 8pm, the three of us were seated by the fire, cooking and eating away. We certainly drew many curious looks from the passers-by, who seemed to be wondering how come we had the audacity to hold a barbeque in the residential area (and on such a pathetic self-made 'pit'!).

What a spread!

The ESE trainees, Marie, Song Guang and Jeff, joined us at about 9pm because they had to take the grammar test that started at 6.30pm, and then rushed over all the way from NIE. Xiao Fen and Serene joined us much later, bringing along the mango pudding that Xiao Fen had made for us. As we ate, we exchanged updates about one another, NIE and the sucky school, as well as bitched about the sucky school staff (I had the most opinions to contribute, and with much agitation).

Me, Serene, Ai Kit, Xiao Fen and Marie seated on Ai Kit's straw mat

Jeff could not hide his hunger

A group shot in the darkness

I must admit, Gavin really could marinate chicken wings and sotong. Tasty! I could not understand why Rockhampton's hotdogs were so salty (than usual) and why the bacon strips did not sizzle like they do on frying pans. And I could not understand why they did not buy any ice! It was a displeasure drinking lukewarm Coke.

In the end, we finished all the food and incurred no food wastage. We cleared everything up - threw away the litter, picked up food bits from the ground, extinguished and disposed of the glowing embers safely and even washed the ground of its soft drinks spills. We then played cards till late into the night.

Back to NIE next week, and we will all still be meeting up during our own Contact Time, ha!