Frannywanny

The Chinese New Year celebration goes on and on here in Singapore. It's pretty much similar to how us, Filipinos, celebrate Christmas! People would take time out from work to go on long vacation leaves, others would go home to their hometown, others would just stay in town and spend time with their family. However, what we notice is that in most of the Chinese restaurants here, even in small neighborhood eateries, families would gather around the table to toss shredded vegetables and seafood as they shout out their wishes for the coming year. This is called Loi Hei (in Cantonese), Yu Sheng (in Mandarin) or Prosperity Toss (in English). This is a practice commonly done in Singapore and in some parts of Malaysia. Last Monday, I had the chance to experience my first loi hei with my new colleagues. We headed to a Chinese restaurant in Clarke Quay and were presented with a plate filled with colorful vegetables like carrots, radish, red peppers and a lot more. The highlight of the Y...

Tonight, we bid the hopping Rabbit good bye and welcome the fiery Water Dragon at the struck of twelve midnight. While last year was a pretty happy and prosperous one for us, we are filled with more optimism and good wishes for the coming New Year!! :) For our family, we have scheduled our annual Chinese New Year celebration tomorrow as it is also my dear Mommy's birthday! My sister, Paul and I have been busy completing our lunch menu and we are just soooo excited for it! Truly a double lucky day for my Mom, don't you think? To make it extra lucky, our menu has 8 different variants : Cha Misua, Crunchy Calamares, Stuffed Chicken (Pat Po Kwe), Sauteed Prawns, Lengua with Mushroom, Spicy Eggplant Hot Pot, Dumplings (Jiao Zi) and my Kongkong's signature Pata Tim ! My mouth waters just at the thought of our lunch menu! It will be a mix of dishes prepared here at home, some to be prepared by Paul's talented Manang and others store-bought. :) It will be truly a busy m...

Last week, Paul and I were privileged to be invited to an intimate dinner to sample a number of signature dishes which will only be available for a very limited time at the Jasmine Restaurant of the New World Hotel in Makati . From September 19 to October 1 , that's a total of 13 days only, Chef Wong Kam Chung from Shanghai will serve his specialties to the patrons of the restaurant. Being the executive chef of the famous YUE 1525 in New World Hotel in Shanghai, Chef Wong is a veteran in preparing a number of Cantonese dishes including his special Double Boiled Whelk Soup with Chinese Herbs and a lot more. Since the drive from my office to Makati took a while, we arrived quite hungry and ready for our lauriat dinner. We began with two appetizers which were totally different from the usual cold cuts platter that we're all used to. We had Lotus roots stuffed with Glutinous Rice (Php. 480). A long platter where you get eight bite-sized pieces. It has a very sweet taste...