Chinese New Year Dinner

It has become an annual affair now to have our Chinese New Year dinner and since this year I have my own place, I hosted the dinner at my flat.

I used to decorate the house with Chinese New Year decorations back home in Malaysia together with my sisters and brother... looking back, I realised how much I took all those little moments for granted... I missed celebrating Chinese New Year at home!!

Deciding that I'll cheer myself up a bit, I went to Chinatown to get some Chinese New Year decorations for my flat to give it a little festive feel... but sad to say... due to the exorbitant prices... this is all I managed!

Er... that's the best I could do!

Anyway... back to the dinner... it was a really long day! I started out as early as 6am to go to Billingsgate market for fresh seafood... and then the usual preparations for the steamboat dishes...

And this is the results of labouring in the kitchen the whole day!

At about 7pm, my guests started arriving... and all of a sudden, my tiny flat became so lively and noisy! :) And some of them actually brought mandarin oranges and chocolates with them like what you usually do when you go and 拜年!

And hehehe... I made everyone wear red that night... my living room was brimming with blobs of red! :P

And due to popular demand, I made the mango sago dessert again...

After dinner, we all started our gambling session (how can a Chinese New Year pass by without gambling???). From in-between to poker, we gambled all the way to 5am in the morning!!!

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed themselves... after all, I don't even know whether everyone would still be around for the next Chinese New Year!