Fine Dining With Ribena

Read Bee Ree's account of the evening first (lots of pics there).

Yes, I admit I was half an hour early, because I didn't think the traffic along the way to her place would be so low that day (thanks to the previous weeks' riots, people are afraid to travel to KL on weekends). When I met Bee Ree, clad in a neat little black dress, and compared that to my casual jeans and old, faded shirt, I thought grimly - I should've known better. She tried her utmost best to convince me that she'd been wearing the dress the whole day and even did her grocery shopping in it, so it wasn't a big deal, it was just a plain dress, bla bla bla. Well, I wasn't convinced! A while later, I met Chef Tee Ree, who was busy in dinner preparation, but still could remember to remind Bee Ree to call the rest of the guests and ask them where they were and when they would arrive. One was on the way, the other was still at home. They arrived eventually, and made cheeky comments about it being rude to arrive early at the hosts' in Mexican culture. *cheh*

The dinner table was beautifully set for 5, with a lovely bunch of white and purple flowers in the middle and a single flower in the center of the professionally folded napkins on each plate. Bee Ree even took the trouble to print our names on little tags and placed one at each set to show where we'd be sitting. If you haven't seen this girl, you don't know what kua cheong is. Oh, did I mention the napkins matched the table cloth? *impressed* We poked our noses into the kitchen area where Chef was busy working and made more cheeky comments on Bee Ree slicing apples.

Dinner began shortly and what a feast it was! We didn't only have the best food cooked meticulously to perfection, but we had the utmost suitable drink to go with them - Ribena! I believe the poor Chef Tee Ree wasn't very pleased when we decided to take his painstakingly planned menu of fine-dining-quality dishes with this childish blackcurrent drink, but he good-naturedly allowed it to be served, and even had a couple glasses himself. For an expert wine-lover that he is, that was a huge sacrifice (not to mention his having already sacrificed his golf session to cook for us!). Both Mee Mee and Shell Shell had two helpings of the pasta, Mee Mee had 2 helpings of dessert #1, and Mee Mee and I managed to completely empty the last of dessert#2, all the while wailing "I can't eat anymore!". That says a lot about how we felt about the dinner (and about Mee Mee's monstrous appetite... hahahahah).

After dinner we spent a crazy couple of hours laughing, chatting, teasing, and knocking each other about around the Christmas tree. And yes, we even got some lovely Christmas presents from Shell Shell, and "door gifts" from Bee Ree & Chef Tee Ree.

I went home reeling from the whole experience of extreme culinary skills, superb hospitality, and incomparable dining companionship. Two days later I was still reeling. Aaahhhhhh. :)

THANK YOU everyone!