Steamy Affair for Yan's Birthday

We celebrated Yan's (aka Chicken Little) birthday last friday. Adeline & Tracy came up with the Hotpot buffet idea 'cos it's supposed to be more healthy (but we ended up over-eating anyway so it's not that healthy afterall). 天天火锅 it was then!

Yan had strict instructions from Tracy to bring her own party decoration. The dilligent Yan held true to her promise, and proceeded to decorate (check out the Miffy dangles) our sitting area immediately after arriving.
Note: Yan has always liked Miffy, so Tracy buys her Miffy everything if she sees any.
Interesting Facts: Miffy is from The Netherlands. Miffy is a female rabbit.

We had 2 pots of stock (Pot 1: Mala + Corn & Pork Rib, Pot 2: Tom Yam + Chicken) and a mountain of food. As how all our hotpot outings turn out, there was yet another "pot rivalry" between 2 parties, where 1 faction consisted of 4 fantastic cooks (Adeline, Thye, Tracy & Serene), and the other were amatuer kitchen helpers (Sophia, Marc, Yan, Max, Tien & Yann). Tien was so excited he dumped almost everything into the pot our soup almost boiled over.

Notice the marked difference in our reaction to overboiling...

The amatuers:

Amatuer 1: Oh no!!! The soup is boiling! It's going to overflow!!!

Amatuer 2: Quick! Let's drink up the stock!

Amatuer 3-6: slurp slurp slurp!

The Experienced Chefs:

E Chef 1: The soup is boiling.

E Chef 2: Let's turn down the heat.

E Chef 3: *Presses button to reduce heat*

Tracy made the most amazing Mudpie for Yan ('cos Yan said she doesn't really need a cake, but she loves ice cream) Again, Adeline gave Yan strict instructions to bring this set of candles. We wanted to reuse this set, so we sang the birthday song really quickly, and urged her to make her wish in 5 secs and blow out the candles in the next 3secs! We love her so much!

Here's Yan, holding a mini chopper the restaurant provided!

And because this is a hotpot place, we ate the mudpies from soup bowls, using soup spoons!

Yum yum yum!

Yan, Marc & Sophia

Tien was trying to pose, but he couldn't decide if he should smile or to eat the next mouthful, and the result was an in-between! Adeline & Tracy were in deep concentration.

After dinner, Tracy, Yan, Tien & I hopped over to Hotel Intercontinenal for a night cap.

We had some company....



Happy Birthday Yan!

PICNIC!

Last Saturday, Yan 心血来潮, smsed us all to go picnicking under the blazing hot 3pm Singapore sun. We ended up at the park just further down from the Esplanade, and were the only picnickers, with the occassional jogger/cycler zipping by us.

The view was actually pretty amazing, not something that we notice every other day unless we stop for a while to appreciate what's around us. Check out my toes in the bottom right hand corner of the picture!

That's us, against a fantastic backdrop like we're in the movies. This spot is a nice change to the usual Botanic Gardens we always go to. We should really enjoy this new secret while we can, before the malls, the "London Eye" equivalent and the IRs start appearing.

That's Yan. She's pretending to be the parol officer. Check out the trendy shades (Tracy's prop) to give her the extra stern look!

I caught a shot of Tracy without her knowing!

And Adeline the windsurfer babe!

And a cute picnic mat to complete the day!