Clueless Diva

Tra la la! I had my nails done yesterday at my usual nail place. I didn't do my fingernails, but my toes. I sorta wanted a soothing red to accomodate the Chinese New Year, but somehow the pedicurist missed the description by a bit and I ended up with cheery tomato red, just like a pretty air stewardess.


Filing my nails to the bones.


Oooh! Lovely red. Don't my nails look like love peas?


It's done. I never felt that my toes are sexy, but I do now.

This is so Chinese New Year. Although I didn't get a fantastic Chinese New Year outfit for the 1st day, but I am totally assured that my toes will be the center of attention. Hehehe....

Reunion Dinner 2006 de la Chongs

Straight after my nail indulgence, we went home to prepare the Chinese New Year dinner with Ernest's side of the family as we are going back to Malaysia for the celebrations with my side of the family. Ernest's maid, Fe, cooked most of the nice dishes. I could only gawked and cooked 2 dishes. Check out the menu:

1) Piece de resistance: Sea cucumber stewed with fantabulous pork, mushrooms and lots of lots of dried scallops. I reckon this one will cost like $100 a dish as the ingredients are so rich
2) Stir-fried prawns and sweet beans in XO sauce. If you dunno wat delicious is, we do. The XO sauce is the best.

3) Steamed fresh scallops with chicken. This dish is so tai tai, that you could only order it off a menu in a Chinese restaurant
4) Steamed egg. Do not be deceived by the simple name for a simple dish. The stirred egg mixed with plain water and soy sauce is steamed to such perfection that it could put most of the Japanese restaurant's chawan mushi to shame.
5) Steamed fish. Once again, the sea bass lost and Fe won. As soon as the steamed fish doused in Fe's secret black sauce in ginger and shallots was served, it was reduced to bones in a matter of seconds.
6) Fishball soup. Once again, you cannot despise this soup's humble name. The soup was boiled in chicken bones and abalone strips for hours and cooked in fishballs that have to be queued for an hour at the market because all the fishballs are handmade at the stall. Ooh la la.....I personally had 3 servings of the soup myself.
7) Stewed duck. This is so funny. My mother bought the stewed duck for me and you can't guess how much it cost. $7 for a whole duck. Freaking cheap!
7) Vegetables: Stir-fried baby bak choy, stirfried lettuce with topshell (tops!) and stir-fried kai lan with fake crab meat. I feel almost half a vegetarian by the time I combed through the vegetables.

This is one of the exhausting day ever, but we enjoyed ourselves so much. We had fun cooking, we had fun watching the 3rd last episode of Love Conceirge and the Chongs had fun mutilating my face because Ernest showed off his newly-acquired Photoshop skills.

Happy Chinese New Year!