My First Hot Pot-Reunion Dinner In Taiping

Yeah~Yours truly me knows the rabbity Chinese New Year has long gone right? Yesterday was the last day of it-Chap Goh Mei, and here I am, right now...talking about what happened in Taiping during Chinese New Year. As you have already known, this Chinese New Year is very special because I went back to my wife's hometown on the second day of the new lunar calender. All my life I have always spent my entire CNY in my own hometown-Malacca, but not this year...not anymore? It so happened that the reunion dinner I had in Taiping was my very first. Wanna know what we feasted on?

Little Jordan knows the answer. :)

We had steamboat or the so-called Chinese fondue for our reunion dinner. In fact this is my very first hot pot in my 25 years' of Chinese New Year celebration. Usually we will have rice with different sumptuous dishes. So dipping my food into a hot, steaming pot was really memorable. Ha :D Before we got to sink our teeth on those "searing" food, of course we needed to prepare right? However I didn't have to do anything except taking care of little Jordan. Instead Jordan's grandma, my wife and her sister were the ones who were busy with the preparation. :)

Jordan's grandma preparing our steamboat.

Almost ready now...

Almost everything is in place...

Are you ready for feeding frenzy?

After half an hour the "boat" was finally ready and we could start "steaming" our food. Ha :D However I had to wait for another 15 minutes as Jordan needed me to be by his side, entertaining him. After that his grandma took over and played with him while I happily got myself seated and started my feeding frenzy! I think I  ate for at least "3 rounds" before I called it a day. Everything was so gloriously delicious, especially the eggs of the birds and the unique yellow "taufu"!

Prawns.

Bean sprouts.

Skinned prawns.

Special yellow taufu. :)

Brocolli.

Little white vege.

My favourite-salad.

Clockwise from top: Normal fish balls, "abalone" slices,
herring (ikan parang) fish balls and crab sticks!

Let's steam the boat! :D

I must say that I really loved the "abalone mushroom slice" (or whatever they are called)...OMG! They were so...damn out-of-this world. I wish I could have more. Greedy me~Ha :p Our feast lasted for almost an hour before all of our jaws stopped "working". Then my father-in-law popped open a bottle of red wine for us. Aww...although a bit sour, I thought the exquisite wine we had was truly a delight. I am sure it helped a bit in our digestion too.

Let's drink red wine~

Watching television to digest our food.

Next year little Jordan will be joining us.

So what did you have for your reunion dinner folks? So from now onwards...every single year I will be having at least 2 Chinese New Year reunion dinners. I'd better stop thinking *drooling* about them...until we meet again next year in Taiping my dear steamboat. Ha :D