My first open-house: Home-made gourmet food and gaming fun!

Sorry for another grossly overdue blogpost. Though the floods have not arrived at my doorstep, the accumulation of mental stress from preparing for the worst natural disaster in Thailand for the last 50 years has been slowly eating me up. But thankfully with the support of friends and family, I am slowly starting to feel more relaxed, and with the extra time I have on my hands due to a sharp downturn in business, I have finally gotten down to clearing my blog and FB photo-sharing backlog.

For those who still don't know, Li Li and I have moved from our little shophouse to an even smaller condominium this August. Despite its size, I am very pleased because we can finally call somewhere our home, and building it with the one you love is really a very sweet and satisfying process. 

We decided to make our first open-house a potluck, inviting friends to come over with some home-cooked food. We were expecting decent food, but boy did they deliver the goods:

Wendy's Kebab: 3 Tastes aka 三味肉串，this is the one made of chicken, there's also pork and beef

Par and Xinyi's Parma Ham Pizza and Thai Shrimp Salad, perfect fusion of authentic Thai with flamboyant Italian

May's impeccable Khao Soi

I have to reserve special mention for May's Khao Soi. I still remember a couple of months ago when I spent 3 days in Doi Lo, Chiang Mai, I made it a point to eat Khao Soi every single day as it's my favourite dish from Northern Thailand. It is essentially what we understand to be curry chicken noodle, but with added sophistication. Aside of having a fragrant curry (which is a must of course), there is added emphasis on the right noodle (cooked perfectly Al Dente by Teacher May), and the addition of condiments like raw onion, pickle, lime, crispy fried noodles makes this a complex yet wholesome dish. I still cannot believe it that it was the first time she made this. You have talent, May, please pass the recipe to me when I open my restaurant. I will make it a star.

The gathering did not end with the glorious food. Unfortunately, I did not have the presence-of-mind to take a picture of what happened next. Wendy displayed her gameshow-hosting talents by guiding us through 2 (or was it 3) hugely entertaining games of Jeopardy. It was all good fun, and there were 3 interesting revelations from the gameshow:

1. Everyone's tired of Thai politics, no one knew the name of the Thai PM before Abhisit took over!
2. Eddie's knowledge of entertainment gossip is second to only Wendy, he could recognise Hollywood stars at a glance.
3. Steve Jobs' salary was 1USD.

I am looking forward to more revelations on our next Jeopardy session Wendy, please start preparing!

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for gracing my humble house and spending such a wonderful time together

It was a fantastic first open-house. My guests really put my cooking skills to shame. Luckily I had my bottle of Rupert and Rothschild to save my blushes!