Julianisms

Yesterday, we celebrated Nana’s birthday at Delicious by Ms. Read at Bangsar Village shopping center. The seven of us (Dad, Nana, Helen, Becks, Meng, Meg, and I) arrived fairly early around 6.40 pm and found a nice, cozy corner of the restaurant where we could all enjoy a fair bit of noisy fellowship and clowning around while indulging our collective appetites. A few different items on the menu sounded equally yummy, so we decided to order a bit of everything and share the food, Chinese center dish style.

The modus operandi we settled on was to order a variety of dishes and ask the staff for extra plates, heh…

Believe you me, by the time we we’re done, our little party managed to plough through a not insignificant amount of crockery and cutlery! Much kudos to the accomodating crew at Delicious for taking our every request in stride.

Let the feeding frenzy begin…

(NOTE: All pictures are clickable and will launch in popup windows. For greater food detail, click on the various closeups!)

     
Vietnamese Chicken Salad                Thai Beef Salad                                 Smoked Salmon Salad

To kick things off, we had not one, not two, but three different salads. I liked the Thai Beef Salad best (closeup!). As things go, it was also the smallest portion of the three. However, the salmon and chicken salads were good, too. Nana isn’t much of a fish person, so we focused more on the Smoked Salmon Salad (closeup!) while allowing her to have extra portions of the other two salads. Her birthday mah.

Meg had the Shepherd’s Pie and - apart from her grandfather and father pinching a mouthful each - she polished it off all by herself. Eating is never a problem for this girl just so long as it’s her type of food that’s being served. Continuing with our theme of multiple choice, next came the two pasta dishes.

     
Shepherd’s Pie                                  Duck Confit                                      Spicy Seafood Spaghetti

The Duck Confit (closeup!) was very yummy and the Spicy Seafood Spaghetti (closeup!) also hit the spot. The pasta was el dente just so,  and the taste was just right: not overly spicy nor overly oily. I wouldn’t hesitate to order either again on my next visit.

From Italian pasta to Chinese noodles. The Nyonya Curry Laksa touched-down along with the Marsala Lambshank. First duck, and now lamb -  pinch me, I’m in heaven…

     
Nyonya Curry Laksa                         Marsala Lambshank                          Nasi Kerabu with Ayam Percik

The Nasi Kerabu with Ayam Percik was our last item to arrive. While the Nyonya Curry Laksa (closeup!) was awesomely creamy and the Marsala Lambshank (closeup!) was superbly tender and aromatic, I thought the Nasi Kerabu (closeup!) could be slightly more moist. While the Ayam Percik was tasty, I didn’t think it was particuarly Percik-y. Perhaps my taste buds were too zonked out by then to be able to disthinguish between flavours.

Oh, did I say the Nasi Kerabu was the last item? Pardon my mistake, it was the last savoury item. It was now time for dessert.

Knowing even before the start of dinner that, once done, none of us would be in any shape to tackle a full-blown birthday cake, we went for quality instead of quantity.

  
Chocolate Brownies ala Nana!           Banana Pudding

Nana’s birthday cake this year was a delicious slice of Delicious’ special Chocolate Brownies (did I say that right?). Before we ordered our main courses, we had already asked the restaurant to keep two pieces for us (one was never going to be enough) as we didn’t want to run the risk of anyone else snapping them up. Meg wanted to try the Banana Pudding and so we ordered a slice for her. It came with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, and sat in a layer of caramel sauce.

As rich as the Banana Pudding was, it was no match for the Chocolate Brownies (closeup!). The oven-warm brownies were topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream each, and smothered with hot chocolate sauce all over. Wickedly sinful as heck and tasty like mad.

After we were done, the brownies looked like this…

  …which then led to this…  
Ex-Chocolate Brownies                                                                                  Double Expresso

For coffee, everyone had something different; mine was a Double Expresso. As we chatted away the rest of the evening, we captured more happy snaps:

     
We’ll take page 2 of the menu!           Everything looks delicious                  Helen & Becky

     
Dad & Becky outside Delicious            Becky with Mom & Dad                       Julian & Becky

     
Nana attacks her Brownie                   A family portrait                                Waiter has shaky hands

     
Hungry ladies                                    Julian, Meng & Meg                           No more food left, let’s go

All in, it was a very lovely evening - Nana enjoyed herself tremendously, as did the rest of us.

Happy Birthday Nana! We love you!

Update on Wed, August 17, 2005 by Julian

All the family photos in this entry and more can be viewed in this convenient web album.