Spoilt for Choice... Food and Friends, that is.

Mee siam, waiting patiently for the gravy to be poured on them before they were being served.   I can't tell you how authentic this tasted. Simply delish!  And oh... I will forever remember how my poor stomach felt the next day, from the chilli in the gravy. 

Mee siam, after adding the gravy.  Photo taken at home in the evening, my take-away dinner.  It must be this second plate of spicy noodles of the day that almost crippled me to the sofa the next day.  But it was so worth it.  Yum, yum.  I would do it all over again.

Recently, I have been spoilt for choice.  With food, Malay food, to be more precised.  My Singaporean friends are either great cooks or great company, most of them both.  After five wonderful weeks of single parenting, Christophe gave me my well-deserved break.  Naturally, for any food-obsessed minds like mine, I chose to meet with my group of dear and similarly food-insane friends.  This time, I requested to be excused from cooking, so my break would really feel like a break.  They were all so understanding as always, and readily said that I was not expected to cook in the first place.  When you are faced with friends like these, the only thing you could and must do is to not let them disappear from your sight! Haha...

Nasi Lemak.  The sambal belacan chilli is not for everyone. Certainly not for me. But if one eats without it,  it defeats the purpose of eating at all.  After eating mee siam, I tried without the sambal, and it provided no kick.  But friends gave me big, loud warnings not to try it because even they, the seasoned chilli eaters, also felt the spicy effect from it.  I had to give it a miss, with much regrets.

My Malay/Indian friend, Safiah, who was also the host, prepared such a great selection of food... nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk, wrapped in waxed brown paper she brought over from Singapore!), mee siam (rice vermicelli in hot and spicy gravy), begedil (deep fried mashed potato) and teh tarik (pulled dark tea in sweetened milk). Another friend, Su, whipped up a big bowl of to-die-for Chinese rojak.  Jeanette baked the world best coconut/mango cheese cake and pulut serikaya.  Amanda brought some fried carrot cakes for the younger children.

Teh Tarik is the staple tea, served either hot or cold, in the mamak shops in Singapore/Malaysia.  I love the sweetened tea hot.  As Su summed it up, "the teh was the perfect end to the meal".

Jeanette's Pulut Serikaya, green looking stuff on the right, is so tasty, the rice (not visible here) below the kaya is so soft  and lovely.

I just love how us Singaporean are so obsessed with food.  Less than 2 hours later, far from having digested our mee siam, nasi lemak, begedil and rojak, we were impatient to move on to cakes and desserts. 

Jeanette's killer's cheesecake and yummy pulut serikaya, here you can see the glutinous rice below the green kaya.

We tucking into our mee siam.  Left: Me, Jeanette, Safiah, Su.

Liza and I demonstrating how to sit and sip our teh like the Encik (uncles in Malay) in the mamak shop.  Left: Su, Safiah, Jasmin (Safiah's daughter), Liza, me. 

As always, we ended up over-eating, having lots of left overs which we would all pack home, discussing when and where our next gathering would be, deciding what we should cook, flipping through several recipe books and salivating all over the food photos.

I was the most appropriately dressed guest.  Big, baggy dress for three purposes.  Eat, eat and eat.

Don't look at me with my bowl of mee siam.  The focus here is the Chinese rojak (chinese salad) made by Su.  It tasted just like home.  Mmmmm....

On the carpet from left: Ophelia, Kaixin, Laetitia.  On the couch from left: Su, Liza with baby Kayleigh on her lap, me, Jeanette, Safiah, Amanda, Rayyan. 

And this is a result of our discussion.  Just 2 days later, four of us met up again.

Amanda was itching to try out a simple mee rebus recipe and she needed food tasters and critics.  So, a few of us were in luck, just 2 days after visiting Safiah.  How not to put on weight?!

This time, we met at Su's.  She is also another great host, she cooked tau suan and pulut hitam (pictured here), it was just heaven!  

We are unrepentant.  But honestly, it really isn't the food that we are there for.  Well, maybe a small part of is... hmmm... ok, ok a large part of it is.  But, it is also the company.  These are ladies who make great friends.  We all have one thing in common, we all live in Germany because of our German husbands.  We all miss our food.  We miss speaking and be understood in our own lingo.  In this, we have found each other and reached out for each other.  Friendships are thus established, and I cherish each and everyone of them like they are my sisters.  My sisters outside of Singapore.  We do crazy things, these crazy things pull us closer to one another.  We let our hair down and enjoy the camaraderie.  These pictures speak for themselves.

Pretend play, omg... Jeanette and Safiah buying nasi lemak from makcik Liza, who is carrying Jeanette's baby.  

Amanda and I, my dear friend.  The friend who deserves a separate blog entry.

Pretend play #2.  Jeanette selling mee siam to Liza from a school tuckshop.

The crazy nasi lemak makcik seller, nearly going berserk over the authentically packed rice.

Pretend play #3.  Safiah pulling teh tarik, look at her head, she even tied a kitchen towel to make it more real.

Crazy pose... my idea, who else?

Crazy pose #2... not my idea.  Safiah's.

I even got a haircut from Su.  I desperately wanted my hair to be trimmed as it was getting too long and the ends were starting to split. 

We are meeting again in 2 weeks.  This time, two Singaporean ladies with their husbands and kid, one living in Hamburg, the other in Frankfurt, are coming all the way down just to meet with us!

More food will be prepared, more pictures will be taken, more happiness will be shared, more friendships will be formed.