A Zombilicious Bday Bash with Tonnes of Food

The amount of food served at our party last night...it was shocking!


First thing's first. I just discovered that my floor to ceiling mirrored wall is extremely useful....to do this ^_^. You'll also notice that Vincent has difficulties posing normally for pictures, and you might wonder why were there pots, and mixing bowls in a party? Whatever happened to place settings, pretty napkins, gorgeous center pieces, party favors? Ehm, as always, there was none ^_^ all we had...was food.

Lots of food.

Athena's prawns and fresh fruit salad. The prawns were succulent and super fresh! The dressing was mango juice and a bit of butter. Check out the recipe at Athena's blog (it's in Chinese, but you can use google translate or leave her comments to ask questions).


Athena's fresh clams in garlic and white wine. Light and refreshing, a perfect starter. Simply clean the clams and saute in olive oil, butter, garlic and white wine.


Grilled chicken legs in sweet and spicy apricot sauce. The skin's sweet, spicy and sticky, the meat's tender and juicy. The recipe can be found here, I simply added minced shallot to it.

Honey Mustard Grilled Pork Ribs

I dry rubbed my ribs (about 1 rib each per person) generously with garlic salt, ground paprika, and black pepper, and kept them overnight. The next day, I baked the ribs in 180C oven, covered, for 90 minutes....they came out gorgeously golden. Set aside and let them cool....


...while preparing the wet rub.
In a mixing bowl, mix honey dijon mustard (about 4 tbsp) and some honey (about 2 tbsp), mix well, throw ribs in, coat every piece, and give them a good rub.


Grate some lemon zest on top...and refrigerate ribs.


Before serving, grill ribs uncovered in 220C oven until golden brown (about 15 minutes). I was really surprised by how they turned out. I hate blowing my own trumpet, but they were pretty damn good!

Coq Au Vin

My guests have different food restrictions, some can't eat beef, some can't eat lamb...so chicken and pork are my meat choices. When I saw this gorgeous picture of coq au vin, I knew I had to try it. It's the perfect non beef, non lamb dish!


Although mine didn't end up as beautiful as the original...I was quite happy with the flavors. Browned chicken skin, flavorful sauce.


We gotta have something "long" for birthdays. Hence the pasta. I thought of a creamy mushroom sauce, but eventually changed my mind after consulting my guests. We weren't in the mood for anything creamy and heavy in this scorching heat! So the spaghetti was simply tossed in mushroom sauce. Five different kinds of mushrooms (my guests are all mushroom fanatic), sauteed in olive oil, butter, garlic, mixed Italian herbs, white wine, seasoned with salt and black pepper, sprinkled with bacon.

Ratatouille

Never thought a bunch of vegetables simply thrown and cooked together could be so tasty. The recipe can be found here. Whoa, I couldn't believe how well I followed recipes this time!

Grilled Pork "Sausages" in Pineapple Sauce

The sausages were minced pork mixed with corn flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic salt, sugar and worchestershire sauce, rolled into small "sausages", microwaved until almost done, browned on frying pan, and tossed with sauteed garlic, onion, pineapple, sweet soy sauce, worchestershire sauce and fish sauce. Tangy, sweet and savoury at the same time!

Pineapple Shandy

Simply mix a can of pineapple beer, pineapple chunks, sprite and ice. Light and summery!

Behold...make a way for the best chocolate cake I've ever had!

It's from Zoe Bakery, Wan Chai. Melt in your mouth, velvety and super chocolatey chocolate cake! We devoured this with hot peppermint tea. Perfect!


...and the cake looked gorgeous with sparkling candles...(so hard to photograph!)


...and although we were stuffed to our throat, we still wanted to take a peek at Annie's birthday gift to the boys...how adorable!


Light yet buttery butterfly danish. Yum!


The star gifts of the night...XBOX 360 game console for Joe from Athena (which involved an elaborate logistics planning, collaboration, and deception), Left for Dead game (for Joe, from Vincent and Amy), Transformer game (from Vincent and Amy to Kenneth), and XBOX hard disk (from Kenneth to Joe).
Clearly, the boys couldn't contain their joy...


....they were so happy, they did this!


...and ended the night by revealing their inner zombie...Smoker, Boomer, and Hunter.
Video game geeks...they're kinda sexy, aren't they?

It was one heck of a zombilicious night.