S(w)inging Sisters' Birthday Bash

July 11th, Hakka Restaurant

Nine Purpleians battled the grid-locked Friday traffic to the city centre for the overdue birthday dinner in honour of our two resident k-kakis/singing mamas, Yoke "My Own Mike" Chen and Taiso "Cha Cha Cha"Karen.

Maybe it was the sizzling political drama that had the loop a little bit neglected in parts. Some people were not aware of the dinner date judging by the silence. Lucky for Florence's presence of mind to resort to sms, some of us would still have been MCC about the whole thing.

Sensei was quite clueless and it took a 6- something phone call from Yoke Chen to send him scurrying from his happy hour at Sentro to Hakka. Ditto Larry, who only that morning had phoned the senseless sensei who couldn't provide him any confirmation. Sigh. If only everyone checked their email instead of reading about who backended whom and who SDed whom only to retract it the next day and disappeared from view and who owned up to advising whom when he was backended and who said who C4-ed whom...

(BTW, at the time of writing, Anwar is reported to have been arrested. So I think it might be awhile before people start reading email again. Just as well we have no gatherings of our own planned.)

Taiko was the one who decided that quality was more important than quantity even though there was a suggestion to postpone it to next week. Good thing about quality parties. They always make for intimate conversation. The type where closets get opened and skeletons aired. No lah, no one 'fessed up to being gay or anything like that. Just some juicy stories about how pretty lasses got helicoptered to Camerons just because they felt like having scones for tea. Or, the agony and harrowing processes of adopting a baby, which entailed crossing the South China Sea every weekend, meeting up with bigwigs in immigration and other pertinent departments and how at the end of it all, it was worth it. Personal stories like that kind lah.

Plus not so personal stories like which prominent tycoon had mistresses even though he publicly made himself out to be a saint, and other lascivious tales. And we thought gossip was the domain of women, tsk, tsk.

Our Little Bowl Cake got in last but everyone was happy to see him since he went under the radar after the dinner for Pui Lin.

Great conversation. Great food. Authentic Hakka cuisine which we thoroughly enjoyed. Except for the yong tau foo which lost out a tad to the famous Salak South "My Mum"s Yong Tau Foo", every dish was yummy. I especially liked the hakka noodles and the crab beehoon.

Dinner ended circa 11pm and while sensei had to tapau supper for his home minister before fulfilling his conjugal duties and heading to KK (I think) and I had to head home, the rest of the dogs - Florence, Larry & Bee Bee, Yoke Chen and the innkeeping couple headed for Hotel California with SV making his maiden foray into that fortress. From what I heard, he enjoyed it so much he broke his own "10 to bed and 5 to rise" rule. Well done, SV! Does that mean we'd be seeing (and hearing) more of you?

PS: With the fuel hike now burning a hole in our pockets, I hope the bill didn't set your pants on fire, Rick. Thanks again.
PPS: Once again, you people will have to wait for the insurance man to upload the (two) pictures he took.