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Showing posts with label CELEBRATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CELEBRATION. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Blue Christmas at Bistronomy

Happy February 25th! Lol. You must be wondering if there is anything significant on this date? Um, honestly, nope. haha. But it's two months after Christmas and it falls on Thursday, so it is quite appropriate to post a #ThrowbackThursday post I guess? haha. Lame excuse is still an excuse so yeah. Haha.




Since I was a kid, I have always always loved Christmas! It is always, always the most wonderful time of the year! Same goes for year 2015 too of course. I love how everything is merrier and brighter and warmer. Merry as everyone is significantly more happy and more generous. Brighter as everyone is obviously smiling for little things around them. And warmer as friends get together and family gather to celebrate.




This year I got to celebrate with a few of my closest friends at a beautiful restaurant called Bistronomy. The ambiance is really beautiful and cozy. It has a vintage style which sometimes can be a bit too much. But everything is just nice here, so I felt comfortable spending my Christmas time there. Technically, none of us celebrate Christmas. That also kind of explain why we can come and celebrate with friends because usually people will go to church and celebrate with family. But anyhow, we joyfully gather in this occasion to celebrate the Christmas spirit and start the tradition of gift-giving. We saw that everyone is doing this ((I did one too with my colleagues at my internship place)), so we thought it will be a fun idea for us as well. Unfortunately, Yelny could not join us because she has already flew back to her hometown by that time.




We began the celebration by having a lovely lunch here. I chose the ladies' lunch set which come with soup and tomato salad for appetizer, fettuccine and various bite-size dish for main course, dessert and drink. My other two friends, Joan and Sandi ordered another lunch set which name I forgot but has more dishes in it including steak and pasta too. Alvian who we joined us last minute ordered salad because he was on a diet program. Was. haha. Lovy ordered a separate prawn ceviche for appetizer, lamb chop for main course and lime sorbet dessert which is tad too sour.





I honestly can not really judge the taste of the food here. Everything is nice and the plating is pretty. It is just that I think the food did not really suit our palate so we did not really enjoy the food that much. But it is fun to try on new flavor and eat fancy lunch on special occasion like this. Oh wait, there is one that I really liked but sadly did not get pictured which is the chocolate mousse! It was really nice and I am craving for it right now. Aargh!




Anyhow, after we finished our lunch, we began the Secret Santa game. We have drawn the lot to determine who will give the gift to who on our previous meeting. The rule is that it has to be approximately one hundred thousand rupiah and includes a handwritten card! I am a sucker for handwritten card. It always feel special, don't you think so?




So, here's what I got! Look at my major happy face! haha. It was a coloring book plus a cutely drawn Christmas card from Joan. Coloring book has been really trending lately but I have not got a chance to buy it yet because I did not think it was necessary yet. But now that I have got this as a Christmas gift, I think it is a perfect gift and I can't wait to make some time to color it ((gloomily stare at my thesis project)).




And here is my gift for Lovy which is a small pouch with a girl illustration. I gave it to her because of a "small incident" when we traveled to Bandung. Her makeup stuffs kept on falling on the street back then because her clutch has quite a wide space for small makeup to slip off. So I gave this pouch to her hoping that she can store her makeup or other stuffs and it can become handy for her daily needs.




If you are curious what the others get, Joan ((the one on the back)) got a tumbler from Sandi and Sandi ((the one on the front left)) got a pair of shoes from Lovy. Sandi's gift was a bit unfair though because it exceeded our agreed number to spend on the gift. Lovy's excuse would be that the gift is combined with birthday gift. Again, lame excuse is still an excuse so, yeah. haha. Alvian, as said before joined us last minute, so he did not join us on this gift-giving process.





Well, that was our fun and intimate Christmas lunch! This was the dessert from the other set which is chocolate cake with ice cream that is good. But my chocolate mousse is still better! So sad I did not take any picture :( Also, one funny thing, none of us planned to wear blue outfit that day. But we somehow did. Before we all met, I did send a message to Sandi worrying that if I wore blue it would make me salah kostum ((wrong dresscode)) and became odd. Sandi said that he is also wearing blue. And it turned out that everyone was wearing blue! So it somehow turned into a Blue Christmas. In contrary, none of us was feeling blue ^^




All pictures are taken by Alvian who blogged about the day here. Thus explaining the square crop and dramatic tone. The last photo is taken from his blog, it features a DIY Christmas card I made that I love myself since it looks like a wrapped gift with the red ribbon hehe. Last but not least, cheers to the Blue Christmas this year and hopefully the years ahead ❄

Cheers,
filicia

Monday, February 22, 2016

Foods To Celebrate Chinese New Year


Happy Chinese New Year! Today is Cap Go Meh (the 15th day of chinese new year) which is the last day to celebrate chinese new year. So, I think I'm not too late to say Happy Chinese New Year to you guys. Cap Go Meh is actually the closing of chinese new year celebration. So, there are Liong and Barongsai festival around the city. But, I will not talk about Cap Go Meh in this post as I didn't celebrate Cap Go Meh in hometown. 

I was super excited celebrating Chinese New Year this year because I WAS CELEBRATING IN HOMETOWN (sorry for the caps lock cause I was too excited HAHAHA). I was so happy to meet my uncles, aunties and cousins again that I meet only in chinese new year. For the last 3 years, I celebrated my chinese new year not in my hometown. I have really missed the ambiance and the people's enthusiasm. That's why I was super excited to celebrate my chinese new year in hometown.

Anyway, I grew up in a family that has very traditional chinese culture. And, my hometown has a majority population of Chinese-Indonesian ((that's why the name of hometown foods have the sense of chinese)) so chinese new year in my hometown is a little bit wow. Streets are decorated with red lantern, houses are decorated with chinese decorations, and everybody are wearing red. I saw many people ware posting about their chinese new year on social media, so I decided to share my chinese new year on my blog. 

Nian Gao (年糕)


People in my hometown called it as Basket Cake (Kue Keranjang) or Tiam Kue. It is a cake that is made from glutinous flour and sugar, also, it has elastic and sticky texture. This cake is a mandotary cake to celebrate chinese new year. My mom said that this cake was a symbol of the sweetness because Tiam in Teo Chew means sweet, so this cake would bring the sweet moments everyday in this year. I don't really believe about the facts or history about this cake and I'm not a fan of this cake, I just want to enjoy this cake, but I don't really like it. People usually keep this cake in refrigerator for few weeks to months after chinese new year, but the texture will be so hard, so they re-steam it or fried it with flour and egg. 

Sweet Barley Soup


I started my chinese new year by drinking sweet barley soup. This soup has been served in the morning on the first day of chinese new year. I don't really like this soup actually as it taste like drinking the rice water in the sweet way HAHAHA. This soup is also the symbol of sweetness for new year.  

Layer Cake


Layer cake is actually not so chinese-new-year-cake as it also found when I come to friends' house during Eid Al Fitri and Chistmas Day. I heard that layer cake is one of the hardest cake to be made, so that's why the price is expensive. This cake was made by full fats butter and 30++ eggs, it contains with so many calories and fats. I really love this cake but I would not eat big size at once cause of the fats and calories that contained.

Mandarin Orange


Mandarin Orange is my favorite fruit besides durian and mango. The best part of chinese new year is I could find mandarin orange everywhere. My dad always buy two big boxes of the mandarin orange every year. Mandarin orange should be the healthiest food during chinese new year. HAHAHA.

Cookies and Snacks


A lot of cookies and snacks were served to celebrate chinese new year. In the photos above, there are (left-right) pineapple cookies, cornflakes cookies, cat's tongue cookies ((lidah kucing)), silk worm snacks, beef floss snack and snow white cookies. It's actually another cookies and snacks except in the picture, but I was too busy during chinese new year and couldn't capture all the cookies and snacks in my house. 



The chinese new year of this year was super great. I met a lot of family and friends who I have missed for a long time. We gathered and shared the story of our life while enjoying the chinese new year food. For me this chinese new year was the best moment as I have longed for 3 years. And, I hope I could share another story of chinese new year from my hometown next year. 

恭喜发财! 新年快乐! 万事如意! May this year bring prosperity, good luck and good fortune to you, guys! 

Yey!
Yelny