An Eve Of Marmalade, Hearts, Art and Fondue

Eat and make merry, that was my Christmas. The eating started early at Marmalade Pantry (ooh, hoity toity, atas and all that). I was the first there, in the restaurant, perhaps even jolting the service staff into some manner of action.

This gastronomic adventure took place at the Georgina's suggestion. Apparently, the eggs on toast with sausages and sauteed mushrooms were too much to pass up as a celebratory meal, a heartiness of Christmasy proportions, a resurrection of days of culinary plentifulness. I hadn't been to the MP so I said yes. Simple.

Since I had the time, I found out that the individual items on the Xmas menu came up to $42, and so the $45 festive combo price (inclusive of coffee/tea and petit fours) was perhaps not much of a bargain.

Soon I was joined by Jorida and then Gerald, all of us not at work. The ex-colleagues showed up pretty late and we had to order the pita bread with eggplant and mint dip again! (How appetizingly dreadful!).

Soon the conversations got going and the plates started coming. Goodness the portions were large! I had the butternut and parsnip soup and chicken pot pie. We shared the sticky date pudding and Elvis cupcake. It all sounds good and scrumptious and it mostly was. (The pot pie crust was inedibly hard though.)

Lunch all said and done, half the group ran off with individual commitments and personal preoccupations. I, Mun Hoe, Nana and Mr Chew had nothing better to do but to buy fruit for fondue later, go around in circles while MH went to buy a bus ticket and prevent boredom at the Casa.

MH taught us Hearts, an evil card game where people try to hurt each other's egos with the Queen of Spades. Yikes. I lost majorly. Then Christine came trudging up the stairs to join us. She joined the game as Nana poured more wine. I started winning - 4 zero scores and final one in a round of five. Not bad, one blemish.

Dinner was the finest Por Kee had to offer. Well, it was much need carbo and protein to tackle Pictionary, Headbangers/Post-It and more wine. Chuiying (to check spelling) joined us to make merry.

I was peeing when the clock struck twelve. Merry Christmas eh. Flush.

Homemade Pictionary was a hoot, especially among people who think they can draw and others who think they can read minds. The drawing on the left is Peter Pan. Yeah right. The reward for right answers was a dip into the fondue.

We talked and played and soon the wine got the better of me. There was a thumping beat going on the right side of my brain. After almost having fallen asleep on the couch, I said the goodbyes, forgot to pay up, stomped down 4 floors and rubbed a headache as I got into a taxi home. Voila.

One holiday down. One more to go?

The rest of pixes are at my Flickr.