singaporean night

so a group of us decided to request chef raul, who is actually from the philippines, to whip up a singaporean meal.  he is really nice and obliged us very readily, and some of his staff even stayed behind to help out.  normally they would be home already by the time we started dinner at 9.15 pm.  because it was only for a small group of us, we did it after the discussion meetings that usually run from 7.45 to 9.15 pm.

if it was just confined to singaporeans, it would have been too small a group (4 of us - and not much variety in food:)) so we also invited some of those with a singapore connection, such as neil (from UK) and anuj (from india but now a PR) who have been in singapore for some time, as well as brian (not in picture - he came later), who was in singapore some years ago but has since settled here in the US.  we also had our malaysian and hong kong friends join us.

from left: anuj (he came to singapore when he was 16 on an SIA scholarship and has stayed on since.  he runs his own company), me, neil (from hartleypool in UK, works for Swire group and based in singapore. he will also be running the San Francisco marathon), ken (from HK, works in a paper packaging company), james (from HK, he's the CEO of Dragonair, a HK airline that plies the region and is a subsidiary of Cathay Pacific), chef raul in white (from Philippines), irene (HK police), deanna (singapore, works in GIC, the government investment corporation that manages and invests singapore's reserves), vijay (who works in PUB), cs (malaysian - he works for maxis, a malaysian telecoms company) and ping-soon (singaporean, he's with the national security coordination center).

and this was the spread.  we had some requests and recipes that we gave to the chef (left of the lady in yellow) - including things like bak kut teh, oyster omelette etc.  in the end, it was a mix of stuff that he decided to come up with on his own, but it was still good.

starting from bottom left, we have chilli crab with man tou, ginger, chilli, black sauce, tofu, more crab, chicken rice (but yellow), fried fish and filipino soup (tastes like tom yam but not too spicy).

close ups of the food.  i was really expecting this to be bak kut teh:(  but it was still good.  deanna is going home during the break and we are planning a laksa party next!  with stuff from prima deli of course!!!