What better way to celebrate Chinese New Year than with a big, massive 12-course meal! Ok, I know, Chinese New Year was a few weeks ago but did you know that they celebrate this holiday for about a month in China? Besides, it wasn’t only for Chinese New Year but the dinner was also for my grandma’s birthday celebration. I don’t want to give her age away but let’s just say that she is still hip and young at heart. We had the big dinner Saturday night at around 6pm - “Chinese time”. When I say “Chinese time”, I really mean “Chinese time”. Flashback several years ago when my cousin Robert got married. There were over 600 people at the reception and we didn’t start eating until a couple hours later when everyone arrived! So I figured that since this wasn’t a Chinese wedding that it would start earlier. I was wrong. When we got to the restaurant, I was flabbergasted! There was exactly 80 tables in the restaurant. With 10 per table, that meant there was going to be about 800 people for tonight’s dinner! There was also going to be prize drawing, music and performance, and speeches before the dinner! So my guess for starting a half hour later was completely thrown out the window. My sister and I were later taking bets to see when the food would actually show up on our tables.
We had quite the interesting prize draw. Each table had the exact same prizes (10 in total) with each person winning a prize. Some of the items on the table included a dead chicken, some spam, container of oil, egg roll cookies, and a package of noodles. Don’t even ask me why they would give away a dead chicken. Maybe it’s Chinese tradition or good luck. Anways, my mom ended up winning the dead chicken and my sister winning the container of oil but she gave it to my mom instead.
The dinner ended up starting at around 8pm. Neither my sister nor I won the bet. My grandma guessed it would start right at 8pm. I told you she was cool and hip afterall! The dinner itself was really good. It was good to just stuff my face silly with all that good Chinese food. One of the most interesting dishes was crispy duck covered in taro. Never had that before I don’t think.
It’s pretty scary to have a dead chicken stare at you at dinner!
Holding the dead chicken
