Chinese New Year reunion lunch 09

As with every other year, during the 3rd day of CNY, classmates from 5 Science 1 of ACS Kampar would gather for lunch to commemorate us growing old. *LOL* Sad to say, the number of people attending this gathering deteriorates as the years go by. From a noisy 3-table gathering during the good old days to a mere 9-seater this year. I guess as we grow older, we have more responsibility and family needs to attend to... NOT! I think that's just an excuse for some people being lazy or they deem this gathering not important enough for their precious time.

This year, we had our gathering at Yau Kee restaurant in Kampar, which I think was a disaster. The food, I mean. We started with the customary yee sang, which was a mixture of raw vegetables, crackers, raw fish fillets and ginger slices in sour plum sauce and oil. The secret to great-tasting yee sang lies in the freshness of the ingredients used and the taste of the sour plum sauce. For Yau Kee's case, their yee sang was utterly horrible! The sauce was too sour and the oil content was too much, rendering the mixture soggy (eww!). Plus, the ingredients were not fresh, especially the crackers. They were all all soft and chewy. The yee sang was very nearly inedible! Sorry to say this but it's true. After eating yee sang from Kam Ling for the past few days, tasting this was a vast difference!

Yee Sang

Next was the 4-season platter, which was not nearly as bad as the yee sang. I only enjoyed the ribs. Everything else was just normal or bland.

Platter

There were some other common dishes in between such as the shark's fin and steamed fish, which were just average. The only dish I truly liked was the sea cucumber and mushrooms. That was also because I like both of these items and I would have eaten them no matter how bad they turned out to be. :) Luckily, this dish was above average and saved my lunch.

Sea cucumber with mushrooms

I took this picture below because of its uniqueness. It was a dish of lotus leaf rice, which was individually packed. The usual custom would be to wrap the rice in one big piece where everyone would scoop their share from. This year, however, Yau Kee did the rice packaging individually. In a way, it was more hygienic.

Individually packed lotus leaf rice

However, the taste was, as expected, terrible. The smell was not appetizing to start with, and the rice was just bland! My own home-made fried rice would have scored much better than that. I was utterly disappointed with this.

Lotus leaf rice

Bottom line is, never go to Yau Kee anymore during Chinese New Year. The quality control is near zero and the price was not exactly cheap either.

Anyway, back to the people. The turnout, as mentioned, was a 9-person gathering involving Bamboo, Corinne, granny, Rainbow, Lay Kuan, Rui Ying, Hamdan, Miaw Wah and witch. I know Bamboo will kill me for putting up this picture but it's high time I put unflattering pictures of him in my blog after he put mine in his! (remember Tao buffet, Bam?) :P Look at this picture of him busy arranging bowls for shark's fin soup while still chewing his food. So responsible was our good old monitor. :)

Bamboo eating nuts

Some camwhoring sessions with the girls.

witch, Rainbow and Corinne

The girls

When Bamboo was not eating or arranging bowls, he was busy taking pictures of us. Seriously, he was always busy. :P

Bamboo busy taking pics

And finally to cap it off, a group picture of the nine of us who made it. The girls:boys ratio was a little out eh? It was a fun and enjoyable lunch, especially with the gossiping and the reminiscing of the good old school times. Hopefully we could still continue this tradition of meeting up every year even after we have our own families! :)

Group picture