drowning sorow in chinese cuisine

It's not like we're the ones inititiating the pig out sessions... :)

Twice now, we've indulged ourselves to free-wheeling chinese food dig-ins within the same week. First time we ate at one of those Hap Chan/g restos in West Ave right after Mummy's funeral -- because it seems on her side of the family, bawal daw ang umuwi diretso sa bahay matapos ang libing. So we took it as our chance to celebrate one of our aunt's birthday and one of our uncles offered to foot the bill. Not that Hap Chan/g is a fine cuisine place, but it wasn't bad after all.

I love shrimp, so I adored every crunchy bit of the deep-fried prawns smothered with chili sauce. And the lemon chicken was scrumptious. There was sweet and sour lapu-lapu, pata tim with my favorite kuapaw (think siopao na walang palaman---yum!) and another shrimp dish with vegetables in it. Hay, busog talaga.

But it turned out, that doesn't compare to what we had to go through last night. It was torture by sheer delight. Our tita-in-law from Daddy's side took us to their reunion in Shangri-la Restaurant in West Ave and our eyes watered with kabusugan. One dish came after the other and it came to the point we were complaining if more still came. :) My favorite was the three-way peking duck (simply peking duck served in three different ways). For appetizers, they served the skin (yum, yum!) and we were to wrap it in thin siomai skin with thick asado sauce. Promise, heaven... Then as one of the main courses, they served the meat chopped up like sisig and this time you're supposed to wrap it in lettuce. And as a winding down dish, they served the bones deep-fried and it was munchy and delish.

They also served thick mushroom soup, Ella loved the crunchy pork chop, yummy yang chow rice, spicy prawns, squid and beef with broccoli (also my favorite!), fish in soy sauce, and finally (hay, kahingal), steamed king crabs. Then they served mooncake and almond jelly with lychee for dessert. As if that wasn't enough to feed an army for a year, they served empanaditas with mongo filling as a final, final dessert and this time they promised that nothing will follow anymore. We all sighed with a mixture of relief. Our death-by-heart-attack avoidance instincts probably kicked in by then.

We know we weren't supposed to eat ALL the food offered. We probably should have chosen what we thought were good dishes and ignored the rest. But that's tantamount to asking my family not to sleep for a week thinking of : ay, how did that peking duck taste like kaya? that fish thing-y? We are such hopeless gluttons.

Ayan, impatso tuloy ako today. :) And never been prouder. Wha! Last night was like the best eating performance I've had in months. Pinawisan talaga ako dun. It was an ordeal!

But sober and sick now, I have to go back to a stricter diet regimen if only because I don't want to die two months after mummy seeing that we have a penchant for dying in langkay-langkay fashion.


Yucky raw carrot stick anyone?