Somen + Soup

We shamelessly turned up at the friends’ for a casual week night dinner. Really shamelessly so because we didn’t bring any gifts, not even fruits, and didn’t contribute any other foods or ingredients to dinner. We also drank their gin and wine. 😬

We asked for a one-dish meal, but L deemed it fine to produce two dishes. There was a super tasty stir-fry of dried shrimps, cabbage and somen, and a pot of pork ribs and fish maw soup. The soup held nice Teochew fishballs! What a TREAT. The soup was such a bonus. I do enjoy a good bowl of soup, except I'm not hardworking enough to even boil that weekly sometimes. Knowing L, she also trotted out cheese and crackers. She would have hauled out more stuff from the fridge if we hadn't simply 'ignored' her trying to gauge if we were still hungry. Hahaha. She is wayyy generous of heart lah! 

It was hilarious because we also brought along a small tub of kimchi. Nobody else here eats kimchi, but the man does. It's those small tubs for one serving, and it was expiring right on that day; the man might as well have that with the meal and finish it. It sat in the fridge for like, months. It oddly went well with the stir-fried somen and cabbage. Heh!

A weeknight casual dinner also meant us fielding work calls and emails in between mouthfuls of food and sips of wine. Quite the norm nowadays lah. The pace of work is at full force. It doesn’t let up regardless of whether we’re in the office or we’re working from home, if we’re in Singapore or on a work trip elsewhere. Also, we discussed the existence and usage of ‘prepone’ (seriously?!), which has been popping up ridiculously often in emails and calls.

The man took along his laptop too and logged on to send out an email that was too long to type out on the phone. I'm just relieved that this doesn't breach date/dining etiquette in this environment, and the friends understand. We've known one another for years, but it doesn't mean that they have to blanket-accept our quirks. The man can be rather fixated on his phone, and he doesn't like to be reminded not to look at it. He gets very bored at socials when those don't involve his pals and the conversation topics aren't quite his thing. He's not quite able to tear his eyes away from the phone unless he's in a darkened theater, at the gym, in a jam or at a very good gig, or running with the dog.

Headed home to an early bedtime with full bellies and happy hearts.