Some little bits of happiness :)

Leny recently got engaged~!!

Well, actually it's been a few months. But everyone's been so caught up with work and stuff to actually get together and celebrate! We should really do better than this! Hehe, anyways... since Leny's birthday just passed, we decided to have a conjoint belated birthday dinner and engagement celebration!

To think that we used to do dinner every Friday when we were students! How things have changed since. It seems so much more difficult coordinating something nowadays if we wanna involve everyone. The 'joys' of shift work, I tell ya! :(

I suggested to have dinner @ Sarti in the city. I haven't been there in months, but the last time I was there, the food was pretty yummy!! And since the rest of them haven't got any objections... Addy made reservations for us girls.

Mei and beautiful Leny :) Congratulations, sweetie! I'm so happy for you.

We of course made her share her romantic proposal story, and she showed us her beautiful, sparkly diamante! John does have good taste. Hehe. It was funny how she told us that he hid the ring for months before proposing! He had planned to pop the question on 09-09-09, but he obviously couldn't contain his excitement.

They bought a place together, and the wedding's going to be next year! Woohooo!!! I'm extremely excited!

The girls.

Now to the food: My favourite bit~!!!

We started with some tapas to share between the 5 of us - which we practically gobbled down because we kinda waited awhile for it, and I reckon we were super hungry by then!

The portions were also just the right size, which was good for tasting and sharing.

Jia Lian had a yummy pork dish that looked a little like fusion char siew :P hehe. Let me go check the full name on the menu again.

Marinated pork 'in mirto' oven roasted served with blood orange glaze.

Addy had the crab pasta ( Spaghetti 'di granturco' mud crab, clams 'pomodori pendolini' ) which smelled pretty good. These Italiano names are soooo impossible to remember!

I was seated next to her and could smell the crab meat!! I didn't taste her dish though...

My veal 'spezzatino', fresh peanuts, artichokes and king brown mushrooms. It was delishhhh~! For once, I think I finished my food before the rest of the girls. If you know me, you know it's an absolute rarity for me to not be last to finish my food on the dinner table.

Leny had hearty braised suckling lamb for spring.. Falling off the bone! Soft and super duper tender.

If you think you've spoiled yourself too much to actually have dessert. Think again, because this is absolutely to die for! It was sooo yum I asked for an extra scoop of ice-cream to finish my crema cotta al ciocolatto~ MmMmMmmmm....

The night ended with long girly chats. We were practically the last ones to leave the restaurant, at almost midnight... Thank God there was a group of late comers, finishing off their desserts when we decided to call it a night.

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The next morning, I woke up early to meet up with Peter who's visiting Melbourne for a short holiday. It was breakfast at The Botanical, next to the Botanical Gardens.

It was a colddd rainy Sunday morning! Bbrrrrr... Would have been perfect if the weather was sunny and nice! I would have brought Remy out. But since the weather wasn't much of a friend that day, I decided it was kinder on Remy to leave him at home.... Also, so we could sit inside, where there's HEATING!

Peter and his sourdough toast and jam. This pro photographer has a super duper hugeee digital SLR. Captures some magnificent pictures! Another one who inspires me to want to get an SLR so I could snap nice photos too!

Karen and Mei - up early for breakfast even after a late night before :P We're such gung ho people.

I felt like a little detox, so I ordered lemongrass and ginger tea. The guys cringed! Ming Haw had a sip, and his face wrinkled up so bad. Guess he's not rushing back to order that the next time. Besides, drinking tea is not really a guy thing I suppose.

Peter, Addy and Ming Haw.

Addy's on annual leave again! I'm super jealous! I can't believe she's on leave after working for like... 2 months! And that's AFTER being on leave for 6 months preceeding that. Boohoo.

Peter and ga girls - Karen and Mei.

A compulsory group pic.

We left at about noon cause Ming Haw had to drive all the way to Ferntree Gully for work. I went home to pick Jon up and headed to Doncaster to watch Disney-Pixar's "UP 3D". Yes yes, I know I'm super slow! I'm really not that up-to-date with watching the newest movies and all. We hardly go to the cinema nowadays. I think it's been months since we last caught a movie together.

UP was really good! I think I started crying within like the first 2 minutes of the cartoon. Heheh, shame on me! I'm such a sucker for Disney cartoons. I love how they always manage to pull heart strings, and they have a good morale behind the story. Highly recommended!!

Sunday night dinner was spent at Jon's parents. Some quiet, family time. I had a really good weekend. How did yours go?