'Lou Sang' or 'Lou Hei'

Yesterday we had a party, with the same group of friends gathered at Mak & Siew Ling's house but minus Chorng Shan this time.

The main reason of this gathering is to toss the 'lou sang' 捞生 or 'lou hei' 捞起 (in Cantonese), a Chinese style raw salad, courtesy of Lau & Joanne (brought back from their recent trip back to Malaysia).

Tossing lou sang is usually done during Chinese New Year where families and friends gather together around the table and toss the shredded ingredients on a big plate into the air using chopsticks and at the same time saying all the good words out loudly to mark the start of the prosperous new year.

Even though now that the Chinese New year has passed we were still very much looking forward for the event.

We became the host and hostess for the night and prepared our usual em... steamboat meal for all. We can't be just eating lou sang right?

So Cecilia, Joanne and Siew Ling started putting together all the packed ingredients, nicely, on the big plates, while Lau stood there watching and... ehem...supervising, of course.

Ok... let's check how it compared to the picture...

"Oh no... the gingers suppose to be beside the carrots and not the chili...Nevermind no one is going to find out!"

With much of the teamwork from the ladies and man the lou sang was finally prepared.

~ dang ~ dang ~ dang ~ dang ~

Our lou sang without raw salmon fishes

Everything was ready, except that Chong and Jane have not arrived yet... well to be fair to them the dinner was planned for 5pm, and they still have 15 minutes to go.

So everybody waited patiently.

At last they showed up, merely on time. So wasting no more time we made a start and gathered together around the table.

And being a supervisor, he has the duty to make sure that the easiest most important task should be done correctly and that the sauces should be poured onto the ingredients equally, so the best person to do this was of course Lau himself. Everyone got ready with a pair of chopsticks on hands and all the nice words in minds.

And 1, 2, 3 we tossed the ingredients highly into the air and mixed all the ingredients together, and saying all the good wishes to everyone.

One was not enough so we continued with the second plate.

Ready?

Go!

I quite like the pickled taste actually. Within minutes we finished all the lou sang and tidied up for the next steamboat meal.

I was too busy cencentrating on photographying so didn't actually listen to their conversation but when I now look back the next few photos taken, I can't help but start thinking and imagining.....

Before dinner...

After dinner...



Only now I realise I can sometimes be very imaginative as well....

The night was still young so the entertainment after dinner... was gambling of course, but not in any kind of monetary term. We only played cards - the famous 'Chou Dai-D' 除大-D, while enjoying tea we bought from Taiwan.

I haven't been playing 'Chou Dai-D' for a long time and I was excited that I won couple of rounds easily (hee hee hee...)