Birthday celebrations

The meal went well. The ditch turned out to be two shallow broad steps outside, or you could do one deep step. Not too bad. All were in good humour. The two hours passed quickly. We were disappointed that there didn't seem much specifically Vietnamese, more Chinese. Having said that the actual presentation & taste of the food was quite different from Ricky's, our favourite Cantonese restaurant.

We decided to go for the set meal for four. The chicken & sweetcorn soup was incredibly thick, full of flavour. PD is not a great fan of sweetcorn so he asked if he could swap the chicken & sweetcorn soup for the Vietnamese hot soup. We gather it really was hot, & full of prawns.

The next course was an array of barbecued spare ribs in sauce - oh you could taste the aniseed of Chinese 5 spice powder - wan ton filled with a prawn mixture & spring rolls with a spicy veg filling.

Finally we came to the main course - duck in Cantonese sauce, beef in black bean sauce, sweet & sour chicken & sweet chilli prawns. By the end the table was bare. The odd spoonful of sauce lay in the dishes but that was it. A very satisfying meal.

My conclusion is that Vietnamese is unsurprisingly stir fry, with ingredients that overlap with those of China. However, I do think the spiciness was greater. The decor too was different, reflecting a difference of culture.

We got back home in time to open a bottle of champers, put on some music & hear the phone ring. It was Mrs B just ringing to wishing me a happy birthday & to apologise for not actually getting the card to me in time. She's been in a whirl of family activity over Easter. It was nice to be remembered. She's hoping to get up to the Pub on Friday.

So, this morning I once more set down to getting today's meal prepared. We're going Mexican with some chilli garlic prawns in tortillas, with saute new potatoes & sweetcorn. The potatoes are parboiled. The marinade is cooling. All I need to do is locate the raw prawns in the freezer. If we haven't got enough, we're hoping to get to the shops this afternoon so I should be able to buy some fresh ones then if necessary. It will be a very small shop as we're aware time is marching on & we will soon be setting off on our hols. That being so there's no point getting much fresh stuff that will go off. Better instead to use up some of the freezer contents.