Emily's 'Away' Hen Do - Newcastle

Warning: this is not my usual food blog but another special edition about Emily's Hen Party so it's going to be a long blog, really really long one. You might as well put a kettle on to make a cuppa of cha or a glass of vino if you fancy ... hahaha. 

Time flies so fast. The clock is ticking real fast. It's now almost a few days away to Emily and Craig's wedding!

We got our kitchen renovated. This took more than 4 weeks that caused lots of disruptions in the house and has only completed the weekend there, so now I am trying to put the house back to normal and to tidy it as much as I can before my sister and her husband coming for the wedding.  The kitchen would have finished good 2 weeks ago if it went as planned. 2 weeks would have made a huge difference to what I could do to our house to prepare before the wedding however as I don't have that luxury now, I have to cut corners and focus on what I can do.  And now they are arriving tonight and I am panicking.

I know, this is what I am gonna do.... One room will be blocked off so that we can dump everything we can't manage to sort out and its door would be shut. I am sure my sister and her husband would not notice, unless they accidentally open it to look for a toilet. I am also not going to tell them that we won't put our Yuki in a cattery. (They don't like pets in a house and claim that they are allergic to cats.) As soon as they land at the airport, I am going to tell them that there is a lot of hay-fever epidemic going on and strongly recommend them to take hay-fever tablets immediately and definitely before they leave the airport building to allow the over-the-counter hay-fever tablets to work in their systems during our car 30 minutes journey back to our house. When they arrive and our Yuki comes to the door to greet them, I am just gonna tell them she is a special bleed of non-allegey feline and, yes, it's not our cat but their jet-lug that is making them sneeze.  .... Do you think this would work?

Anyway, I have been so stressed about the kitchen that had resulted in chaos in the rest of the house and getting the house sorted before tonight, I have not had a proper chance to look forward to our daughter's wedding until the realisation has hit me that now my sister and her husband are actually arriving all the way from Japan to attend the wedding. It is now sinking in that the big day is really approaching real soon.

This is also my reason or excuse for not having updated my blog. So I think it's apt that I shall talk about our 'Away' Hen Do, leading up to her big day this weekend to get us in the mood (or what would be the point of talking about it after the wedding!)

Followed by 'Home' Hen Do, we all went to Newcastle for Emily's fun-packed  'Away' Hen-do. There were 15 of us including Emily, the Bride-to-Be, Maria and Gillian, Bridesmaids and Craig's mum Christine and me, Mothers of the Groom and the Bride.  We had a great time. I must say that both Maria and Gillian did a great job organising both Home and Away Hen parties for Emily.

The coach was picking us all up at 11.30am from outside of Emily & Craig's house. Before everyone arrived, Emily, Maria and I had to eat some quick breakfast .... rolls with bacon and potato scones from ASDA's cafe to get us started!

Then we checked all the things we would need - first, lots of drinks for the road and for the hotel room.....

and more in the fridge and bags to go ....

And even more for the road....

And Maria and Gillian also bought Mankini Cake for Emily for fun.

Just as well the coach was picking us up otherwise we would not be able to carry them all with us!

What else do we had .... yes, Hen-Do pack for everyone including black T-shirts which became our 'uniform' for the road!  I got the one for MOB - Mother of the Bride!

Emily got her nails done for the occasion ...

Bags were packed - ready to go!

Oh, and 'Craig' came too ...

The coach arrived right in front of Emily and Craig's house.  It was a lovely sunny day.

And, we are all ready to go!

After 4 hour coach journey, we arrived at our hotel in Newcastle. The first event of the day was a cocktail making class at Bonbar (http://www.bonbar.co.uk) followed by dinner. Our Bridemaids-cum-Hen Do Co-ordinators asked us all to wear something black for the occasion except Bride-to-be wearing white.

We were escorted to a back room which was reserved for our party exclusively for the cocktail making class.

Cocktail making kits - all lined up and ready to go

This is Ben, our mix-master of the evening, offering us complimentary prosecco each. I asked him to hold so that I could take a picture of him and he was kindly obliging with smile whilst holding a tray-ful of prosecco glasses which would be very heavy, especially supporting in one hand! (Sorry, Ben.)

Anyway, under his guidance, we made 3 tasty cocktails and tried our own creations. First,  Cosmopolitan (using vodka). We then had Bramble (using gin). Oh, what was the third one called using rum?  I knew I typed on my iPhone to take a note of this at the time. After a glass of prosecco and two cocktails, me being a sort of week-day teetotaller I was feeling the effect, my typing says 'Choco n rad wry daquri'  I assume it was chocolate and raspberry daiquiri. 

It was really fun! We then moved to join other customers in a big room for dinner.  Despite I was cheeky asking Ben the mix-master to pause for a photo, I did behave and did not ask the fellow Hen-doers if I could take their food pictures so that everyone could tuck into their foods right away.  Anyway, I had prawn cocktail for starter and veggie burger with sweet potato fries for main course.

We also had Emily's Mankini Cake for dessert ....

... and its left-over became a swan ....

We also had shots of lychee liqueur amongst other things ...

Well done to Maria and Gillian who organised the evening.

The Three Graces

We girls all behaved very well too. As we were leaving Bonbar I noticed the skull with bling in a glass case.....  Yes, despite all those drinks and food, we (or I?) survived the first round of the evening and left in piece.

L.I.P.....

Christine and I went back to the hotel after that. The rest of girls went on to the next venue for more fun.

The next morning I was up bright early and went downstairs for a breakfast at the hotel.  I thought breakfast selections at the hotel was rather good and price was reasonable. I had cooked breakfast for the first morning and went back again the next morning and had continental breakfast.

Vegetarian breakfast

If you order cooked breakfast, you can also help yourself to continental breakfast varieties at the hotel we stayed.

After the breakfast, Christine and I decided to go for a walk to get fresh air.

To be honest, this was my second visit to Newcastle. First time was not for hen party.  My husband and I came here to go to IKEA long long time ago before IKEA came to Scotland. You can tell how long ago it was!  We never saw any of Newcastle. It was therefore a good opportunity to see a bit of Newcastle in a day light!  We walked along the river. The wind was strong and rather chilly.  I could feel my mascara was smearing with tears because of cold wind, ended up having panda eyes.

We realised that we were heading wrong direction to the town centre so we had to walk back and took opposite direction, away from the river.

Newcastle may be famous for shopping and hen parties/stag nights, there are lots of beautiful buildings in the town center. It sort of reminded me of Edinburgh a little bit.

We came to the top of Grey Street where a statue of Earl Grey, prime minister in Britain in 1830s, standing atop 130ft column.

We saw Saturday (?) market going on with shops and food stalls....

We suddenly realised that lunch time was approaching and we had to go back to our hotel to get ready as Maria and Gillian had arrange an afternoon tea at Malmaison (https://www.malmaison.com/locations/newcastle/) and I had to fix my panda eyes!

We toast to celebrate the forthcoming wedding and fun weekend and enjoyed our lovely afternoon tea.

I loved their creme brûlée - it was divine!

It was a lovely afternoon tea with delicious cakes to eat. 

Later that evening, Maria and Gillian had more fun things up in their sleeves. We were all told to go to Emily and Maria's room before the dinner for a celebratory drink at 5pm. Prior to this, I was meant to keep Emily in my room as long as I could to allow Maria and Gillian to decorate their room.
I asked Emily to help me with my hair and check my outfit for the evening as an excuse. This would have taken at least 20 minutes in my calculation but only took 5 minutes to do my hair and Emily was getting already anxious to get back to her room.  Both Maria and Gillian became good hosts, going around everyone offering beverages and a tray-full of cheese puffs etc.  In their bedroom were also 'Craig' and a big inflatable of a certain shape which I am unable to mention as my blog is PG that followed everywhere we went for the rest of our Hen-do.

Cheese puffs, anyone?

We then went for dinner at Zizzi (http://www.zizzi.co.uk/venue/index/newcastle), with 'Craig' and the other inflatable. People in Newcastle seem to be so tolerant to hen parties and stag nights. No one bat an eyelid to our 'companions' except we attracted many comments made by guys from other stag parties. Even Zizzi allowed us in with our 'companions' in their restaurant.

Katie, Laura and I had a bottle of deep red wine to share between us. 

I them had mozzarella and tomato salad for starter and Skinny Pizza Primavera for the main course but with mozzarella instead of goats cheese. The pizza came with roasted aubergine, artichokes, peppers slow roasted tomatoes, olives and fresh oregano.  I really enjoyed both courses. 

Craig's sister Gillian ordered Garlic Bread for starter, which was huge, and Pizza Rustica Sofia as her baby dauber's name is Sofia. The pizza was also huge and came with spicy chicken, pepperoni, spicy sausage, mozzarella, green chillies and rosemary.

I don't know how Gillian manages to eat all these yet also maintains such a good figure.  It's nice to be young.

For dessert I had Honey, Sea Salt and Macapone, which was sweet, salty and creamy at the same time just like what it says on the menu!

After the dinner we all went to a bar that caters hen parties and stag nights. Upstairs VIP balcony space was reserved for us and the naked butler did appear for Emily this time. He seemed a really nice guy, as if he were a university student doing this for pocket money, and it turned out that was the case. We were there for about an hour or so. Girls booked another club. Christine and I went with them just to see them all off before we headed back to our hotel. The club did not allow them to bring their inflatable companions with them into the premises. So guess what. Christine and I ended up carrying 'Craig' and the other with us all the way back to the hotel. You should see the amount of attentions we attracted from every single person (or I should say, every single male) that passed by us. As I carried in both arms whilst trying to deflate with great endeavour, 'Craig's underwear kept slipping off down to his ankles and every now and again I had to pull them up. We must have looked very curious or interesting to others if not funny. I wonder if we looked a hen party of just two middle-aged ladies carrying those as part of our Hen-Do outfits. It would have looked really sad as hen-do .... however anything goes in Newcastle.  What happens in Newcastle stays in Newcastle, they say.  I dare not to ask what our girls were up to that night. Don't ask, don't tell.

The next day, we headed back to Scotland by a coach. Everyone was quiet, some were very tired, some were suffering and some were just happy just because. It was also snowing one point.

We stopped at Service Area, meant to be for 5 minutes and ended up cueing for ages for Burger King. I couldn't resist their fries!

I am sure other girls would have different versions of Emily's 'Away' Hen-do from mine. Whatever it is, it was fun packed weekend and Maria and Gillian did a great job to organise it.
I felt very privileged to be part of such a great weekend.

All single and not single ladies ....

That's all forks, and my normal food blog shall return soon.

Emily's 'Home' Hen Do - Special Edition

Emily and Craig's wedding is approaching, in fact it's now less than 4 weeks! Maria and Craig's sister, Gillian, have been busy organising Hen Do (or Hen Party) - we have recently had 'Home' one at the house where she shares with Craig and their cat Bailey.

This is not my usual food blog, in case you are expecting to see any foods....

Emily has so many friends - friends whom she grew up with and went to school with, friends whom she met through Currys where she worked when she was a student, friends whom she studied together at University and friends whom she has been working with at her current work. She also has many relatives from her father's side and extended families, etc.

In the meantime, Craig was away to Berlin for his own stag do so Emily had the house all to herself, with 40 + ladies for her Hen Do at their house, wishing the forthcoming nuptials between Emily and Crag.

In the morning, my husband took Maria and myself to Costco to get party foods - selections of sandwiches, sushi platter, vegetable pakoras (by the way this was rather yummy), prawn cocktails, chicken drum sticks, bags of tortilla chips and big tubs of guacamole and salsa.  Maria was also ordering 6 large size pizzas, garlic breads, 6 portions of different kinds of pasta and bags of chips.  Hope these would feed everyone!!!

We then had to rush to Emily and Craig's as Emily arranged a make-up trial by a professional make-up artist at their house for mid day.  I had never had any make-up professionally done so I was quite looking forward to this.

I also tried fake eyelashes for the first time in my entire life that day. I always have tiny, short eyelashes. What made it worse was that when we went back to Japan for Christmas and New Year earlier, we were very busy, did so many things every day and not much of a relaxing holiday, so I don't know if it's to do with my age or what, jet lag and busy schedule during our visit took a toll on me, my eyelashes fell out after we came back to Scotland amongst others things that made me feel unwell.  Thankfully, they are starting to grow back on now but you can tell how excited I was to have fake eyelashes!

Alas, such excitement was short-lived. No long after the make-up artist left, one of my fake eyelashes started to come off and sort of half hanging. Fearing that my own tiny wispy lashes may go with fake eyelashes if I took it off, I left it, hoping that people would not notice. Well, people do actually notice unless they were drunk already, some even told me that my fake eyelashes were coming off!

Later on, pizza delivery came with lots of boxes of pizzas. For some very strange reason, none of them were sliced, so Craig's mum Christine and I were in the kitchen, slicing away pizzas but Emily's pizza cutters were rubbish, so we had to work really hard to slice them away, really and literally rigourously. Of course, this did not help my already half hanging fake lashes to stay where they were. Luckily they managed to hang onto my eye lids and fortunate for everyone, no one was served with pizzas with my fake lashes on them, phew....

Sorry, digressed. After we got ourselves made up by make-up artist, we were busy preparing for the Hen Do before people arrived - we had to decorate the living room, had to set up tables, prepared cocktails ....

Craig proposed Emily in New York!

Emily and Craig - not long after they started going out each other...
Look how short Emily hair was back then...

Sorry, I would have put more pictures of decorations however some were not quite PG .... I just leave the rest to your imagination - remember this is not my ordinary food blog but it's not a food porn neither. It's about Emily's Hen Do however it did not come with naked butlers in case you are wondering.  Let's just say that, as part of the prep, I was asked to stuff a piñata of certain shape of a man's part with lots of sweets and that was not a nice sight although it must have looked very comical to her. 

Sweets for everyone ???

Changing subject swiftly... here is the centrepiece of the dining table, The Cake for the Bride-to-Be!

There were also lots of drinks....

Making cocktails with rustic looking walls in the background -
actually some wiring work just been done in the kitchen....

Home made French Martini ... this came out of drink fountain ... I forgot to take photo of the fountain, sorry ....

And I think this is Woo Woo.... vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, is it right, Maria?

Apparently this is a popular drink at hen parties ....

Gillian also made vodka jelly...

And the drink to 'her ladyship' Emily .... no idea what was in it ....

This was Emily welcoming guest for her Hen Do....

This was Emily enjoying her Hen Do later in the evening ..

I think everyone enjoyed her Hen Do and I think both Maria and Gillian did very well organising this, despite lots of stress and tears at times. 

Later in the evening, Emily and all young ones went to Glasgow for the Home Hen Do, part 2 of the evening. Meanwhile, Craig's mum  Christine and I stayed on and tidied up the house  - which we kinda enjoyed it, in fact it was rather therapeutic. By the time Emily and Maria came home they did not recognise that Hen Do was even held in the house earlier .. except some decorations on the wall which we did not touch and which unfortunately I can't show to you as it's definitely not PG. It was part of the Hen Do game .... I also leave that to your imagination. 

Next day, sitting in my own house, I enjoyed a slice of Emily's Hen cake with a cup of Nespresso. The cake was really delicious. It was just a simple sponge cake with white icing, cream and jam but it was really really yummy.

People signed the book at her Home Hen to leave message for Emily. There are lots of message.
Emily is surrounded by lovely friends whom she has been growing up with - they are literally 'friends forever' and she is lucky being surrounded by so many lovely people who loves her.



Maria and Gillian have also organised 'Away' Hen Do and both Christine and myself are privileged to have been invited to this weekend event with girls. Maria has warned me many times not to say anything (any more) about this event as I sometimes slipped information inadvertently so I won't say anything.

I want Emily's friends to remain being her friends forever so I will try to refrain myself from taking their food pictures and just take my own foods only at restaurants this weekend.  Maria recently said, 'Can't we just tuck into our food right away once when it is served.' Yes, I see her point....

Anyway, in less than a month, our Emily will be married to Craig, they are such a lovely couple and will surely live happily ever after.

Baby picture is actually Gillian's baby Sophia. 

That's all forks!

Chaophraya, Glasgow - Thai Restaurant

We are getting our kitchen done at the moment. This means that we can't cook and we can't store foods as the fridge/freezer is out of action. We have been eating out, relying on take-aways or microwave meals if not inviting ourselves at someone else's house for dinner!

Well, I have finally made it to Chaophraya Thai Restaurant (http://chaophraya.co.uk/venues/chaophraya-glasgow/) at The Townhouse, by Buchanan Street in Glasgow (see my earlier blog about Topolabamba).  According to their website, Glasgow restaurant was opened in 2012, set over four floors and is the largest Thai restaurant in Europe!  Wow! And, its name Chaophraya takes from the main waterway in Thailand.

It was Easter Sunday. We went there just after lunchtime. The reception are was rather clouded with people (tourists?) taking photographs, however we did not have any problems to get seated this time.

Reception area

We were taken to the upstairs restaurant. We thought that the restaurant is just on the first floor but we were wrong about that....

These chairs are really comfortable!

We were seated right next to the Champagne cabinet .... very tempting....

We decided to stick to sparking water instead ...

We also decided to try out their set lunch menu, £13.95 for a starter and main course each.
So, my husband ordered Tod Mun Khao Pode (Deep fried sweetcorn blended in red curry paste served with sweet chilli sauce) and I ordered Poh Piah Jae (Crispy golden spring rolls stuffed with white cabbage, mushrooms, carrots and vermicelli served with sweet chilli sauce).

While we were waiting for our starters to arrive, we looked around our surroundings.

Each table had a small but real cut flower, not plastic, that's a good sign....

With functional cutleries ...

When you look up, you see beautiful ceiling...

We turned around and looked up, we saw what they describe 'the romantic Buddha Balcony for two' behind the clock, which is located on level 2. Well, unfortunately the clock was behind but I guess they may be more for decor ...?

My husband also pointed out to the ornate plaster work with initials of GLC, which stands for Glasgow Liberal Club. The entire building was the Grade A listed former Liberal Club dating back to 1911, which is now a 4 story Thai restaurant!

And our starters have arrived. My husband's Tod Mun Khao Pode (Deep fried sweetcorn blended in red curry paste) are basically corn fritters with spicy chilli and peanut sauce, however with some curry flavour, combined with sweet chilli sauce with peanuts, it was quite tasty. 

Deep fried sweetcorn in Thai style ...

My Poh Piah Jae (spring rolls) were lovely too and were piping hot. What I liked about this was that vegetables inside were nice and crunchy, also they did not have that distinct Chinese spices. I prefer this spring rolls to Chinese ones.

We swapped one of ours each so that we could try each, poured over chill sauce. Lovely and yummy.
Chili sauce was rather addictively spicy but sweet.

 

We enjoyed our starters but I think my husband wants to try Pak Tod (deep fried mixed vegetables in a light batter served with sweet chili sauce) next time.

As we don't eat meat, starter selections are limited for us but if you like chicken or pork, you got other options too (http://chaophraya.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2-course-lunch-menu.pdf).

Then our main course - I had Choo Chee Pla Tod (deep fried sea bass fillet on a bed of vegetables topped with a creamy red curry sauce, served with jasmine rice) and my husband had Pad Udon Talay (stir fried udon noodles with mussels, calamari, prawn, garlic, chilli, fine beans, onions, sweet basil and green peppercorns).

My sea bass in red curry sauce was tasty, creamy and coconutty as well as spicy, quite flavoursome. I am not sure about half sliced cherry tomato on top of the jasmine rice, which reminded me of a Japanese flag.

I tried a little bit of my husband's seafood stir fried udon noodles which were really tasty.  There were also lots of seafood in it. He really enjoyed it.

By the end of two courses, we were really full and did not have any rooms for desserts nor any tea. We did however enjoyed our lunch very much and would definitely come back and try other dishes off a la carte menu.

While waiting for a bill to arrive, I went upstairs for a toilet check. Buddha are everywhere ....

Going upstairs to the level 2 ....

and being welcomed by sacred elephants ....

turning around the corner and voila, another lounge area with big comfy looking sofas outside of toilets! Actually, level 3 has some private function rooms so I can see these comfy chairs can be quite nice for a break-away area for dining guests ....

Inside is clean, nice and spacious, but I had expected something more Oriental to keep in with the rest of the restaurant's decor .... it has passed my toilet check though.

It is a beautiful restaurant, with extensive choices on a la carte menu. I have spotted that they have Jaew Horn Ta-Lay (Thai Fisherman's Soup Shabu Shabu), which is chef's signature dish.  Sounds yummy, I want to try that! Also for main course another chef's signature dish of Pla Song Pee Nong - Chaophraya duo fish of sea bass fillet deep fried and drizzled with tamarind sauce garnished with cashew nuts and a pan-fried cod fillet drizzled with a Panang sauce. Sounds yummy too.

We shall definitely go back to this restaurant.  Sawasdee.

That's all forks!