Last night was Lau's and Vivien's final night in Singapore before flying back to Shanghai. They had some friends over... Henry, Antonia and a Chinaman named Louis. Lau cooked dinner... nasi lemak, chicken curry, some veggies (which went well with the chilli paste they brought back from Penang... we drench this with calamansi juice and it tastes a bit like spicy crab egg paste), and some orange-colored tofu-looking thing (which looked a bit too alien for me to try). Auntie (Vivien's mom) cooked some soup made of meat and winter melon (which she taught me how to cook) and that complemented everything else. I cooked sauteed black beans for dinner but it didn't quite go well with the nasi lemak so they didn't serve it.

During the meal, Vivien asked me if I had some left-over pork adobo cause she said she wanted the Chinaman to sample it. I did but it's several days old and I had doubts whether it would still be good to serve (although I know for a fact that adobo only gets better everytime it's re-heated, there's no telling how a non-Pinoy would take it). She got it out of the ref, stuffed it in the microwave, and served it. They liked it a lot, to the point of trying to dissect the pieces of meat and spices they found in the dish in an attempt to find out what went into it. Vivien even asked for the balance of my laurel leaves, which I bought last September at Lucky Plaza, cause she plans to cook adobo in Shanghai.

So I conclude, if you're in a foreign country and are having some foreign guests over, don't cook anything that is as foreign to you as you are to that country. For the Pinoy, your best bet would still be our national dish... adobo. There's just no going wrong with it.