Friends Cooking for Me ... featuring Mervyn.

As a birthday treat, a really good friend of mine said her boyfriend and her would like to host a dinner for me. It was not only sweet and really gracious of them, but it was also a wonderful suggestion since my kitchen is under-going renovation and it currently looks like a war-zone rather than a kitchen. It was wonderful change from all the takeout that I have been eating in solitude with the television as my only companion over the past few days. Their dinner treat was also extended to other guest that I wanted to have over for dinner, so I had my usual bunch of eating buddies at my dinner table, and Mervyn who will usually be at the table with us was behind the stove instead. Mervyn has been experimenting and cooking quite a fair bit, but somehow i never quite got round to eating his food because the last time they gave me an invite for dinner, I had a hen night party to attend, so i was really excited about this dinner. This is the dinner that they put together.

The dinner consisted of four courses:



We started with an appetizer of scallops wrapped in bacon with asparagus with a balsamic vinegar sauce and a drizzle of porcini mushroom oil.

Following which we had a chicken miso mee sua with porcini mushrooms. I’m not sure if this dish was intentional since we were celebrating birthdays but the I loved the gentle broth that he made.

When they asked me if I had any request, I said I would like to have fish, and so for the main course we had a sesame tuna tataki with a mango, avocado and tomato salsa with a mandarin and ginger sauce.

The dinner was then concluded with a chocolate sponge served with caramelized bananas and lemoncello flavoured mascarpone.

To the two wonderful people who slaved over the stove for us, it was an evening, thanks for hosting!