We got married!!!

So...I got married?? Yea...the Mrs and I weren't actually previously married but we were engaged to be married. In my mind, she'd always been my soul-mate: always on the same page and always supporting everything I did...she was, for all intents and purposes, my Mrs. Generally speaking, I think I can make the assumption that if you regularly read our blog, you know us personally so this may not be news to you but in the case that you aren't...the Mrs and I finally finished planning our big 'event' and tied the knot early January! We'd been travelling around in Hong Kong and Philippines for our honeymoon so I haven't blogged about it but it was a spectacular success!

This will be a departure from my regular food blogs (when you get married, you don't really pay attention to the food) but instead, it'll be a sort of recap of the day. I'd also like to take this chance to appreciate all those who had contributed to our day. My groomsmen and I got dressed early on in the day and headed out to pick up the Mrs. This was all part of a Chinese custom called  'fetching the bride'. The purpose of this was to officially whisk the bride away and take her back home to perform the 'tea ceremony'. This is a very important ceremony which officially welcomes the bride into the groom's family. Firstly, thank you to all my groomsmen (and especially, my best man Simon) for without any one of you, my day wouldn't have been as successful or as enjoyable. You guys had my back when I get flustered, grumpy, forgetful and most of all, accommodated my every whim without complaint.

Not us two...the Mrs and I!!!

Upon arrival at the first location and before we're able to 'fetch the bride', we're all put through some very gruelling challenges as a part of the 'door games'. These are mini-games (normally very physical) designed to make the groom and groomsmen suffer. This is to make the groom put in the effort and express his appreciation for his to-be-wife. Despite not being Cantonese, the Mrs' Maiden-of-honor did an absolutely excellent job with the challenges! Thank you to my sister-in-law for putting in the hard yards to help plan this! The groomsmen and I ended up doing many burpees, tasting many different flavours (wasabi...) and asking many of the other hotel guests for pieces of marital advice before gaining access to the room....and boy, she was very much worth it.

Thank you to my long-time friend Catherine for designing the tea ceremony dress and the Mrs' wedding dress. Both were magnificent, gorgeous and beautiful in every way...I was encapsulated from the moment I first laid eyes on the Mrs and I didn't look away from her once the whole day. With the bride fetched, we made our way back to my family home where we did the tea ceremony. After Which, it was a mad dash to get the bride back to her hotel room so that she could get ready for the church ceremony. For me and the boys, we made our way as quickly and efficiently to the church.

Obviously, I wasn't able to take any photos during the ceremony (being the groom and all) but if you're interested, take a look on instagram for the tag #mrandmrschopsticks and #mrandmrschopstickswedding for photos of us walking down the aisle (you'll probably need to scroll through our honeymoon photos though). I can honestly say that this was the happiest moment of my entire life...almost 6 years of dating and 2 years worth of planning culminating in the most beautiful woman in the world, saying that she was willing to take an immature, broken and clueless man to be her husband. I couldn't imagine a better location or a more beautiful day to get married to my best friend.

We had our reception at the Epping Club who were spectacular in every way: value for money as almost every major component was taken care of as a part of the package. The reception was full of bittersweet tears, heart-felt speeches and surprises. One such surprise was the special dance I planned for the Mrs! check it out:

A special thank you to my brothers-in-law: Rolf and Rj as well as Brent, Andrew, Terrence for helping me plan this and constantly practicing with me. A very, very special thank you to CeeJay for assisting me with choreographing the whole dance....without your guidance and advice, we would have never been able to pull this off. I have to say, this is one of the proudest moments of my life as I'm prone to extreme stage fright and anxiety when performing in front of others....but we did it!

Finally, thank you again to our parents for helping us with this whole planning process and assisting us with ensuring that this day went smoothly. I couldn't have been more surprised to see my father-in-law, mother-in-law and the Mrs surprise me with a dance. Even more surprising and touching was how emotional my parents got. If you'd had a Chinese upbringing, you'll be familiar with the aspect of your family where the verbal expression of heartfelt emotions is near impossible. This is why I was so ecstatic to see my mother, aunties and uncles up and dancing with me in celebration!





Even after returning from our honeymoon and having (finally) lived with the Mrs for a while, it still hasn't hit me that I'm a married man. I may wear the ring and I may bear the title of Mr but I think it doesn't feel too different...I think that even before we made it official, even without physically having lived with each other, the Mrs and I shared a special bond which made us closer and more connected in our hearts (and bellies). I'm positive that I married the right girl and I'm so excited to share a lifetime of happy times and meals as we are now the official, Mr and Mrs Chopsticks.

Grabbed Laksa from Malay Chinese as our first meal after being married. We were made for each other.

Boodle Fight - Sydney

Filipino food and culture is amazing, so many influences and so many flavors melding together....you never really know what to expect. That's why when offered the opportunity to participate in a traditional kamayan feast, I couldn't refuse! It wasn't my first time having a kamayan feast (apparently, also referred to as a boodle fight) but nonetheless, I was still heaps excited. There's just something about eating great food with your friends, getting into it and making a mess with your hands....and I get to cook!

I decided this time to make chicken yakitori, but as I had learned, the whole point of the feast was to come and have all the food ready to eat. This posed a problem as to do yakitori well, you need to grill it over charcoal. Luckily, I had a work around! I had the skewers prepared and marinaded ahead of time. Now normally, yakitori isn't marinaded but instead relies on the basting to give it flavor. I didn't have that luxury so instead I left it overnight in the marinade so the flavor would penetrate the meat. and when it came to prepare it, I put all the skewers into a pressure cooker and steamed it for roughly 10 minutes.

So now that the chicken was fully cooked, I took it over for the last step. To finish the chicken yakitori, I brushed on the yakitori sauce onto the skewers and then torched them all using my kitchen blowtorch. As I didn't have a charcoal grill (or a Searzall...for that matter) I used the torch to impart a smokey, grilled flavor to the chicken. It's not the best way but it worked! the chicken was nice and tender and had a faux-charcoal flavor.

Aside from my chicken, there were an abundance of other filipino delights! menudo, prawns, mussels, grilled squid, torta talong (eggplant omelette), grilled fish and so much rice! To say that there was way too much food would be an understatement. But what's a filipino party without excessive amounts of food right?

For dessert, one of our friends made knafeh. This was my first time having this dessert and I have to say that I'm extremely impressed! It was a little saddening that the sugar syrup was left out but the end product was still amazing: creamy and cheesy in all the right ways.

I'm so glad I got the chance to live life and eat good food with our mates. It's the little moments like these that we live for.

Shout out to our resident photographer Orville! Thanks for the amazing photos!