Come Dine With Me – Asian Fusion

Ni rang wo hao kai xin!

Wait what?

I have to thank Ni Hao Kai-Lan for that.  Granted she often makes me want to rip out my own eardrums through my eyeballs, but she managed to teach me that.  So I guess the endless repetition is worth something right?

“Ni rang wo hao kai xin!” means “You make my heart feel super happy!” and that’s quite an appropriate way to start this post.

The scene?

4 couples meeting for 4 dinners and having our own version of Come Dine With Me.  By this point we were two Come Dine With Me dinners in to the process and two very enjoyable evenings filled with fun and laughter had been had.  A Mexican evening and a South African evening to be exact.

After the South African dinner we were left thinking “What the hell was that?!” but now we were asking more pressing questions.

What are we going to do?

How do we top that?

Can we top that?

Well it wasn’t our night to host so, we didn’t have to think too deeply about those questions, but I’m sure Mia and Ben who were hosting the evening did.

The theme for the evening was Asian Fusion…  So for dress up we had:

 

Brandon (above) even managed to take leave from working in the rice paddies to join us haha.

Then it was time to eat.  Because that’s what it’s really all about isn’t it?!

A delicious, spicy noodle and chicken soup for starters.

The main was pork belly cooked three ways, rice and bok choy.

Dessert was my highlight of the evening.  Caramalised bananas with lime and coconut ice-cream, on a bed of crushed ginger biscuits and nuts.  Absolutely divine.

For the evenings entertainment, we played a couple of heated rounds of Jenga.  It’s hard enough to play when you are of sound mind, add a couple of glasses of wine and it’s just hilarious.  I highly recommend it for any entertainment requirements you may have.

And then there was just one night left.

Our French evening will be up on the blog next week 🙂

 

~*~

 

So if you’re thinking about having your own evening like this, I’ve got even more things for you to consider…

Here’s what you need to consider before starting your own Come Dine With Me evening with your friends and family:

1. You need to commit.  Thankfully we never had this problem, but it would really suck if the first couple put in all their hard work and money into a great evening and then no one else holds up their end.
2. Have some great entertainment that keeps the evening going – 30 Seconds, 20 Questions, Jenga, Twister…  The options really are endless.
3. Before you start you should lay some ground “rules”.  That way the hosts of the first night are given a fair chance.  Decide if you are all going to send out menus before the time, dress up, offer 3 courses or 2 and have “entertainment”.
4. Get an impartial person to film the end of the evening wrap ups and scores.  Or get everyone to film it on their phones and send it to one point.  Make sure you don’t cheat and look at the scores before it’s time.
5. Make it worthwhile.  Everyone should contribute a decided amount for the winners to go and enjoy a lovely dinner of their very own.  We did R100 per couple and getting R400 at the end to go and use to have a fun night out was a worthwhile prize.  In hindsight, we’d probably add runner up prizes too – everyone should walk away a winner because this is so subjective, everyone tries really hard to make the evening fun.

Like what you’ve read here?  That’s flipping awesome – feel free to share it with your friends.  Also come hang out with me on Twitter or Facebook where you can make sure you don’t miss out on the next couple of Come Dine With Me themes including Mexican, South African and French.