Belated birthday party with friends

On November 4th, a few of my friends got together to enjoy an Autumn Feast. 

My friend loves to cook so she always goes to several different cooking classes and learns how to cook several kind of dishes from around the world. 

This time, it was a mix of European, Japanese, and Chinese.

Sparkling white wine to start off with.

Tossed green salad with a plate of h'orderves. 

We started with a bottle of sparkling white wine and a plate of h'orderves. Pears with blue cheese, fig with cream cheese and prosciutto, cheese sandwiched between a fruit jelly, a samosa, and edible ground cherry (Chinese lantern plant or hozuki, in Japanese).

Next came the Japanese rice dishes.

These are "must" dishes every year. We always look forward to eating them every year!! We usually race to see who can get a second helping of which. Lol!! 

Sanma fish with ginger and thin leeks.

Chestnut rice.

After that, the two main dishes with two other side dishes.

Stir fried cilantro stems with garlic and cilantro leaves with thinly sliced tofu.

Pork with Chinese herb (sorry, forgot the name...)

Chicken with a Chinese vegetable which name I've forgotten...

All the dishes were so yummy and more of a Cantonese taste than a Northern or Szehuan spicy taste.

I much prefer the Cantonese taste so my friend catered to my taste since it was my birthday party. Yeah!!

Then came dessert!!!! 

Yes, it was a belated birthday party for me too and the left is the cake which one of my friends got. The other is the apple pie my friend baked plus a Chinese almond pudding. Dessert was definitely the icing on the cake for the evening!! 

Baumkuchen cake with pumpkin custard, home baked sour apple pie and  homemade almond pudding.

It was an amazing dinner as always and we were all so stuffed!! 

Can't wait for the next dinner party!!