Lou’s Hens Night, Part 1
Tonight we went to our friend Lou’s hens night (I’ve posted previously about a fantastic barbie at Lou and Dan’s previously – see here and here). The hens night consisted of a few parts: part 1 was cocktails and nibblies at Lou and Dan’s place (Dan and his mates were out partying elsewhere for his bucks night), and part two was dinner at Ha Tien Vietnamese Restaurant. Part three, we were told, would involve more partying and a karaoke machine back at Lou and Dan’s place. I attended parts one and two; Jac the party animal is probably right in the thick of part three right now. She’ll be spending the night at Lou’s. I guess I’ll see her tomorrow for lunch. Heh.
We arrived at Lou’s just after 4pm, just as amazing spread of food was being set out on the table (Lou’s sister, mum and aunts had done a lot of work!). Initially, I did feel a little reluctant to take photos. Of course I wanted to take photos, but there was a part of me that didn’t feel like looking like a weirdo – I didn’t actually know most of the hens and I didn’t feel like having to explain why I was photographing the food. But Jac urged me to just do it before everyone started eating. And so as I walked around the table taking photos and ignoring the very audible whispers (“What is she doing?” “She’s photographing the cheese!”), and chortles (not unfriendly chortles, but chortles all the same) I heard Jac explaining what I was doing and telling them about “The Food Pornographer” (which of course produced more chortles!).
So anyway, here we have vegetables, with pate:
A platter of assorted sushi:
Clockwise, from left: chicken sushi, california roll, prawn and avocado sushi, and vegetarian sushi:
Cheese, pate, fruit and nuts:
Crackers and pretzels:
Freshly cut fruit:
Three dips (top to bottom: pesto/herb, eggplant, capsicum and cashew nut). If you’re interested, you can see the close-ups of the dips at my Flickr site here, here and here.
More cheese. According to Jac, the one furthest right was lovely and stinky.
This wasn’t even all the food! There were bowls of potato crisps and corn chips and marinated olives too. I had to pace myself so that I didn’t fill up completely on nibblies, as I knew we’d be having a yummy dinner.
Jac was really looking forward to the cocktails. Lou’s sister Meegan did a great job making them. First came the illusions (see another view here). They were very sweet – quite nice in fact. But I only had a mouthful of Jac’s. Pretty, eh?
And then came the pina coladas. Once again I had just a mouthful of Jac’s – very coconutty! I loved the little plastic animals.
Friends and family can also see a few photos featuring Lou and the piñatas at my Flickr site. If you’re a friend or relative of Lou’s and would like to see those other photos, just leave me a comment with your name and email address, and I will send you a Flickr invite. Oh, and I’ve been told that Dan checks out this site regularly. Hi Dan! :)
Part 2 – dinner – is coming up.