Pre-Christmas Lunch @ Tanglin Club

I met 2 lovely friends from church for a pre-Christmas lunch on Tuesday. While our usual haunt was Holland Village, we decided we would go a little further to have an elaborate set lunch, just to soak in the festive atmosphere.

Raelene suggested dining at the Churchill Room in Tanglin Club. There, they offered traditional English lunches and it was a good opportunity to learn from the experienced social etiquette coach.

We arrived to be greeted by this magnificient Christmas tree. It was a live tree and you could literally sniff the musky scent from the tree.

We promptly got someone to take a group photo before we adjourned to the Churchill Room.

From Left: Raelene, that's me! and Li Peng. Friends of all ages and races. Amazing friendship by God's grace!

Raelene was so thoughtful. She bought us gingerbread man! She exclaimed that it won't be like Christmas without gingerbread.

Another surprise from her... cracker! I see it often but I'm not sure what it is for actually.

The crackers were to be popped linking arms with everyone. So you hold out your cracker and hold onto the next person's cracker and everyone counted.. 1... 2... 3 and you pull and pop, goes the cracker.

Inside the cracker, you will get a joke and a toy and a paper crown, which you wear it.

So we put it on for memory's sake and had the captain to take a photo for us. The colours of the crowns were different and in Christmas colour, that's so amazing, all by coincidents!

After all the niceties and the exchanges of gifts, my stomach was rumbling.

Hang on... dear Raelene went on to explain thoroughly what was the meaning of each dish.

For my appetizer, I had Walla Walla Onion Soup. It was served with sauteed escargot and garlic bread was served at the side, camamelized with onion and focaccia crouton.

Walla Walla is a type of sweet onion and they drop my escargot into the soup. The soup was creamy though.

By the way, the second option for appetizers would be the sweetbreads. But these sweetbreads are not breads that are sweetened. Instead they are the gizzard of chicken or turkey. So no no for me.

So while we are sipping our hot soup, we ordered egg nog and mulled wine to go with our main course.

Egg nog is a cold Christmas drink that is made of milk, cream, sugar, beaten egg and brandy. Usually you won't be able to keep it past Christmas as the shelf life is short.

I had mulled wine. Mulled wine is a hot Christmas drink that is made of red wine usually, together with cinnamon and cloves. I really liked my mulled wine. It was really nice to drink it hot and should consume it while it is still warm.

We were now ready to move on to our main course. Raelene was very nice to explain each main course and let us decide first.

For herself, she had Pan-Fried Halibut Fillet with Medley of Vegetables and had her potato mousseline changed to fondant sweet potato. It was served with merlot reduction. The Tanglin Club had imported the Halibut from Bali water.

Halibut pronouced as Holly-Boot, because "Hali" originated from old English and Hali was equivalent to Holly and "but" was in fact a german word which meant flat fish. And in olden days or rather until now, the Catholics eat fish on Friday, hence Halibut became the holy flat fish.

Now potato mousseline was actually mashed potato in very fluffy cream sauce. Fondant meant in the shape of a barrel.

Li Peng had baked gammon ham and spanish sausage. Gammon ham was done piece by piece, unlike the ham ham we usually ate. Hence it was premium. Spanish sausage was cured with spices so it would be spicy. For this dish, it came with winter vegetables which meant brussel sprouts and fondant sweet potato. She had honey pineapple madeira sauce to go along with.

Finally, I had this heaps of meats. This is not any kind of meat, okay.

Roasted young tom (male) turkey with a patty of mushroom stuffing. Turkey was served as white and dark meat. In this case, my dark meat was seared foie gras with chestnut. How does that sound?

I had also fondant potato confit and mid spring vegetables and perigord sauce, originated from a former France province, was made with truffles, to go along with.

Although it was frown upon to share drinks and meals in the high society, Raelene closed both her eyes and we had a small bite from each main course.

I thought the fish had the fishy smell but the gammon ham was good. The spanish sausage was spicy while my turkey meat was tender. I liked the mushroom stuffing and I rather gave foie gras a miss.

Dessert time. A lady will always have room for dessert.

Again, dear Raelene let us decided on our dessert before she placed the order. For myself, I definitely dig at this Christmas Pudding with brandy sauce and vanilla ice cream on the top.

There's a story to go with this Christmas Pudding.

The father would do the turkey but the Christmas Pudding would be by the mother. The pudding is shaped like a baby Jesus' head and the mother pour brandy over it and lit it up. The children would then awed by the "blue halo".

Inside the pudding, there would be silver treasures and everyone would be "hunting" for their silver treasures.

Since Li Peng and myself had the Christmas Pudding, Raelene ordered lemon financier with lime scented coconut parfait. So the dessert came in a shape of gold bar which explained "financier". The sauce was made of pineapple ginger chutney.

You would have probably realised it by now, that to be qualified as a Christmas dish, it has to be in the Christmas colour of Green, Red and Gold.

We had our tea and coffee for Raelene as we slowly finished off our meal. It didn't matter if one believe in Christ but to understand the significance behind each dish, this was really invauleable.

Raelene was also very kind in taking us around Tanglin Club. Well, if you have that kind of money, $40K for entrance fee and monthly $180 per couple, you can join in the waiting list that would stretch up to 10 years.

Peasant or not, Christmas is for everyone!

So have yourself a little Merry Christmas!