A long Chinese New Year lunch

I had the longest official lunch hour ever today. My boss took all of us for
lunch at the Ah Yat Abalone Restaurant in Swiss Garden Hotel, Jalan Pudu.
Those of us in the office piled into her car at about 12.40pm where we first
went to Hospital UKM because she wanted to drop off a health drink for her
mother who had suffered a stroke. Then battling the jam back to Jalan Pudu
to the hotel, where we found two other colleagues (part-timers) already
waiting there for us, and we were joined shortly by another guy (who's
actually working for my boss' brother but often hangs out at our office - my
boss wants him to help out with the technical stuff in our office as well,
with his boss' concession).

We started out with some yee sang, which was quite nice, which says a lot
because I don't like yee sang or lo sang actually. Everytime I eat with my
family or friends, it's only one mouthful just to keep the old folks happy.

We were served a course of lunch, each item already separated into 7
bowls/plates. My boss didn't eat any of the courses because she said she had
eaten too much of these kinds of food, and ordered a big plate of fried
rice, of which she only ate less than half. For the rest of us, we had: a
plate of pastry stuffed with prawn meat (I don't know what you call it, but
apparently it's the specialty of the restaurant); a clapot bowl of shark's
fin (at least that's what my boss said; but I didn't see any shark's fin,
thankfully. I only saw and ate vegetable-like things); abalone + mushroom +
one goose foot (my boss called it a "goose web" because of the webbed feet;
a specialty imported from Hong Kong which cannot be found anywhere else, as
the chef here is from Hong Kong. One lady colleague refused to try, and the
other girl shared one foot with me. One of the guys called it a Fear Factor
challenge. It really looked weird, especially when it was covered with brown
sauce); some roasted duck meat; siew bak choy with a bitter-tasting sauce
(couldn't eat more than a mouthful, it was not nice at all); lo mai kai
(again only a mouthful - too dry and tasteless); and finished off with
stuffed tong yun in peanut sauce (which the same guy colleague calling it
Dragonballz).

I don't know how much it came up to, but I know it was very expensive. I
heard the figure '9' somewhere, but I don't know if it was in '900+' for
everything or '90+' per person. Goes to show how often I go for these meals
or how often I pay, eh? Zilch! I don't know what the usual cost is like!

Lunch had only started about 1.30pm, and we sat there until about 3pm. On
the way back we stopped at another place for my boss to buy something, and
by the time we reached office it was 4pm.

Now dreadfully sleepy, especially given the hot weather and the car
air-conditioner not working; plus having to wait in the car for a long while
in the sun at the hospital and the trip back as well as getting stuck in a
jam. I'm waiting for 6 o' clock so I can go home and nap before jazz
tonight...