Brazillian BBQ & Azzucar Paella Girls Night!

I have to note the 3rd of January 2009 as one of the most truely enjoyable Saturdays I've had in a long while and it was such a fabulous start for the new year too!

Above is my girlfriend and rumba dance mate, brazillian lady named Cristiane Oliveira. She invited me to her Brazillian BBQ cum Farewell Party as she and her husband were moving back to Brazil due to work.

I'm going to miss her and its such a pity that we've only gotten to know each other recently but a friend made is always better than none at all. She taught me some portuguese too! She's the first brazillian I know personally and she gave me a lovely Christmas present too! It was a brazillian throw that had the design of Rio De Janeiro. Love it.

So the girls and I packed up and made our way down to her condominium at Woodlands *faints.. so far...* and were the first to arrive by the poolside BBQ pit. The crowd came much later and I've never seen so much MEAT in my life.

Now THATS A BBQ!!~ No measly satay sticks & chicken wings. Hell no! There were SLABS and SLABS of beef sizzling heavenly on the grill. Its like someone killed a cow or something by the side and just wacked it up and threw it on to the grill.

And everything was simply seasoned. Everything with organic coarse sea salt. There were whole yellow Onions... Garlic Bread...Sausages... Chicken pieces and wings too.... More Beef.. Beef again... and yes, you've guessed it.. MORE beef.. Everything was big and in large quantities...

Can there be such thing as Beef overload? What you see here.. was one slab of a possible 30-40 available SLABS brought & cooking that day. So not kidding. -.-''

Just when I thought that was about it... the fish & prawns came out from the food containers... seasoned the same way with coarse sea salt and thrown on the grill.

And of course there were chips.. chips and MORE chips.. *faints... I can't get over it. Hahha!* Plus Doritos & Nachos Galooore!!!...*Eirian went a little chippy mad here*

And then drinks.. they had 4 Jumbo cooler cases filled to the brim with cans of Anchor Beer.. I don't drink Beer so they opened another cooler and it was filled with soft drinks.. Whooot! They really prepared alot of drinks!

If anyone was looking for eyecandy... some of the men AND women at that BBQ were jawdroppingly STUNNING. No kidding. The only thing was that EVERYONE SPOKE PORTUGUESE with a smattering of english which they graciously from time to time used to lure me into their animated conversations. I picked up certain phrases & words as it was somewhat similar to spanish but for the other parts of the time, everything was totally foreign.

They also made Caphirinia which is one of their favourite drinks from their country.. and they made some that I tried a little.. *hands up* Yep! First Time - tastes pretty alright!

Caphirinia is made from fresh lime, sugar and cacacha. They made two versions.. one original with Lime and another one with Fresh Strawberries...

Talking about strawberries.. there were punnets and punnets of strawberries.. I can never get enough of Strawberries!! And Bunches of Bananas??! Oookkay..

There were trays of rice - brazillian long grained rice.. potato salad, a pot of tomato salsa, a dish that was literally turkey stuffing aka crispy breadcrumbs mixture which was scooped over the rice.. I like! Lauren loved this too.. I had at least 3 rounds of this... plus all the meat that was constantly grilled and passed about.

Soon after the first burst of eating, with Brazillian music blasting. It got a little more entertaining.. the men whipped out a microphone... Eh? Microphone? Both Eirian and Lauren immediately sat down amused to watch their funny singing.

Strangely, they all knew the words to the songs so they were belting it out song after song.. sounds alien and brand new to me but obviously must be some popular song back in Brazil. It was amusing to listen and watch at how truely passionate and relaxed they were as compared to locals. Then there was a little dancing!

AHA!! My kinda action and a small group formed before I knew it and they were all trying to teach me to samba! Whoot! Loved that. We all tried a little of this & that of salsa, a little merengue and then back to samba again... and again, I must say.. Brazillians really have it in their blood to do a mean samba.

On some tables, boardgames, dominoes and card games broke out and everyone had a little something to do... interesting!

In the meantime, I lent my girls the camera and later I found some of their shots which was pretty funny too! Eirian taking her sister with some strange poses.. -.-''

And Lauren's turn with the camera.. TOO CLOSE!! wAHH! and whats this? Eirians' BUTT? *COUGH* moving on... so this is what you get when you give a 6 year old and an 8 year old a camera for a while...

Ahhh! I loved this one.. it looked like Eirian was trying to promote the fountain! Hahaha! "And here you see one of the lovely features of this condominium ladies & gentlemen.. The Fountain! Tadaaahhh!!!"

Once in a while, Cris managed to grab Eirian and we took a picture before she ran off again exploring the surrounding area.

A picture with some of the brazillian ladies that day... stuffed with ALOT of food.. everyone was in a little over-fed state of being... I'm going to miss you Cris! I'll visit Brazil one day and come stay at your place yea?! I love Brazillian BBQs... next BBQ I'm having.. I'm also slabbing beef like that! *slurps*

That was for the afternoon, the girls and I head home towards evening and we hit home and I got dressed for another round! Whooot! Happening lahhh....

Katia - Friend and also Zumba instructor in training at the gym invited me to her house for Paella *spanish seafood rice* Girls Night. Allow me to state that I've never been invited to a dinner party before. *Okay.. so laugh but its true.. and I was so excited about it! Over 30 and never had a dinner party!?*

When I say dinner party, I don't mean anyhow go to someone's house and just eat.. but seriously the WHOLE works... ambience setting... candles... appetisers set out in the living room with dips & cheese/crackers/fruits/toasted baguette.... glasses and glasses of red & white wine on the flow.... a fully setup dining table with the best china & silver cutlery...table runners... flowers... and where you go completely dressed up in a smashing outfit/dress like as if you're heading to a really posh restaurant. THAT kind of dinner... She was such an excellent host!

It was a group of Katia, me, Toni - another CF instructor and 4 other ladies and it was absolutely rambunctious! The conversation easy & delightful.. we covered topics all like water moving from one to another with wine glass on hand & a constant stream of food....

When I first arrived, I met Katia's husband & sister making the paella and it was so interesting how it was done and it smelt SO GOOD. After it was cooked, her husband went out and left us girls to our own devices... what delighted me when I first entered too was how her little son greeted me! He didn't just greet & run like other kids, he so very politely stood at my feet, looked up and said hello and promptly threw himself onto me and gave me a big hug!

I was caught totally by surprise! What a lovely welcome! Then he broke out into a little smattering of french & spanish.. adorable!! I was given a tour of the house and it was such a lovely place and the boys *she has 2 boys* were enthusiastically showing me their bedroom & toys.. I loved it!

So here it is.. PAELLA!! A truely first class HUUGE pan of spanish rice.. and it was phenomenal. So good!!! I would have had more if not for the large lumps of meat I had earlier ingested during the earlier BBQ.

Dinner had a side of fresh salad with balsamic vinegar & cherry tomatoes... very nice too.. and dessert was a very lovely icecream medley of Movenpick Mocha with a splash of Baileys, raspberries and chocolate biscuit rolls. *No pictures of anything else.. wasn't very appropriate to be wielding my camera during that situation* Very decadently good.

After dinner, we adjourned to the living room where our conversations continued and then joy of joys... we got onto the topic of zumba and yes, you guessed it.. Katia and I zumba-ed a couple of tracks together right in her living room. And I was really enjoying myself alot.

Shortly after my girlfriend, Alegria called and updated us that the music over at Azzucar was pretty good that evening, we decided to head down to Clarke Quay and hit the latin dance club after checking out Cuba Libres' *a smaller latin dance pub* music. It wasn't too hot that evening and we walked out after 5 minutes and watching a round of bachata.

And yet ANOTHER FIRST... ever since I've heard about Azzucar from Shelly - who told me that she went past and thought I'd really love that place - I REALLY DO. Okay.. so ever since then, I've wanted to check it out so it was my first time there and no prizes for guessing.

It. was. Fabulous! I found a dance club that I really REALLY really LIKED. The music was insanely GOOD that evening. Latin/Regaetton/Salsa with a live band. The crowd was older too which made me feel a little more comfortable too and everyone wasn't some professional dancer trying to show off.. everyone danced bc they wanted to and latin music was their cup of tea... it was friends amongst friends...

I heard from the girls that the drinks were watered down and not up to standard.. it didn't matter to me as I didn't drink further after dinner at Katia's place. I was very pleased that the girls too were mature & gracious enough to take me seriously when I said "I'm not drinking anymore" before we hit Clarke Quay and didn't try to pressure me to drink "for the occassion"... as such, I ordered mineral water.

And then I gagged once my order came... about $10 for a small bottle of Evian... CAN DIE LARH! Sorry.. but $10 for water is insane lah.. but I had one still. Pffffttt!!!!~ Sorry arh.. Aunty Pam here still thinks that $10 for water is insane.

Then we danced.. bootyshaked till my ass almost fell off.. I REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed it. There was no smoke since the smoking ban at clubs so I didn't have to worry about smelling like an ashtray & breathing in 2nd hand smoke... the crowd other than dancing wildly on the dance floor was docile and calm otherwise, Oh! And I know I mentioned the music but I LOOVED the music that night. It was almost like track after track of my favourite tracks.. out of a possible 20 tracks.. maybe I didn't like only 2. It was THAT GOOD.

We danced till we were all DRIPPING in sweat. It really helped too that bc we were all in the same dance class somewhat that we knew how to dance together with moves that we can recognise and replicate. Our hair were literally plastered to our heads & shoulders and serviettes were stuck onto our skin *piak- drrraaag.. wipe*. Our faces flushed from dancing so hard & much..

In between dance sets, we even managed to take some pictures! Me and Alegria... I must say... put her and me together and we both can bootyshake and grind together in fantastic sync! Must chope her as one of my favourite dance club partners.

And of course, a picture with Katia, beautiful host, lovely friend and what a dancer too! Unfortunately, a lady accidentally elbowed her right eye on the dance floor and it swelled horribly to a swollen purple black eye the next day. It was really unfortunate but she was still a gracious host throughout even with the bruised eye. *am touched - hand to heart*

I left early a little after at 215am and left the girls to their bottle of Champagne and next live band set for the evening but left very satisfied and happy. I want to go to Azzucar AGAIN one day... and I want Alegria and Katia to be there too! and.. Sin Yee... and Shelly... and all my bootyshaking latin dancing girlfriends... Azzucar!!