being led astray....

the original plan was to take part in an Oktoberfest event which consisted of a 4 course dinner n a beer. there was a big tent erected by Village in Far east sq, and everyone sat at long tables for dinner. it was kind of like a school canteen. =P Village is a restaurant that is related to Marche`. there were even a few of those marche cows standing around! we had to buy tickets ($35 per head) to enter, but they were full up for the night, and we could only buy tix for either saturday or sunday. ughhhh... so we went somewhere else.

we walked around the area, and managed to find a table for 4 at Oosters, also a dinner n beer place. we had beef meatballs as starters. the meatballs were fried, and they came sitting on a serviette, surrounded by lotsa greenery and sauce. in the dim orange lighting, i saw that the serviette was soaked with some dark orange liquid. i thought the chef had used a red oil, like the carrot oil Carotino/a.
each meatball had a fancy toothpick sticking out of it, making it easy to pick them up n eat. u know the kind of toothpick with a little bit of coloured cellophane paper at one end?
so....i picked up one meatball. i was puzzled by the void left behind by my removal of the meatball. there was a patch of watery red stuff on the plate.
damn..... the "orange oil" i had assumed was actually blood! ughhhh .... the meatball was nicely cooked outside, but the inside was not so cooked....
i panicked. my dinner partners were enjoying their starter and praising the food, while i was hesitating abt putting it into my mouth.
Ah-ha! i saw the sauces for dipping, and decided to dip my meatball in one of them. there was ketchup, and 2 suspicious-looking unknown sauces on either side of the harmless ketchup. suddenly deciding to be adventurous, i gave the meatball a generous coating of what looked like brown minced pork sauce.
because i didnt want to chew off half and then stare at the insides of the meatball, i stuffed the whole thing into my mouth.

BIG MISTAKE.

the innocent minced pork-looking sauce was a fiery dip with a hugely dominant taste of mustard and wasabi! my nose went crazy and my eyes started to water.....boohooo.. i dunno if my dinner partners noticed it. hehehhe... =P
anyway, i quickly chewed it up and swallowed, then took a big swig of my hoegaarden. hmm...so, actually i didnt taste the rawness of the core of the meatball. =P

aiyoh...i wrote so much just on the starter!

anyway our main courses came and we all tucked in. i ordered sausages n stoemp. quite nice, but i couldnt finish the food. there were some sausages n a pile of "potato mashed with vegetables". that was the description in the menu. it didn't sound too appetizing, but it tasted good! there was a bit of veg here n there, n the veg taste blended well with the potato. (um, honestly speaking, the occasional fibrous bit of veg reminded me of my body waste when i eat "old" n very fibrous veges)

with so much food inside me, the hoegaarden didnt really have much alcoholic effect on me. one of the guys picked up the tab ($100 for the 4 of us, not really ex).

one of them was a "beer-hound" with honed abilities to sniff out the best beer joints, and he led the way to Brewerkz. unfortunately, that place was packed, and we put down our number on the waiting list. suddenly, a man shouted my name. "YI WEN!!"
i wheeled around, completely caught by surprise. i gazed at the crowd of pple sitting in the alfresco section of Brewerkz and suddenly saw one of my managers and an engineer sitting at a table, with their own frens. GOSH! hahaha
i walked over to say hi, and couldn't help noticing the JUGS of beer that were taking up so much of the space on the table. looked like each person was having 2 jugs... the manager said that there was another bunch of my office pple at (cafe) Iguana, just 2 doors away from Brewerkz. goodness.... i can't imagine my office pple drinking... i mean, they are the sort who eat homemade salad for lunch!

yah so B. was full, and we went to Ig. instead. we sat on the outside of Ig, so i didnt see any of my colleagues. we had a jug of Indian Pale Ale (IPA). that meant one mug each. gosh...i've never drunk so much in my life b4, but i was still feeling good (ie. logical, able to talk sense, walk straight, etc) so i drained the mug eventually. of course, all these were just starters for my partners. another one of them paid for this jug, and we left for B. when they called us, saying there is a table now.

now, let me say something abt the architecture of the row of restaurants. there are a few broad steps leading from the ground level walkway to the restaurants. such steps are for tripping pple who had a bit too much to drink, causing them to roll down the steps and into the sg river. yup, all that went thru my head as i stood up to walk towards B.
so.....was i getting drunk yet?
thankfully i got to B. in one piece.
yet another jug, but i didnt feel so good already, so the most seasoned beer guzzling fren asked the waitress to bring me a shot glass instead. hehe...suddenly my mug got downsized! yay....
i drank plenty of iced water, mainly coz i was thirsty and coz water would help dilute the alcohol in my stomach. so, with a tiny shotglass of beer, i gladly challenged them to bottoms up. kekekek...
one of them wasn't a gd drinker, and he kept getting suaned when he refuses to "follow". i felt like my cheeks and lips were getting numb. the cheeks felt like i had been smiling for phototaking for a whole day, and my upper lip simply felt too heavy to move. ok, more iced water. =P
hmm... i kind of got conned by the fren who got me the shotglass. he proceeded to fill up my glass again, and then his own. n it was bottoms up challenge again. haha
by now i was kind of woozy, but still not stupid enough to drain my shotglass for him to fill again. so i went to the washroom. i was kind of afraid, actually, coz i didn;t think i could make my way to the toilet very well. i found myself running my fingers along the wall as i walked along the corridor. ok, that's my limit liao. hehe...i almost fell asleep in my squatting toilet cubicle.
i got back to our table, and the two guzzlers had ordered for themselves yet another mug each. the remaining fren was stoned already.
Bottoms up! and we paid up and left for the taxi stand. So that's how it works when guys go out. we had gone to 3 different places, and they took turns to pay the bill. luckily i only had to pay the taxi fare, after dropping two of them off at geylang bahru n potong pasir. *giggle* $12 only....=P

got home abt 1130pm. after bathing, i read the newspaper while waiting for my hair to dry. wah lau. i've never experienced more difficulty in reading! my eyes were like a pair of faulty camera focus lens. couldn't focus on the words - at any time, in a single word, some alphabets looked like font size 8, some looked like 28. i just scanned the headlines...bigger fonts gave me less problems. i made my way thru all 3 sections, but i skipped the comics! haha... squinting at the words was completely out of the question.
then i had a nice long sleep, and woke up bright n cheery at 8am today! no hangover, thk gdness. =) but i'll really stay away from more than one mug a nite. (unless it's free, of cuz!)