Thank you!

Last week I got a short pm on Facebook from my good girlfriend Candice wanting to know two things: 1.) Whether we were free Saturday (yesterday) and 2.) Did we like oysters. Well, Kumar and I, we will pretty much eat anything, but to be completely honest, I might have had some very slight misgivings about the oysters, I mean, it's not necessarily your everyday fare, but we relished the thought of the company of Candice and her husband Irvin's, their two beautiful children's, Stella and Kingston who are roughly the same ages as Maya and Jaden, and her lovely parent's, and yes, we were free!

So as what usually happens when we get invites on a Saturday, I packed the kids into the car and picked Kumar up downtown after he got off work and then made our way all together to the de la Cruz' cozy home in St-Hubert. Upon arrival thereat we were greeted by the wonderful pervasive smells of Irvin's (who is a professional chef!) cooking. He was still in the middle of cooking up a storm while Candice' other guest Anabelle, who I had met once before, was shucking the oysters away. About forty-five minutes later we were gathered (and drooling!) around an amazing and beautiful spread of predominantly Asian delicacies: Irvin's own recipe of traditional Filipino "Lumpia" or eggrolls with a sweet chili dipping sauce, a pile of the steamed oysters, doused with soya sauce and scallions, Chinese dumplings, jumbo coconut shrimp with a sweet and zingy marmalade-wasabi dipping sauce and what might have seemed a bit incongruous beside the rest of the dishes but worked so perfectly to clean our palates between delectable mouthfuls of everything else, the classic Italian staple of tomato, bocconcini & basil salad, pre-tossed with a *reduced* balsamic vinaigrette, and then beautifully arranged...

All that (lol) just when I thought we were going to be slurping on oysters and downing shooters all evening, I mean that would've been perfectly fine, too, are you kidding me?! But that spread, well that was one insane treat and a half!!!! Irvin, you've outdone yourself yet again, and all other credit goes to Candice for making it possible for you to do your magic in the kitchen. Thank you, guys for your warm hospitality. We love you all so much!!!