New Year's eve over Tiramisu and La-Sonia!

Running all episodes of Revenge (Season 1) kept my mind intact despite the challenges of a more  hectic new year. But somewhere in between, I am grateful that I had a very meaningful and unforgettable new year's eve celebrating it with my mom and couple of old and familiar friends, in  a very special and intimate way. I was invited to come over to one of my dear friend's place to celebrate the new year's eve and truly had a an unforgettable one.

Stefano really left everyone amazed by his "first-ever" Lasagna. I think he is just way too humble.:-)

It was raining heavily and took us a good more than half an hour to get a cab. It was still wet and drizzling when we arrived. I cannot help but take a photo of the Christmas tree sans colorful and bright lights. It could be a different version of the earth hour? :-) However, the holiday spirit was not diminished. The window view remains romantic.

I must thank this wine for bringing out the very best in everyone sitting on that table.

We brought the red wine on the right but the one on the left truly graced the evening. Stefano told me that this heavenly wine was brought by his mom on her previous visit.

This Lasagna truly proves that Italian do take their pasta and cooking (in general) really seriously! Everyone must have no lesser than three servings of this. 

Stefano finally confessed his secret behind the sucess of his "first ever" Lasagna - Sonia, an Italian master kitchen Chef via Youtube. I named his Lasagna as "LaSonia" which he immediately approved. Stefano showed us his so called mentor named "Sonia" through her Youtube video making Lasagna in Italian language. Stefano translated it to English for us of course.:-)

I should have taken the photo earlier before it ended up like this. :-)

Baked salmon with awesome and juicy goodness.:-)

I am not very active and much of a sports person but Stefano is! He is fond of diving - both in water and up up in the sky including golf.

Stefano also introduced to us his two friends, an avid sailing fan originally from Ukraine and an artist cum chair designer, Nicolas, who also joined us for dinner. He still owes us a private tour of his own gallery featuring his latest designs and creations. I do hope to have a separate post on this once I finally get to visit his space. Its really refreshing to speak to artists like Nicolas himself. I can say that passion drove Nicolas where he is now. He told me that he already knew that he is an artist and produced his first creation even before reaching the age of 10. :-)

During the dinner, I noticed that the background music volume frequently changes thus left me curious. The answer is very simple - the music was being played from a speaker with motion sensors. It mistakenly recognized our hand movements from the dinner table. Whenever one of us raise our hands in the course of conversation, the volume pops up. I tried moving my hand the other direction and so is the volume. :-) Is this the precursor of Kinect? haha

I guess this is the new trend - Christmas trees without Christmas lights following the other Christmas tree in one of the neighbor's window.:-)

Of course, one of the dinner highlight was the special Tiramisu with rum.

We almost lost tracked of time after a very fun chat over the whole dinner. The night sky has been forgiving and the rain stopped just before midnight. Stefano and his friends decided to go to the beach club afterwards while we have decided to proceed with our initial plan and headed to the bayfront to catch the fireworks display and witness the new year countdown. The traffic jam was bad as expected so we asked the cab driver to bring us to the nearest station possible. We literally dashed and  made a home run just almost two minutes before midnight! The dark sky went spectacular. :-)

It was a lovely evening full of great food and hearty laughters with both old and new friends, a better way to kickstart the year!


Cheers!