Private Dinning With Lars And Stefanie

On one fine Saturday night, Lars and stefanie (my German colleagues and his GF) invited me and my wife to have a private dinning at his apartment in Shanghai down town. well! This is definitely a great experience for me, I have never invited for private home cook European dinner before and here we go..!!

Their apartment deco are just great with simple decoration and cosy enough to host a great dinner. The setting of the dinner is just like dinning in the first class French restaurant...the dime light plus good lounge music create a good ambient environment for a wonderful dinner. The silver fork and spoon we used that night were all at least few decade old heritage from LARS grand parents ( What a honor for me and my wife!)

We have light refreshment before cruising to the dinning table and Lars told me that this is the normal way of having a light drinking session in Europe before dinner.

The appetizer dish with bake Italian loaf top with some french dressing plus slice fresh tomato and basil. The combination was so refreshing and serve as a good appetizer before our pasta session.

In fact, stefanie baked some home Italian bread to serve together with mint sauce and I really like the bread texture but I can't take more otherwise I will be full before the main cause.

Just look at the table setting...the tall wine glass, the big pasta plate and all the appetizer dishes plus the wonderful home bake Italian bread on the side of the table..it is just fabulous!!!!

Lim Lim was admiring the dishes and she was wondering how many kgs she will put in for that night! Ha! Ha!

Stefanie show me her cook book and told me the different type of pasta and I only realize that all the while what I call Spagetti is not actually call "Spagetti"!!!!

Ah Ha!!! Here come the star of the dinner....A tomato meat source pasta. You can never guess how good the smell is! The good combination of the spices that Stefanie used plus the fresh tomato give the dish a wonderful taste. By the way, to have the right sauce is one thing, another important point is the right timing in cooking the pasta that give you the texture require for a good pasta dish. It look simple but trust me it is not easy to cook a well balance pasta dish with good combination of the ingredients and right pasta texture.

Here come the home make apple tart. What I would like to mention about was the crispy tart base top with the right sweetness from the apple jam plus the balance sour taste from the fresh apple really make this dessert a perfect ending for this wonderful dinner. Oh!!! I forget to mention the home make ice cream by LARS using the ice cream machine he brought all the way from Germany is just as great as the apple tart and there were good combination. The smoothness of the ice cream deserve thumb up from me!!...A sweet tooth like me even think that the dessert gain more points from me than the other dishes on that night ( I am sorry, STEFANIE....your pasta just great but I like the dessert so much....!!!! forgive me!)

We have some chill rosy wine for the dinner and the chill wine is good to serve with red sauce pasta dish!!!! Thanks to LARS and STEFANIE for such a wonderful night plus all the great great home cook food!!!! Frankly speaking I am already looking forward for your next invitation..ha! ha!