The Challenge: 11 courses for <$50

OMG tonight has to be one of the most funniest surprise birthday dinners I've ever been to!

It all started with an email from Mr bmtp last week booking me in for my birthday dinner for tonight. He told me that he will be taking me to a 12 course meal for just under $50! So the whole week I've been emailing him back and forths trying to figure out how the heck he can pull that off..! Any possibilities under sun you can think of, I have thrown at him (g. sushi train, steamboat, yum cha.. you name it, I've asked!). But still, it wasn't it. So when he had said to me 'in fact you can name any cuisine you want I can still deliver it for under $50!'. So I decided to burst his bubble with the reply 'I want all 12 courses to be all 12 diff cusines'. So I named my top 12 countries: Jap, Viet, Thai, German, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French & finally Australian Contemporary. He replied 'Done!'. I didn't realise until later on that I had accidentally typed Korean twice (dammit!)

Anyways, finally tonight, the moment I've been waiting for... I went over to his place only to find him so shocked by my early arrival. He told me to wait in the living room while he was frantically in the kitchen preparing for 'the meals'. Finally half hour later, he told me to sit outside in the backyard BBQ table and made me close my eyes so that he can bring out the 'entrees' for me. As soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn't stop laughing!

OMG IT WAS SOOOO FUNNY!

There lied in front of me were: Meat floss - from China, a sausage bun - from German, French fries - France, Le Snacks salsa chips & dips - Mexican, Rice Crackers - Jap, this funny looking biscuit - Vietnam, Spanish Olives - Spain, Salad with Italian dressing - Italy, a small tin of SPC Baked beans - Aust & finally a cup of Tom Yum soup - Thai! OMG not only that, he made all these extremely tiny flags (he had printed the flags out from work, cut & sticky taped them onto a toothpick in the kitchen after work) and stuck them all onto the appropriate cuisine. It was soooo cute! And all this for under $15!! I was sooo impressed at his effort and his 'creativity'. Golly gosh I just couldn't stop laughing!! After that, I realised there was no representation from Korea so he said 'b/c you had wrote Korea twice, I figure you must really love Korean so I've decided to take you out to a Korean restaurant as your mains..' LOL! So after he made me eat all those weird combinations of food, we went to KimChi Grandma in Box Hill. Man.. we were so stuffed by the end of the night. But there was more! After I got back from the restroom, there lied in front of my plate were a slice of mango & a slice of Blackforest cake from BreadTop to finish the birthday celebration off! I was soooooo surprised by it especially when I knew he didn't bring anything into the restaurant when we came in (I found out later it was cos he had came to the restaurant earlier to drop it off to surprise me! I was sooo touched!!)

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(thnx Simon for teaching me how to use bluetooth on my phone to send this to my PC!!)

Anyways, although the bill came to $45, all up including the entrees, the total still came to $60! So he didn't quite complete the challenge with success! But, I must admit, I loved every single effort he had put in! Really made me laugh until I had tears! Gosh, now it's my turn to deliver on the challenge that he will give me real soon! Gosh I hope I can be as creative as him!