Well, I succeeded.

I 'encouraged' my colleagues to do our annual Deepavali lunch at Spice Junction (mini yay). They were planning on Go India but I did the smart thing of pointing them to some of the Go India reviews here, especially about the buffet and my job was done. (Oh no, what if they read my 'I'll get my colleagues to Spice Junction' review! Argh!)

Anyhoo, we are a group of 18 so we made reservations early and even got out of the office early to make our 12.30 slot. The restaurant was fairly full but we pretty much took up one whole section. The standard long table, except it looked reeaallly long.

Everyone HAD to wear something Indian and the girls, actually, babes really turned it on. The Indian colleagues looked...well, like they had just arrived from India while the Chinese gals really looked the business. Very pwetty in their shawls, Indian tops, bindis, cleavage...Ha.

Nice.

We settled down, got some drinks going...everything from strawberry lassi to India's beer, Kingfisher. All good.

Then the mega orders started. We pretty much ordered the house. Everything from Chicken 65, Butter Chicken, Mutton Vindaloo, Vegetable stew, Fish curry, some Prawn sambal thingy, to Pepper Paneer (hey, where did that come from? Heh) with briyani rice, normal white rice and prata.

The food arrived soon and EVERYONE couldn't get enough of almost everything. The girls who do the usual bird like eating were like going from 'Who wants to share a prata?' to 'I want a prata for myself!'. It was quite a sight. And by the end of lunch, we had pretty much licked dry some of the plates/dishes. I kid you not.

There was a smoke break of sorts (more babes than boys smoke in our office - sigh) before we started on desserts.

Again, we had everything and this time while most agreed that Indian desserts should come with an insulin jab or a heart monitor, everything disappeared magically yet again.

While the general consensus was that lunch was a mega success, the top 5 rated items were as follows:

1) Mutton Vindaloo - spicy shiok feeling with tender mutton pieces
2) The prawn sambal thingy (didnt check the name, it's the most expensive prawn item on the menu)
3) Butter Chicken - standard Indian fare done without the jelak feeling
4) Pepper Paneer - second time around and still like first love
5) Chicken 65 - would make for a great beer snack...we ordered like 7 plates of this!

We were still singing the praises (in-between spice burbs) as we made our way back to the office. And you won't believe this! The girls actually ordered a huge Old Changkee takeaway less than an hour later for tea! What the..!!!

I had a blast (er, might feel a blast when I go to the loo this morning). A thoroughly enjoyable lunch at what must be one of my favourite restaurants along Race Course Road now. Heightened by Indian-garbed colleagues who served up great eye candy along with some good 'ol fashioned Indian-like gossip *wink*

Yappy Deepavali indeed!