I thought this sign gave the event a casual restaurant feel.

It was fun to serve almost 200 diners a plate of home-made Nasi Lemak at St James' Church last Wednesday evening. There was a nice home-restaurant atmosphere.

It is the largest group we have cooked for thus far. I am glad to observe that the team worked well together to ensure a wonderful dinner and evening for all. Earlier, we were expecting to cater to a crowd of 120-150. As it neared 200 the day before, we switched some plans to better cater for this increase.

This is a pictorial post and I will let the photos and captions speak for themselves. There are some food and party tips in the captions.

If you'd like to join the Alpha Course  - where you can enjoy some good home-cooked food and meet new friends while exploring the meaning of life - do check out the details here.

Getting the place ready at the church plaza

25 tables

Registration Table

We needed a huge 50 cm wide Steamer.

We used almost a kilo of dried cilli to make the Sambal

Ayam Goreng

Diced carrots for the Sayur Lodeh "lite version" No reason why a tumeric-flavoured mixed veg in light coconut milk won't go with NL- this also catered to some vegetarians.

Pandanus Leaves - lots of it for the rice and Ginger Lime drink

Perfectly cooked hard boiled eggs

Flash Frying Curry leaves to garnish the Ayam Goreng

Banana leaves just to add to the dish presentation

The rice and sambal is the heart of NL. Get this right and the dish will sing.

Ayam Goreng is a usual crowd favourite. We used Anxin or "French Naked neck" Chicken. If you can serve it hot & crispy, that will be the best.

The Steamed (Kukus) Basmati Rice made every plate special. We used the longer variety.

The good thing about NL as a party dish is that the dishes (except for the rice) do not need to be served hot or warmed. We also fried assam prawns but did not cook them the proper way as  we did not have the suitable kitchen equipment.

A random plate of NL as diners gather at the buffet line. We normally serve diners plated but we decided against that due to the crowd.

An aerial view of the Plaza

Diners enjoying themselves. There is something about queueing for food which builds up the anticipation. There is also the experience of welcome from the servers.

Table conversations and meeting new friends are always a highlight in Alpha.

A typical Alpha  evening carries on with some entertainment and an engaging video talk by Rev Nicky Gumbel

The wonderful evening ended with desserts and hot drinks