We recently reviewed two beautiful books from Snowflake Books, and today I'm delighted to be able to offer them as a giveaway prize for one of my readers.

Naughty Monkey and The New Year Beast are from two series of books retelling ancient Chinese tales. They are printed in both English and Simplified Chinese with beautiful illustrations. A great way to learn more about Chinese culture, and perfect for anyone wanting to introduce their child to the Chinese language.


Written by Su Yen Hu and Lihui Wang, the text is perfect for my competent 7 year old to read aloud independently, and my 5 year old understood the stories and took a lot from them, and so did I. They are fabulous legends and traditional tales, and these versions are very well done.

Chinese New Year 2016 fell on February 8th, and Snowflake Books marked the event with a series of children's books retelling amazing Chinese fairy tales and legends, festivals, traditions and wisdoms.


Written by Su Yen Hu and Lihui Wang, the books are in both Simplified Chinese and English with gorgeous illustrations. They are not only a great tool for beginners learning to speak a different language, but a fabulous way for anyone to learn something about Chinese culture, and to see that however far apart in distance and language, the East and West share the same human values.

The way the Chinese characters are clearly shown with the Pinyin* below the English text makes it incredibly easy to see the translation and the use of colour to highlight key words and phrases is brilliant.

Cooking for 7 or 8 every night can be hard work, so I very much look forward to take away night. When hungryhouse offered to provide us with a Chinese New Year Celebration evening I wasn't going to turn that down!

We couldn't take part actually on Chinese New Year because 3 of our family would be out, so we decided to celebrate the following Saturday when everyone would be there. We're used to that, we have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve every year.

Our celebration wasn't only about food - we were also sent a party pack and vouchers to cover entertainment.

We all like movies, but couldn't agree. We could only think of Kung Fu Panda and Mah Jong to 'play'. The big kids didn't want Kung Fu Panda and Mah Jong is beyond the little children. Someone mentioned Sushi and everyone got excited. Now, clearly Sushi is Japanese, but they all wanted it to be part of our day, so I let it pass on the grounds that it would be a properly fun thing to try and there are still parts of Japan following the Chinese calendar, so in Okinawa for example, Chinese New Year is celebrated rather than 1st Jan (tenuous I know).

We bought all the goodies we needed and had lots of fun through the day.


Making Chinese dragons and playing with the fans....


Decorating Treasure Boxes.....

 
And filling them with real treasure....


 .....and everyone had a go at making sushi!


We made cakes which we coloured red and finished off  with special Chinese Year Of The Horse cake toppers.




Then it was time to order....and it went a bit wrong. We started trying to order at 5.10pm and the hungryhouse website broke...


And then it really broke....


And at 6.30pm I had to give in. I fed us with something quick from the freezer.

I live with an I.T. guy, I know it's a nightmare when the website breaks, in fact my partner had spent most of Saturday at work instead of at home because HIS website had broken. We have a lot of sympathy for situations like this, and a quick look at the Facebook or Twitter feeds and it was very clear that this isn't something that we could see has ever happened before. 

On Sunday people had to go out at 6pm, but luckily hungryhouse listed a Chinese take away that opened at 4.30pm. The website was fixed, I was able to pre-order our meal early in the day and at 4.35pm I got an email to say my order had been received and would be with us at 5.20pm.

At exactly 5.20pm....


It went down a treat and was a lovely meal....hurrah!



After dinner, dessert - Fortune Cookies for everyone!


We were given £25 towards our food. We only had one suitable Chinese take away, it was a little expensive for meals, cheaper for sides, so the bill came to £50.50 for 8 of us, which is standard with all our teenagers and everyone wanting something different!


Bad points
50p surcharge for Credit/Debit cards
If the website breaks then it all goes wrong.
You have to trust that they've actually got your order, it feels strange not talking to someone live.
Your favourite take away might not be listed


Good points
Pre-ordering for a specific time
Paying by card, you don't need to have cash in the house
You can see everything really easily, what's included with your dish, what you need to add on
You can leave specific instructions - eg. Vegetarian, no tomatoes etc
Nothing should be missed off, you check your order
Everything is written down
The hungryhouse website will split your order if there are a group ordering together, so that you only pay your own bill but all the food comes together. I think this is brilliant and I'd have used it many times.
You might discover a real gem that you'd never have tried.
You can leave instructions if your house is awkward to find, and the take away can refer back to them instead of trying to remember what you said!
You can compare location, menu, reviews, prices and opening hours really quickly.
There isn't a fight over who rings up!

I will definitely use the hungryhouse website again because it is so easy and simple. The second time everything worked perfectly, I ordered in 5 minutes and it was lovely to be able to add notes to the order, and not be flustered on the phone trying to remember to mention someone doesn't want carrots....*sigh*