In honour of the season, I'm starting with the New Year's Day lunch party organized by one of my colleagues.

The food was superb. Sate (both in its traditional form, and in the less well-known but quite delicious guise of sate Padang, which is sate in a smooth and spicy yellow gravy); all the different types of pempek you can imagine; yummy grilled corn; coconut and fruit jellies of various descriptions; the most fabulous fresh durian and mango; and green Thai tea.

Today we were all back at work, but Nigel and I met up with an old friend for lunch at Kedai Kebun, and I had my first oseng-oseng tempe. This consists of tempe (obviously), tofu, long beans, chili, and anchovies. Tasty and filling.

But there are still a couple of food observations left over from 2013, so here they are:

-- We've been back to Milas a couple of times lately. They have a really interesting selection of hot drinks, which really suit the rainy weather. (I especially like the one that combines tamarind, ginger, and palm sugar, but their bandrek is good too.) In terms of food, I'm a great fan of their Javanese salad (trancam), which is made of raw vegetables and grated coconut, and is deliciously fresh and spicy. And if you feel like something Western, their omelette is excellent.

-- A few weeks ago, I finally got to experience the legendary fried chicken from Mbah Cemplung. It really is worth the fuss that is made of it.

-- Thai food is never the same outside Thailand... But the roast chicken salad at Phuket is pretty good. Spicy and fresh.

-- Parsley on Jalan Solo does a pretty nice yum cha.

-- And finally, we were given some "Taiwan Choco-Balls" as a present. These are Indonesian made, and consist of layers of chocolate, mochi, and marshmallow round a core of "strawberry butter". It says on the box that "it takes to you the happy feeling". It does, it does...