Cherry Chen enjoys cooking for her new friends and dining with them.

Eat beat

A feast of stones

"I was very excited and worried if the atmosphere would get awkward or weird as most of us had never met before," Hu says.

By the time the first meal ended, one of the guests said to Hu that it was an amazing experience, and that he should organize another meal again. That was enough encouragement for him.

Now SweetSalt, as the couple have named their eat-and-socialize activity, is a regular dining event. It is like a family dining room now as his girlfriend has moved in recently and taken over the kitchen by cooking all kinds of dishes while Hu plays host chatting with the guests before the meal.

Most of the people who have been invited to the SweetSalt family dining room have become their friends, and regularly meet up with them.

"We're not only sharing food, but also exchanging ideas on everything like friends and family," says Chen, who works as a researcher at a global cosmetics company.