Food Tasting for the BIG day

I’m sorry this took forever to come up, but here it is! Late, but never, never! Ok straight to the photos!!!


Here I am at Holiday Inn Park View, the venue of Elder Bro’s wedding in about a month’s time only! The families are here to sample the selected wedding banquet dishes and to approve the final menu. I get to go for good food sampling right after my last paper.


Menu for the BIG night as planned by the couple


First Up! The Cold Dish Combination. Roast Chicken, Prawn Salad, Pacific Clams, Seafood Roll and Sushi Roll (which will be replaced by Suckling pig that day as they don’t want to cook a whole pig just for ONE table of food tasting for us).

Well everybody condemned the Seafood Roll. Taste boring and cost next to nothing. Thank goodness it will be replaced. But other than that the dish was great! Especially the pacific clams and prawn salad. Yummy.


Dad and Mom having a go at the food. See those cynical and critical eyes???


Next is the Braised Shark’s Fin soup with Crabmeat and Conpoy. It’s a good thing there’s only 9 of us! Most of us got an extra bowl of soup to slurp up. The helpings’ surprisingly generous. Dad commented that the quality of shark’s fin’s passable so I reckon its good, being the typical negative critique that he is.


Here's a closer view of the delicacy


Introducing the Groom and the Bride to be! Elder bro and Cindy. Can somebody say "at last"??? HAHAHA. So happy for them.


The Crispy “Pi-pa” Duck with the weird sauce that actually makes the dish taste worse. Haha. But the duck on its own’s excellent. No bit of the crispy skin was left uneaten.


Some other random photos.


Sister-in-law and her parents.


Steamed Red Garoupa with Superior Soya Sauce. The typical fishy dish of weddings. The fish was fresh and delightfully cooked. Only comment on that dish: “Please maintain the dish’s standard on the day itself”.


Look at how thick the meat is. The supposed superior sauce must have worked its magic. Can't resist slurping the sauce up although Dad say its bad for health.


Braised Sliced Abalone with Chinese Spinach. We were already almost full by then arrival of this dish. So there’s a little bit of spinach leftover. Hahaha. The presence of my younger bro is sorely missed too. But come to think of it, there might not be enough to go around if he was present.


Drunken Live Prawns with Chinese Wine and Herbs. Huge gigantic and fresh prawns! The Princess’ favouritest food of all time. Well there were 2 prawns for each person but no prize for guessing who had MORE than the rest! Heh.


Stir-fried Fresh Scallops with Asparagus in X.O. sauce. My favourite dish of the whole menu. Because of the freshness and the thickness of the scallops! The Asparagus’ flavourful, crunchy and well cooked too. Dad and Cindy’s mom was telling us how to prepare X.O. sauce without any X.O. wine. Good to have the pros around during food tasting.


Here’s a better picture of the same dish taken by the Princess. I gotta mention that the planning of the dish’s order’s was highly apt. The prawn and scallop dishes are really light and ‘non-stuffing’, leaving us with enough space for the last dish.


Braised Ee-fu Noodles with Crabmeat, Golden Mushrooms and Chives. Since I was bursting by then and not an exact ardent fan of these noodles,I was pretty much fishing out for the crab meat and golden mushroom most of the time.


Sweeten Yam Paste with Ginko Nuts and Pumpkin. I passed all the Gingko nuts to the Princess. Dessert’s moderate on the whole according to me but the pumpkin is a refreshing light touch to the otherwise thick and creamy dish.


Elder Bro writing comments furiously while Cindy enjoys her dessert. A woman's prerogative I reckon?

The final verdict??? The standard of the food in terms of quality, quantity and variety exceeded all expectations. Dad was especially surprised by the value given that it only cost my elder brother 788 bucks a table. This is inclusive of free flow beer and a bottle of red wine per table as well. Good deal I'd say.

Its the second time dining here for the Princess and I, with our first foray with their banquet food going way back into 2005. This is the venue for my ASLC's graduation ball during army times. I only remembered good food that night so no exact surprises here. I hope they maintain the standard of the food on the night itself. I can't wait for the wedding! Its gonna be a blast.

The best thing is I get to eat all these sumptuous food in about a month's time!