Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Chinese dinner banquet

Once in a while, we get taken out by our Chinese partners to really obiang places with private KTV rooms and gold-guilded decorations. For dinner on our second night, we went to a Cantonese restaurant in a 3-star hotel near to our hotel.


The appetisers came. I think this was meant to look like grass in a garden (what's up with the jam butterfly?!). The seaweed was actually quite tasty.

Some small oily fish.
Jellyfish with vinegar and sesame oil. This was yummy.

Snow peas with fish lips (鱼唇). The fish lips were quite spongy...I had initially thought that it was fish maw. This was quite nice.

Herbal soup served dobinmushi style. Different herbs for men and women.

Thinly-sliced pork with vegetables

Crab and prawns...nowhere near as excessive as the previous evening's seafood.

Some flatfish cooked in dark sauce...this was good.

Top shell with peppers.

They ordered some blended corn drink...this was served warm. Nice but filling.

Fish steamed with soy sauce.

foie gras fried tempura-style

Sliced pork. This was very nicely done, as the pieces had a bit of fat in them.

Fried mushroom-like thing

Sea cucumber

The best part of the meal came at the end. First, we were each served a pancake (烧饼) - as if there wasn't enough food on the table already. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I left it on my plate.
Then things became clearer when they put a huge claypot in front of everyone.

The buddha-jump-over-the-wall was probably the highlight of my trip. The stock was amazingly rich and sweet, and the ingredients - sea cucumber, fish maw, shark's fin, abalone - were plentiful. I savoured every bite, and licked up every last drop of the soup. I tore up the pancake into small bits, and threw it into the stock. It went really well with the rich liquid, surprisingly.
Can't wait to go back to China.

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