Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas Meal of the East

My parents are your typical Chinese folks. Yet come Christmas, my father always insisted on having a traditional Christmas lunch every year. Like most Chinese families of that time, we didn't own an oven nor did my mother know how to prepare turkey so we would inevitably head over to some hotel buffet & have ourselves our Sing Dan Dai Chan (Christmas feast in Cantonese). And inevitably, my mother would go home to cook herself a bowl of rice. I told you my parents are typical Chinese folks - they need their rice. Strange as it may sound, this was our family Christmas tradition.

My father has since passed on. I've moved abroad. My siblings work for the airlines so this family tradition died a natural death. Knowing that my mother would not appreciate the Christmas meal of the West since we didn't serve rice, we took her out to Christmas meal of the East.

I've blogged about Old Hong Kong for their wonderful dimsum, I've not talked about their Chinese dishes. They have some great value set meals & whenever we have guests in town, we would take them there. This restaurant has slowly become our favorite. The owner is Mr Li from Hong Kong whom we've come to know quite well. The food is good & service excellent. He adores The Girl & *Uncle* always gives her free dimsum & desserts. So it was a no brainer for us to head over there for our Sing Dan Dai Chan.

Turkey & mango salad

BTW we had a table next to the window which gave me lots of light, the reason why the pictures turned out so well.

Abalone with sea cucumber & mushroom
X couldn't understand the appeal of abalone so I happily ate his portion

Fried e-mien with oyster mushrooms

I missed taking photos of 2 other dishes which were actually our favorite - shark's fin with crab roe (I know it's not PC but I love shark's fin & their version is extremely yummy). The second is prawns done 2 ways - in wasabi mayonnaise & salted egg yolk (probably clogged up all my arteries but who cares).

This is what they call a pre-dessert
Dessicated coconut bunnies

Mango puree with Ice cream

How much do you think this meal cost ? 7 dishes with a complimentary glass of wine - $68++ per person. Now you know why we keep going back. And it got my mother's stamp of approval - she readily admitted that she much preferred this Christmas meal of the East.

2 comments:

Beau Lotus 涟 said...

I'm finally very cina, that abalone and mushroom dish looked really delicious...

petite fleur said...

It was. Come back for CNY. I'll bring you there.