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2013-01-25
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Our quarterly mahjong night always ends with a feast. Those of us who do not play mahjong will arrive at 8 in time to hear all the exciting results on the mahjong table. As our organiser is a regular to the club, food was very efficient and started to arrive soon after we sat down. Our friend had ordered all that was in season and famous dishes of the restaurant.We started with some cold starters of pickled pig's trotters and marinated fungus in vinegar. I forgot to take photos of these but the
We started with some cold starters of pickled pig's trotters and marinated fungus in vinegar. I forgot to take photos of these but the trotters were very crispy and fresh tasting, not greasy nor oily. The fungus was a bit too sour.
Steamed prawns were our first hot dish. Although the menu stated medium prawns, these were quite big. Fresh and firm and a good start
Since our theme was seasonal, snake soup was next. The soup was hot and thick with lots of snake. My favourite part of snake soup were the crunchy fried dough that is served with the soup. They also had chrysanthemum flower petals and shredded lemon leaves. This shows that they take the dish seriously. Immediately after drinking snake soup, diners should feel very warm on a cold day. Maybe I imagined it but I think I felt a bit warmer.
Deep fried oyster used to be a very popular dish in HK when I was a child. Then the oysters in Hong Kong became polluted and the dish disappeared off menus for decades. I think this club uses US oysters. It was delicious, just as I remembered, this is one of the few places that offer this dish cooked retro style
More seasonal dishes came in the form of stewed mutton in clay pot. This is another winter dish not available in many places. Mutton was stewed in the pot with dried bean curd sticks, bamboo shoot and mushrooms. This was served with fermented bean curd paste. My classmate who is a connoisseur of this dish approved, although I think I have had tastier elsewhere. I liked the bean card sticks more than the mutton this time
The steamed Sabah garoupa was cooked well, not over or under done. The sauce was just right too. Shows this restaurant has an experienced and skilled chef. This is the simplest dish to cook but very hard to get just right.
Pressed roast duck looked a bit burnt but was actually crispy and smelt delicious. The meat was soft and marinated nicely. This was another one of my favourite dishes
Another winter dish in clay pot was Yam with beef. Yam is used to cook many clay pot dishes. A more popular dish is with wind dried duck but we had it with beef this time as we already had a duck dish and wind dried duck is very fatty. The sauce was creamy and delicious and the yam was fragrant and delicious. Most people were surprised at how nice this was even though we were full by this stage. That was may be why I stopped taking photos, needed all my energy to digest the food.There was a plate of fried Choi Sum to follow and desserts were steamed Malay Pudding (馬拉糕) which is one of the club's specialties and an almond paste soup. As I don't like Chinese sweet soups, I had a piece of pudding which I have to agree was very good.
So we thanked our member classmate for organising a wonderful winter feast and patiently wait another quarter before we meet for our Spring gathering of good food, good mahjong and good fun.
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