Monday, 24th July 2006

Oh Foodies! Pay close attention - this was where I had dinner on Monday night!!! There was not only one of these magnificent chandeliers - there were at least 10!!!!



My place setting - solid silver cutlery, fine bone china from Japan, and crisp cotton napkins. sigh.....



The Menu insert, the outer is made out of leather and embossed in gold.... how decadent and how I loved it!



First Course: Trio of Marinated Seafood with Roasted Vegetables and Caeser Dressing. Its a butterflied prawn, a mussel & some scallops (real scallops) scattered amongst the roasted vegetables with dressing dribbled in an artistic cirle around the rim of the plate. It was good, cold on cold plates and surprisingly tasty. I expected the seafood to be woody but they quite sweet and seafoody in taste.



Second course: Mushroom Soup with Croutons - so so, they could have used more mushrooms to give it more taste and a more concentrated stock, it was quite thick but not mushroomy enough, the saving grace was that it was hot and the cream added at the end was a nice touch. It was served with bread and butter and everyone on my table took their bread from the right, hello!!!!!!!!




Third course: The main course - these were all served in a carousel bain marie dish, but had been on the table since 6.30 pm. There were:



1. Plain rice
2. Pilaf rice
3. Ayam Kapitan (chicken cooked in coconut gravy and chilli)
4. Roasted tenderloin of beef with green peppercorn sauce
5. Stir Fried Lobster chunks in Szechuan Sauce
6. Panfried Salmon Fillets with Caviar Cream
7. Stir Fried Asparagus with Shrimp Sauce (they mean dried prawns)

There was only 1 wait staff at our table and he took half an hour to serve everyone. First he took rice, went around the table and served everyone, next no. 2, then no. 3 and so on. Everyone was extremely impatient but I was determined not to eat until I received no. 7 so here is my plate, half an hour after he first served the rice:

Did I eat everything? - of course not, the food was cold and I really wasn't very hungry with nerves gnawing in my tummy but I played around with the food and actually had a bite of everything. 5 out of 10 overall.



Next was something called "Parisienne Scoop of Mixed Fruits" - its just a tiny ball of watermelon, rockmelon and etc. This I liked very much and could have had more.



Lastly, this is such a Chinese dessert and I was very surprised it was served tonight but nevertheless, here it is - Red Date Longan Juice and White Fungus. I loved this too - it was nicely chilled with just the right amount of sweetness, the longans were still sweet and juicy and the white fungus was crunchy. It was served very very cold and it was yummy - I had most of it.



Next came the birthday cake - didn't like it - very ordinary coloured sponge cake but I had a bit due to the significance of it, and lastly chocs - my friend wolfed down 4 and could have had more. I didn't because I was already up after the longan dessert co-ordinating people and and only wandered back to my table to snap pic of the cake and petit fours.







One last pic.... the napkin was embroidered with gold thread..... it's the main place setting.



In what I do now, nobody thinks anything of me walking around with a camera and snapping random pics here and here, in between 'actual' shots of course. So all the random pics are FOOD pics!