My Grand Niece's 100-Day Dinner

I went to my grand niece's 100-day dinner last Saturday. Traditional Chinese usually hold celebration dinner when the baby is a month old.  Nowadays the younger generation fancy for 100-day or 2-month or 3-month dinner.  Well I like the 100-day idea as the baby will be strong enough to meet friends and relatives.

Red Eggs with Sour Ginger

This starter is unique for new born babies' celebration dinner. Chinese usually distribute red eggs to friends, relatives or even neighbors to announce the arrival of their new born family members.  But I don't know why sour ginger is always a companion to the red eggs.

The 11-course 100-day dinner was composed of very traditional or even old fashion Hong Kong cuisine.  Couple of the dishes were quite rarely seen nowadays.  

Smoked Pomfret with Salad Dressing

Banquet dinner usually serves steamed groupa.  Smoked Pomfret is quite a special choice and I missed it for long.  

Stir Fried Milk with Crab Meat

This is also quite a special dish unique to this particular restaurant.  Few chefs nowadays can produce this dish with good quality.

The 11-Course Dinner Menu

12-Day Ginger Vinegar with Pork Knuckles

In fact, when the baby girl was 12 days old, my nephew started to distribute ginger vinegar with pork knuckles.  I'm not quite sure if this tradition is valid across the entire China, but in Hong Kong and Guangdong, new mothers eat this to restore strength and health after giving birth to a baby.  These are also presented to friends and family to indicate the arrival of a new baby. The vinegar is sweet and pork knuckles has lots of collagen, together with ginger and eggs, many people love this yummy dish. They make it at home on regular days and some restaurants even have this on their menus.

What would be the cost of going to a new born baby's 100-day dinner?

In Hong Kong, when you receive an invitation for whatever reason, a gift check is almost mandated. But the value may depend on many factors, like the friendship between you and the host, is the host a very close relative and sometimes the dinner venue may counts. I was told that the standard gift check for one person is HK$800 which is rather a bottom price.  As for me, I paid far beyond the minimum because this is my nephew's first baby girl!

My Grand Niece's 100-Day Dinner

Yixin Restaurant

50 Hennessy Road, Hong Kong

Photogenic Banquet

The International Gourmet Master Chefs Association holds competitions every year globally and regionally.  The banquet here our family went for Dragon Boat Festival was said to have won the Best Photogenic Award.  Frankly we would say only one dish among all would deserve the award.  Regarding taste, we were only happy with a few, and some were even disaster.

Peking Duck K

I would give it a pass.  Not bad, but can be better.  The bread to wrap the duck all stuck together.  We end up had lumps of bread instead of sheets.

Abalone and Pomelo Peel L

This was an absolute disaster.  The entire dish was cold.  Listen, cold, not even cool - out of temperature at all.  Seemed like it was cooked last night.  But definitely this was not a cold cut dish.

Baked Lobster in Golden Sauce K

Well, I can't say this was bad, but talking about photogenic award, it was way out of the way!

Cross-Bridge Pearl Clam J

We were wondering why our menu had no soup.  In fact this was the one. Not bad, with lots of bean sprout inside, not oily.  I've given this a pass.

Duck Wrap in Lettuce J

We had duck at the beginning, rest of the duck meat was turned into this associated dish.  It was quite good in taste.  But I didn't like the head and leg.  May be they wanted to proof that this was a duck. After all, I gave this a pass as well.

Stir Fried Waygu with Mushroom and Walnut K

The mushroom and walnut were far better than the waygu.  Although we didn't expect the waygu to be dissolved in the mouth, but they were so tough and were difficult to eat.  After all we had lumps of cannot-be-eaten leftover waygu cubes on our plates.

Giant Grouper with Mushroom L

This was another disaster of the night.  First, about 75% were fish bones.  We could hardly found meat in it.  Second, there were plenty of black burns near the bottom of the hot pot.  By accident I got some of the burns and made my utensils all dirty and messy.  Totally unacceptable!

Assorted Vegetables J

This was the only dish that all of us had our thumbs up.  Not only it deserved a photogenic award, we were happy with the variation of vegetables in it.  And we also liked the light taste of savory.  A very good looking and yet healthy dish.

Fried Rice K

It didn't say what kind of fried rice on the menu.  It only said 'end of order fried rice'.  We thought this was a photogenic award dinner, shouldn't be something bad.  Well, it was rice fried rice indeed, we could hardly find anything in it, except some finely chopped ham.

Chinese Birthday Buns J

We had 3 people in our family having birthdays in June, so we paid extra for these buns.  Talking about photogenic award, I would name this No.1 of the night.  Each of the buns was larger than the size of my fist.  And inside there was an entire egg yolk with lotus paste.  They were really amazing!

The only bad thing was it came at the end of the banquet when all of us were mostly full.  Some of us decided to take them home.

The banquet also included some sweeties and fruits at the end.  So we all went home with full stomachs although not too happy with some of the dishes.

Sportful Garden Restaurant

8 Fleming Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Banquet Price for 12 people

Original price: HK$4,680 (US$600)

Special price: HK$2,980 (US$320) + 10% service charge

Birthday Bun: HK$18@ (US$2.3@)

Hong Kong Food Blog

Seafood Annual Dinner

Seafood dinner is many Hong Kong people's favourite.  9 out of 10 Hong Kong Cantonese love it, including myself.  As Chinese New Year is approaching, our family decided to go for a seafood annual dinner.  Normally we pick from set menus, but we're tired of them, so this year, we go for a la carte and pick our own favourite seafood. 

Many travel tips advise visitors to go to Aberdeen, Le Yue Mun, Lamma Island...kind of places to eat seafood, but these places are generally far from city, and prices are more or less similar.  There are many seafood restaurant around in the city with fish tanks.  These are the place you can eat fresh seafood.  The one we went for annual dinner was one of those.

Here's our 8-course a la carte seafood dinner.

To start with, we didn't have seafood, we had the Almond Soup with Pig's Lung.  Quite a new combination, I don't know when chefs started to get almond juice into pig's lung soup.  But indeed, very nice.  Each of us had 3 bowls of soup, as well as a big dish of soup ingredients, including pork, ham, chicken feet...and so on.  In fact this is one of the restaurant's signature dishes.

 Almond Soup with Pig's Lung 生磨杏汁猪肺湯

Our first round of seafood started with Pan Fried Tiger Prawns with soy sauce.  Nice color and although on a Chinese dining table, we were served with forks and knives for this dish.



Pan Fried Tiger Prawns 煎老虎蝦

This dish of steamed Razor Clams let us down.  Although it looked nice, but it was cool to cold.  The low temperature critically discounted the taste!





Steamed Razor Clams with Jelly Noodle and Garlic

We were given a private plate for our razor clams.  So the time the waiter took to distribute the plate let the food cool down, I believe, or else it might have been sitting in the kitchen for an hour before some brought them to our table.



金銀蒜粉絲蒸聖子皇

American Barrel Oyster, in traditional Cantonese hot pot with ginger and green onion.  Very fragrant and delicious.

Oyster Stew with Ginger and Green Onion 薑沖焗美國桶蠔

This giant garoupa was the second disaster of the night. At the beginning we were very excited about this giant fish.  But because of the thick meat, the fish came to the table not fully cooked.  Some of the fleshes were still sticking to the bone.  If we asked to re-cook, then the whole fish will be destroyed.  So the waiter suggested us to eat those cooked parts and then get the chef to add some hot oil to cook the rest.  We had no choice.  But don't know why, while we ate, the meat gradually got cooked and we finally manage to eat the entire fish without re-cooking.  Even so, we were not happy with it.

Steamed Giant Garoupa 清蒸沙巴龍躉

Eggs with Prawns is generally not served in banquets, but why here?  Remember we tailored our own menu?  My original choice was deep fried mini white fishes or kau fishes, but restaurant said they did stock those fishes.  So we end up with this egg with prawns, still we have prawns to match our seafood theme.

Stir Fried Prawns with Eggs 滑蛋蝦仁

As a balance of diet, we must need some vegetables.  To match the seafood theme, our original choice was crab roe with bean sprout.  But restaurant said crab season is over, they had no crab roe available, so we changed to crab meat, still something from the sea.

Stir Fried Bean Sprout with Crab Meat 蟹肉豆苗

Cantonese banquets usually are wrapped up with rice, noodle to make sure guests all go home with a full stomach.  Because ours was a seafood dinner, we picked another signature dish of the restaurant - fish meat congee. Pinspotted Spinefoot Fish?? Excuse me, I really don't know the English name of 泥鯭 fish, so I looked it up in the internet.

Pinspotted Spinefoot Fish Meat Congee 果皮泥鯭粥

We got some dates pudding and fresh fruits at the end.  Comparing the normal menus with roast pig and chicken, our seafood dinner menu was relatively light and was just right. 

Kam Dou Kee Restaurant

Wanchai, Hong Kong

Private Room for Two Tables

HK$3,888 per table of 10, plus tea and service charge

Total: HK$4,430 (US$568) per table

Hong Kong Food Blog - Seafood Annual Dinner

Family Annual Dinner 2015

Chinese New Year is approaching. Year-end Family gathering dinner is a big event to Chinese. I made some money in the stock market recently, so I decided to treat my family a nice dinner. Although we all love seafood, but our menu is kind of a semi seafood one.  The restaurant offers set menu for 12, but we had 20 people, so we decided to order for two tables of 10.  Restaurant then agreed to shrink the dishes down to fit 10 persons and cut the price accordingly.

 

Unlike the usual starter of a roast pig, we had five mini dishes to kick start the dinner - roast pork, black fungi, preserved turnip, jellyfish in vinegar, preserved pork slices.  These are lovely light and healthy dishes.

Roast Pork - Tailored for 10 Persons

Roast with honey, tender and juicy, very nice.

Jellyfish and Cucumber in Vinegar

Preserved Sliced Pork

Black Fungi in Wine

Preserved Turnip - Very Crispy

Shark Fin in Chicken Broth

One of the most popular Cantonese delicacy, especially in festival menus.

 

Stir Fried Scallops with Green Peas

Our second seafood dish of the night.  Crunchy green peas and fresh scallops, very nice combination.

Sea Cucumber and Mushroom in Oyster Sauce

For hot pot dishes, we had to mind the temperature, or the tongue will have to suffer.  This photo didn't reflect the bubbles which were still sizzling when arriving the table.

***Giant Sabah Groupa***

 

Steaming fresh fish is the gem of Cantonese cuisine.  No matter how experienced we are in eating fresh fish, we are surprisingly happy with this super fish.  The plate was so giant to cater for the giant fish.  And it was boneless, absolutely silky smooth and we can taste the sense of freshness.  I must say this is the superstar of the night!

 

***Pan Fried King Prawns with Soy Sauce***

This is another surprise of the night - a rare item and it is expensive and few menus has it because they spend most of their budget on the shark fin.  I normally do not order huge size prawns as it's difficult to find good ones.  But these king prawns were so fresh, meaty and chewy.  I didn't had a chance to eat such giant size prawns of outstanding quality for a long time.  So this is another superstar of the night.

Deep Fried Chicken

This is always my favourite! 

Hairy Vege and Dry Oyster with Chinese Lettuce

Chinese dishes nearby Chinese New Year are usually given good names - names that carries a sense of luck and fortune.  Dry oyster means 'good business'; lettuce means 'profit'.  We all love these of course.

Stir Fried Taiwanese Noodle with Sliced Pork

Well, I would say this is the third surprise of the night.  As at the end of a Cantonese feast, we usually have noodle and rice to wrap up the dinner.  However our menu had only one dish of noodle which made us thought that restaurant was trying to cut cost.  But this dish was even bigger than a dish of rice plus a dish of noodle.  We were so excited because it didn't only look good, but also taste very delicious.  Cantonese treat 'wok heat' as an important element of food, and this dish of noodle was really well done.

 

For desserts, we had puddings and fresh fruit platter.

 

After all, we all went home with a heavy stomach.  Luckily we brought some boxes to take some food home so that we didn't have to leave them on the table.  So the next day I still had noodle and chicken as dinner. 

 

Cost per table:  HK$3,488

Tea per table: HK$140

Service charge: 10%

Total bill (2 tables): HK$7,982

 

Kam Dau Kee Seafood Restaurant

Wanchai, Hong Kong

 

Hong Kong Food Blog - Year End Family Gathering Dinner

 

Message to Shark Fans

Please DO NOT post comments about your shark protection / protest message. I will NOT publish them. If you want to protect sharks, here are my suggested methods:

1. Advertise in mass media
2. Everyday protests, demonstrations…in front of all shops selling shark fins
3. Everyday protests, demonstrations in public areas such as streets, parks to educate the public not to eat shark fin
4. Letter, fax, email, telephone or personal visits to restaurant owners to insist them to remove shark fin from their menu
5. Write to the government to request shark fin eating to be illegal
6. Hire fleet of ships to go out to the sea to stop any shark catching activities.  

LEAVING COMMENTS IN MY BLOG IS A MATTER OF WASTING MY TIME TO READ AND DELETE. IT IS IN NO SENSE CONTRIBUTIVE IN SAVING SHARKS.

Family Annual Dinner 2014

Year of the Horse is approaching.  Year end family dinner is an important tradition of Chinese.  However due to the busy lives of Hong Kong people, the new year eve family dinner had to compromise with the available dates of the family members.  This year Chinese New Years falls on January 31, but for some reason, we picked the 19th to have our family annual dinner.

As it is an important family gathering, we don't mind to pay a little more to hire a private room and pay the minimum charge.  In fact, we went way beyond the minimum because we want to include as many seafood as possible.  The restaurant has many signature dishes as well as our own favourite picks makes up our own menu.

Almond Juice Pig's Lung Soup 生磨杏汁豬肺湯

with lots of supporting ingredients

Our family is a professional pork dealer and had high demand on the cleaning of pig's lung.  It's not an easy job but the restaurant did make it clean and delicious.  My professional pork dealer brothers gave them a pass.  Personally I think almond juice with pig's lung is quite a new combination and it's really tasty.  As a matter of environmental, we also try to give up shark fin as much as possible.  In fact, many restaurants are removing shark fin from their menu and replace by something delicious and healthy.

BBQ Piglet 即燒乳豬

Another signature dish of the restaurant.  Really crunchy skin and juicy tender meat.  Very well done!

Stir Fried Prawns with Salty Egg Yolk

associated with Garlic Chicken Cubes

金沙蝦球蒜片伴雞球

A relative cheap item on our menu, but delicious, though high cholesterol!

Giant Grouper Dual Style 海龍躉兩味

Stir Fried Meat with Vegetables 碧綠炒球

To control budget, we give up a whole fish.  Meat only with broccoli, healthy and delicious.

Giant Grouper Dual Style 海龍躉兩味

Steamed Head and Bones 果皮蒸頭腩

Although it was head and bones, but there were still lots of meat in it.  Of course we need to deal with bones.  Not sure if Grouper has a difference among sea, river or tank.  The restaurant specified it as a 'sea giant grouper'

Steamed Razor Claims with Garlic and Jelly Noodle

金銀蒜粉絲蒸蟶子王

I had difficulties in looking up an English name for this thing.  I usually call it clam, but there are many species of clams.  Trust Razor Clam is the most appropriate.  Steam with deep fried garlic and fresh garlic, plus jelly noodle, these giant razor clams cost HK$58 each on a la carte menu.  Only this dish would cost over HK$900 as we've ordered 16 of them.

Baked American Barrel Oysters with Ginger and Green Onion

薑葱焗美國桶蠔

This is my favourite pick.  If you ask me to recommend only one dish from this restaurant, I would say barrel oysters.  You may not believe, each of the oysters are half of my palm size.  Imagine oysters usually shrink after cooking and it still maintain that giant size, how amazing!  And when the waitress lifted the lid, the entire room was full of fragrance.  In fact the waitress said it made her hungry too.

Roast Goose 明爐燒鵝皇

This is Chef's recommendation.  As goose is generally larger than chicken, so it was recommended because we had 16 of us.  Well it was nicely roasted.  The goose had lots of meat and not much fat.   We generally have chicken on banquet menu, goose is rarely used.  So we are actually trying something new. Good recommendation.

'Yellow Sand' Pig's Liver with Vegetable in Stock

上湯韮杞浸黃沙膶

This is a Hong Kong old fashion dish.  Nowadays few restaurants serve this dish.  May be people is afraid of the smelly nature of the liver as well as the cholesterol level.  Back to my family again, we are a professional family selling pork, my brothers had high demand in the cooking and preparation of pig's liver.  And due to different quality of the liver, it is specified as 'yellow sand' liver.  We don't know how this name is come up with, but Cantonese believe 'yellow sand' liver is the top quality liver.  Indeed, the liver we had were all 0.5 inches thick, very chewy and al dente.  Wolfberries are believed to be good for eyes and it's usually a good companion with liver and 'kaukai' 韮杞.  This kaukai 韮杞vegetable also caused me difficulties in looking up a proper English name.  Sorry about that.

Mottled Spinefoot Fish Congee 果皮泥鯭粥

Cantonese banquet is usually wrapped up by rice or noodle.  We are trying alternatives as we want to eat as many seafood as possible, because the restaurant we went was highly seafood famous.  In fact I can call this old fashion Hong Kong food as well.  Because it's time and manpower consuming in separating the meat from the bones.  Hence not many restaurants are willing to serve it.  We were quite conservative whether it was really boneless.  That upset the waitress again and she kept emphasis that their shop had never receive any customer complaint of having fish bones in their congee.  After all, we were happy that we didn't find any bones at all.  

This 10-course dinner made us all extremely overloaded, as we booked for 16 and only 14 of us turned up.  Anyway, a super delicious meal although I had to fast for the next 30 hours.  I always demand a reasonable eating environment on top of quality food.  Although we were paying quite a big bill this time, but it really worth it, as we were all happy with the food and the place, as well as the services.

10-course Dinner with Dessert and Fruits for 16 people

HK$5,780

inclusive of food and service charge

Kam Dou Kee Seafood Restaurant 金兜記海鮮菜館

3 Wanchai Road, Hong Kong

Tel:  3907 0878

80th Birthday Banquet

It was my aunt's 80th birthday yesterday.  She's my mother's younger sister, so everyone from our family were invited to a banquet.  Here's a record of the feast.  I rarely eat big meals.  Last night I was overloaded that I have to fast today.  But the food was so yummy, I just couldn't resist.

It was a typical traditional Cantonese feast - 8 main courses plus fried rice, dim sum and dessert.  And as we were celebrating birthday, the giant birthday buns were imperative.

Roast Piglet 鴻運乳豬全體

This is always my favourite.  Crunchy skin and juicy meat.  Wonderful!

 

 

Lobster with Noodle 高湯焗龍蝦伊面底

The waiters were really slow in serving the moist tissues and cracking tools.  We ended up making our fingers messy.  Frankly I'm not skillful in eating losber with shells.  I would prefer to eat meat only.  But serving with shells make the dish look very colorful and beautiful.

 

 

Giant Scallops with Sea Cucumber 京燒刺參玉帶

Al dente giant scallops.  Very fresh and colorful.  Well done!

 

 

Crab Meat Vegetable with Fish Roe 玉影翠珊瑚

Healthy dish - white meat (crab) with green vegetable.  Silky smooth and delicious.

 

 

Shark Fin Soup 紅燒海皇鮑翅

The shark fin is served with lots of seafood such as crab meat, shrimps and scallops, very delicious.  It is a Cantonese tradition that the host will toast while serving shark fin.  My aunt did the same.  And at the same time, she gave each of us a red pocket of HK$100.

 

 

East Star Garoupa 清蒸海東星班

For professional eaters, there are few ways to define a good garoupa.  First it has to be an ocean fish, ie. catch from the ocean, not from fish tanks; Second it has to be the 'star' class of garoupa; Third it has to be fetched from the east, as east garoupa is far more expensive than the wests.  Well, this fish fullfils all the good garoupa criteria.  The chef also steamed it professionally and timing was just right.  A really good fish! My brother even ate the fish head.

 

 

Abalone with Duck Web 南非鮑魚扣玉掌

Few menu serve whole abalone.  This is quite an expensive dish.  I like eating duck webs but don't like to deal with bones as it hurts my tongue easily.

 

Deep Fried Chicken  譽宴一品燒鷄

Again, this is always my favourite!!

 

 

Signature Fried Rice 招牌炒飯

I don't see why this can be the restaurant's signature fried rice.  Apart from its pale look, it was actually quite tasteless.  My bowl has only a few green peas and mini shrimps.  My sister had some tiny minute bits of suscpected scallops in her bowl. I like fried rice generally, but I really didn't appreciate this one.

 

Juicy Buns 譽宴小籠包



Juicy and delicious.  But I beleive the shapes and sizes of the buns could be improved.

 

 

Birthday Buns 桃包

I'm absolutely happy with these birthday buns.   I love its giant size and just out from the steamer, very hot, fresh and yummy!

 

Inside the Birthday Bun 全蛋王桃包

My aunt said it was her special request that each of the buns should contain a whole salty egg yolk.  Well, the restaurant did it!

 

Dessert - Red Bean Syrup (didn't take photo)

 

Dinner date:  August 26, 2013

Restaurant: U-Banquet, 5/F Lee Theatre Plaza, Causeway Bay

Standard gift: HK$500

I think the standard gift I pay for this meal was of good return. The host didn't make money.  A similar function I attended last month was so horrible.  The host was making a lot of money but receiving $500 from each of us and gave us a meal of $3,388.  There was a net profit of  $2,612 per table.

But this time my aunt treat us quite well.  The meal was generally good though service and environment could be improved.  This time the banquet costs HK$4,980 per table.  Suppose each of us pay $500, but my aunt gave each of us a laisee (red pocket) of $100, the balance sheet is just break even. 

If you ask 'how do you know the cost of the meal'?  Well, becasue the host simply pick some standard menu and the leaflets were available everywhere in the restaurant.  If they design their own menu, then we can only guess the cost.

Hong Kong Food Blog - 80th Birthday Banquet

Message to Shark Fans

Please DO NOT post comments about your shark protection / protest message. I will NOT publish them. If you want to protect sharks, here are my suggested methods:

1. Advertise in mass media
2. Everyday protests, demonstrations…in front of all shops selling shark fins
3. Everyday protests, demonstrations in public areas such as streets, parks to educate the public not to eat shark fin
4. Letter, fax, email, telephone or personal visits to restaurant owners to insist them to remove shark fin from their menu
5. Write to the government to request shark fin eating to be illegal
6. Hire fleet of ships to go out to the sea to stop any shark catching activities.

Leaving comments in my blog is a matter of wasting my time to read and delete. It is in no sense contributive in saving sharks.