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