Saturday night…

Last Saturday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival…and it must have been a good date on the Chinese lunar calendar as my missus received two wedding invitations from her colleagues, both with sons getting married that same day. One of them invited both husband and wife, so I was able to tag along to the reception at the Phoenix Court, Paramount Hotel here.

Some things never change, it seems…and one of them is punctuality or the lack of it among guests here in Sibu. The card stated 6.30 pm, so at around 6.00 pm, my wife and I were on the way there but we shouldn’t have bothered as we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting! The place was packed to the brim – the 1st floor for the groom’s family and the 2nd floor for the bride’s…and there were other couples having their wedding receptions at that same restaurant too that night. It was almost an hour later from the time stated on the card when finally, the first dish was served…

They had some kind of presentation whereby the lights were dimmed and the waiters brought in the dishes, each with a lighted candle…but they might as well not bother as nobody gave two hoots about it. I guess everybody must be pretty hungry by then and wished that they would hurry up and serve the food, so all of us could start eating. After the 2nd dish – THE soup, there was this steamed fish dish…

…after which, we had a choice of roast chicken or duck…

…and the broccoli-lined dish of abalone and mushroom followed, just that there was more mushroom than abalone…but it did not matter to me one bit as being toothless, I would not be able to chew and eat that…

Then, the prawns came. I think they were done masak-hitam style and they had roti canai all along the rim of the plate. However, there was hardly any sauce to go with the roti canai…and besides, it was tougher than leather…

and at the end of it all, the dessert came – one plate of fruits and another of this yam paste and fried pancake with red bean paste filling…

They obviously need to learn a few things about presentation, don’t you think?

Well, for one thing, without including the dessert, there were only 6 dishes altogether. Gone are the days when there would be no less than 10 dishes at wedding banquets with Foochow fried noodles and sio bee (meat dumplings) at the end to make sure that the guests did not go home hungry.

I will not go into how I suffered from the excruciating karaoke singing that night but those of you who are linked to me on Facebook would have been updated on the details while the dinner was in progress. For want of something to do, I went to the washroom once and saw this sign…

Ummmm…interesting, I thought! One restroom for one lady and several men! However, do not be too happy, for the next sign says…

…that the men would have to turn right. As for the lady, it seemed that she would have to proceed upwards…to Heaven? Any more creative people out there with a more interesting interpretation? LOL!!!

I did not want to “represent” my missus at the other wedding reception at Kingwood Hotel that night as the invitation was meant for her alone. Perhaps I should have done that – I wonder if it was any better there… Sigh!!!