I think it was 5 years ago in 2013 when I met my old classmate, now residing in Australia, fondly called Lulu by all who know him because of his surname and my good friend/ex-classmate, Robert, took us out to dinner.
Well, that day, I received a call from Robert but I was on the road and could not speak to him so he sent me a text message instead, inviting me to dinner here…
…at a leading hotel in town…
…in one of the exclusive private rooms…
…as Lulu and his missus were back in town as well as another friend of ours and her hubby, who were back from Australia too.
The dinner that we had that night, I must say, was no less exclusive as the place. I loved the pickled vegetable served as a starter together with the peanuts…
…and we had the fruits…
…to start off the dinner. It seems that it would be more beneficial this way compared to eating them at the end of the meal like what most people would usually do.
We had this awesomely delicious spinach soup…
…with fresh crab meat inside, served with more of the vegetable, deep-fried till light and crispy…
The fish, Soon Hock…
…was good, bathed in some kind of thick ginger sauce. Well, I am not really a fan of ginger but I enjoyed the fish.
Now, this…
…I absolutely love – Peking duck and all the rest in the paper thin egg wrapper…
…and needless to say, I could not resist helping myself to more than one and a lot of the meat…
…that was left, served separately. I so love duck!
The asparagus with black fungus…
…was very nice too and even though I was already very full by then, I managed to finish the Foochow fried noodles…
…which came last.
In my younger days, a Chinese sit-down 12-course banquet would always end with this (and the Foochow-style sio bee/meat dumplings) to ensure that none of the guests would go home hungry…and in spite of this being a halal/pork-free place and no lard was used in the cooking, the noodles tasted really good with the much-coveted wok hei fragrance. Too bad I was already bursting at the seams by then otherwise, I would surely go for another helping or two.
Thank you so much, Robert, for the most delightful dinner and it sure was nice seeing you all again, Lulu and Georgina and spouses. We’ll meet again…next year perhaps – we’ll see!
MINGZIANG COURT (2.2832589,111.8327029) is located on the first floor of the Kingwood Hotel at No. 12. Lorong Lanang 4.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 