Banquet Dinner

I met up with a colleague tonight for dinner. It started as a jumble of mishaps really. After work, I walked out in the rain towards Kun Ming Chinese R'ant in the middle of Chinatown with my mobile phone left in the office. Then, not seeing him anywhere near the restaurant and waiting for 1/2 hour outside the restaurant, decided to walk back to the office to get my phone only to find out 4 missed calls from him and an sms from him saying he's sitting at a table behind the counter. He must have slipped in before I could see him. Anyway, the poor guy had been waiting for 40 minutes by then but luckily was in good mood when I saw him. I think the pretty waitresses were giving him lots of attention to this lone guy so he was content.

We ordered the banquet dinner, which is the first time I've tried a set menu. The first dish was chilli salt and pepper fish which was just beautiful!! I love my deep fried food, and this dish did not disappoint. Crisp batter, perfectly balanced flavours of pepper, salt and chilli. Yum yum! The second course was lettuce cups or san choi bau - minced pork with water chestnuts, onions and nuts wrapped in a piece of lettuce. I am proud to say that I ate this dish much cleaner than my friend, who had sauce dribbling down his hand and pieces of meat dropping onto the table cloth. Tsk tsk!

The third course was chicken and crab sweet corn soup. My friend loves this soup. I've seen him get this soup gazillion times, all the time I'm thinking that I can probably make him this soup myself and save him $4. The soup this evening was accentuated by the sweet crab flavour, which was nice. The fourth was stir fried chicken with cashew nuts. By this time, I was so stuffed that I only ate a little of this dish. The fifth and sixth dish was fried rice and Cantonese beef steak respectively. The rice was nothing to shout about, but the beef was very tender and tasty. Again, by this time I was so full we had to pack most of the dishes home. Dessert was banana fritter with vanilla ice cream.

All in all, a night which began with a series of misunderstandings ended pleasantly enough. I sure am glad I met up with this friend whom I haven't seen for ages and ages. Time has not diluted our friendship fortunately, and we had plenty to talk about during the dinner.