Had my food tasting last weekend! (:
This is my combination platter! This is not the normal menu as we have requested to change some items in here. I should be having spring roll instead of mini octopus (they gave wrong) so eventually they gave us another plate of spring rolls. They were hot and nice! But we know that on the day of wedding, it won't be so hot la. haha... suckling pig is crispy; roasted duck is nice; fish bait is decent as well. didn't try the prawn salad but heard that prawn is quite nice, just that mayo seems a bit too much.
aih kim is nice enough to let us try both chicken soup (2 bowls) and the lobster broth. I personally quite like the chicken soup although the presentation is quite plain.
For the lobster broth, there are quite a lot of lobster meat but we have issues with the shells in the soup. Majority chose this as it looks nicer and 'richer'.
Next is the steamed spotted garoupa! It has a hint of spiciness but it is very fragrant and big. Before they let us taste the fish, the banquet person in charge of our food tasting already gave us a disclaimer - the bigger the fish, the thicker the texture of the fish. We tried it and find it quite smooth, texture seems ok.
Changed our prawns to scallops instead. I was quite disappointed as reviews online said that it is very fresh and nice. However, to me and my mum, it doesnt taste as good (compared to what my mum usually buy to cook for us hahaha #comparisons) Apparently, the chef explained that they have changed to Australian scallops instead of New Zealand scallops (Or is it the other way round?) as there were no more stocks. They changed their source of scallops and they are unable to do anything about it... Since the majority wants scallops still, we chose it. The chef also offered to add some prawns inside! <3 awesome! For the asparagus, I personally don't eat it. It should nice as it is said to be crispy on the outside, and soft at the inside. Those who ate it find it pretty good.
Our braised abalone with mushroom and veggies... My parents were too happy about it as they commented that it is paper thin. So we requested for thicker abalone slices #thickskin - eventually, we are getting a small WHOLE abalone for our guests! hope they like it!
Chinese Fortune Chicken in lotus leaves - in other words, it's like herbal chicken. To my parents, especially dad who is a cantonese, they felt that 药材鸡 doesn't sound too auspicious for it to be a wedding dish. The banquet person also shared that she wanted to tell us that too. Actually we just wanted to try it since it seems special. The presentation is quite ugly after after the chicken is 'dissected', and the rest felt that the dish is the most salty dish out of all. So we changed it to the traditional roasted chicken with crackers (:
Anyway, by the time this dish came, everyone is too full to eat. There was a lot of leftovers.
Our seafood fried rice! Decided to do without the noodles as we have seen several pictures of waiters or waitresses serving noodles horribly and messily. And that can also affect guests' dining experience - people remember and kind btbs sent me a photo of it happening in mbs! So better to play safe. Anyway, similarly to the last dish, we hardly touched it - just a bit to try. Too full!
No matter how full, we will all have space for desserts right? We had the yam paste! It was not bad. No complaints from the table. I personally don't eat yam paste but I actually took quite a few spoonfuls of it!
In general, we are quite pleased with the food. We didn't ask for much changes in terms of the taste. It wasn't too salty, nor oily. Of course, the chef said that it will not taste exactly the same standard on the actual day as they will be mass cooking. However, he reassured us that it will just be a slight difference.
More about the chef - he is a hong kong chef and also knows other chefs that my parents knew well (from their frequent yumcha-ing). So it was easier to talk to him and discuss about things.
For the servers during our food tasting... It was interesting how their service improved tremendously after we gave them an angbao. In the beginning, it was quite not up to standard and messy. One of them looks unhappy at first too. So for the rest who will be going for food tasting... An angbao will do the trick to make your experience smoother :p I didn't believe in that also but the difference was obvious to a few of them. So... wa la! It's a practical world.
Ok, in general, I'm really looking forward to the food that day. Really hope that the guests will enjoy the food as much as we do. We have tried our best to get the best and most worthy food to my beloved guests.
