This is the first wedding we attended this year! I had missed a friend (and co-worker) wedding in December 2014 due to prior commitments, so this is the first wedding of 2015. It’s a bit unusual as the traditional Chinese wedding banquet dinner was held on a Sunday night and the restaurant was quite far in Putrajaya Marriott Hotel so we got home quite late yesterday.
The bride and groom had a ceremony earlier in the day which culminated in this wedding dinner. I knew the couple from a previous trip to Bangkok and the 9-course banquet was held at Summer Palace – the Chinese restaurant at Marriott in Putrajaya.
It’s a very nice place for a wedding – I’ve eaten here before at a company dinner and the food wasn’t too bad but the scenery and service is the main selling points. The servers are very conscientious about changing your plates after every course and I had a glass of The Macallan 12 year old for my drink.
Deluxe Five Happiness Combination Platter
This is the first course and instead of the traditional “Four Seasons” plate with four food items this has five different hot and cold elements. There’s also the increasingly common theatre that goes with the first course, with the servers getting in line and doing a performance before grandly putting the first plate on your table.
I first saw this at my sister’s wedding in Sibu but it wasn’t present at her wedding in KL. We thought the cold pork belly/duck breast slices were the best part of the dish – it was lying on a bed of pickled jellyfish which provided a wonderful acidic element. We also loved the boiled and deep fried salted egg.
Double-boiled Chicken Soup with Baby Abalone, Top Shell & Chinese Herbs
Shark’s Fin Soup has gone out of vogue since the environmentalist types and the wannabes/sheep started a crusade against it. I’m personally ambivalent about the issue, as most people who really understand the issue, with the entire hypocrisy (and racism) of Sea Shepard and other militant environmental organizations on one side and the heritage of Icelandic culture (hákarl – fermented Greenland shark), Canadian legal seal meat and Japanese/French proudly unapologetic cuisine on the other.
However, I think the substitution of shark’s fin soup with a clear soup with premium ingredients like abalone, fish maw, top shell (magpie shell) and such is a good thing too and it tastes better and there was been a spate of fake shark’s fin going around in the few years before it became the “S-word”.
This is a good example of a nice clear soup which highlights the abalone, top shell, chicken and fish maw and it’s individually portioned beforehand.
Roasted Sesame Chicken & Roasted Chicken
The chicken done two ways is a nice twist on the traditional roasted chicken. However, I’m not a huge fan of chicken done this way – there’s no sea salt or plum sauce for the slightly overcooked and dry roasted chicken and the roasted sesame chicken wasn’t much better.
Steamed Mandarin Fish “Unicorn” Style
This seems to be the latest trend in serving fish at Chinese banquets! The fish is totally de-boned and filleted. The fillets of fish is then wrapped around a long, tubular “fish ball” and presented on the carcass of the fish so it looks like rolled up fish flesh.
I’m a purist so I still prefer steamed fish served whole but I have to admit, this “unicorn style” platters of fish is very easy to eat, and the fish ball inside makes it taste artificially good with lots of MSG!
Chilled ‘Ming’ Prawns with Mayo & Stir-fried Prawn Balls with Butter Cream
This is the best dish that we had the entire night! There’s huge prawns done two ways, and they’re all de-shelled and de-veined. One is cooked in a sweet and wet butter/mayo sauce and the other is deep fried in butter. It’s very creamy and I love the huge, juicy prawns – I had three and my better half had two.
Braised Assorted Dried Seafood with Broccoli
I love the texture of sea cucumber! I’ll actually order this if I see it around. There was a RM 60 PNG (Papua New Guinea) sea cucumber promotion at Glory Cafe in Sarikei when we went but I was too full to order it. The sea cucumber here is done well, thickly sliced and full of slippery and chewy collagen. I also liked the mushrooms – very flavorful, especially with the bits of dried and rehydrated scallops in the reduced sauce.
Special Three Layered Fried Rice
There’s nothing special about this dish – it’s just rice done three ways. There’s plain fried rice on top, rice fried with light soy sauce in the middle and cooking caramel (dark soy sauce) fried rice at the bottom. That’s what causes the layered coloration and it was very oily – this is a dish for people who’re still hungry to fill up before dessert is served.
I know people who eat this way – main dishes only (fish, chicken, pork etc) with no accompanying rice in a multiple course banquet where they fill up on fried noodles or rice as the last course, it’s a different style of eating but we were too full at this point to eat more than a spoonful of the rice to taste it.
Special Dessert Combination
This is actually pretty decent! They made the crushed peanut covered mochi to be flavorless (except for the smoky and nutty accents from the peanuts) so the sweet component comes from the mung bean shaped and moulded into a cartoonish ear of corn.
It’s meant to be eaten together and it’s a good pairing.
The Chinese characters makes a lot more sense than the English translation though. Haha.
Chilled Mixed Fruits with Avocado Cream
This is the highlight of the dish and it was what we had saved up space for. We both thought an avocado based dessert sounded delicious and we’re glad we waited for this even though a lot of people were leaving at this point to beat the traffic and try to get home before a work day. It has a wonderfully rich mouthfeel and a nutty flavor that’s very morish. Delectable!
Congrats and all the best to the newly-weds! 🙂
Boiled and deep fried salted egg? For a while, I thought they were scotch eggs…but I do think I’d love this salted egg version. Hmmmmm….I am waiting!!!! 😉
Yeah, I thought they were Scotch eggs too! 🙂
I was gobbling them down coz I was super hungry and then my better half told me they’re actually salted eggs. I tasted them properly and found out that’s true – the yolks are salted eggs!
Haha! Yeah, it’s in the works, but I was thinking of having more of a holiday wedding, small scale, where we all go somewhere e.g. Italy.
What a nice wedding banquet and nice food there.
Yeah, the food was alright. 🙂
It’s the service that’s good though, expected of an established hotel restaurant.
Congratulations to the newly weds. 🙂
Thanks Kathy! 🙂
All dishes look good and unique! I didn’t attend any wedding receptions for the past few months, hehe!
Congrats to the newly weds!
I particularly liked the unicorn fish! 🙂
I thought that was a very unique way of presenting the fish dish. The final avocado dessert was very nice too!
Yeah, this was my first wedding of the year too.
The unicorn style steamed fish sounds like a good idea. In my experience, when the fish arrives, everyone just sits around staring at it until someone decides to “carve” the fish up for everyone at the table. Though in recent years, I noticed the waitress might do that.
Yeah, I know what you mean mate! 🙂
Nowadays, the servers would portion everything – I notice that during the yee sang/sau kong dinners. They even would ask if you want to pre-portion the chicken/duck. It’s very efficient now.
I was at Sheraton Imperial just last night for an yee sang dinner and the waitresses did everything too!
Very grand affair. I love attending wedding.
Yeah, it’s nice eh? 🙂
I missed out on my friend and ex co-worker wedding in December last month, couldn’t make it. Yeah, weddings are nice but there are more garden weddings with receptions nowadays or just small scale holiday weddings where the bride, groom and immediate family go on a vacation, maybe 10 pax.
Nice banquet and food looks good. Love the fish served that way. It is also my first time seeing 3 layered rice 🙂
Yeah, I thought the unicorn fish was ingenious! 🙂
I was at Sheraton Imperial for yee sang dinner last night and the fish was Red Grouper and portioned out too. They portion everything, including the seafood noodles and roasted chicken. It seems like the service is moving towards that trend.
i been there once only! but that avocado cream…… lol im not a big fan of avocado! haha
I love avocado! 🙂
It’s creamy and nutty and I can eat it just by itself! Of course, it tastes better in a sandwich but I can eat it just like a fruit.
Aikks, I don’t like to attend wedding dinners on a Sunday evening.. My favourite? Gotta be the first dish and the last dish! The combination hot/cold platter and that chilled avocado cream..
Yeah, I know what you mean coz it’s tiring the next day! 🙂
I like the cold platter too, that’s actually my favorite dish of banquets (other than the fish dish). Not all places can do a good one though. I liked this version though, they had a performance before the first dish came out too, saw that first at my sister’s wedding banquet in Sibu.
Congrats to your friends. The food looks really good. I love the prawns dish, I wonder whether this dish is available in their ala carte menu.
As for the deep fried boiled salted egg, just to confirm, those are not salted egg whites but some sort of fish paste wrapping the salted egg yolk, right? Because if it is salted egg white, then the whole thing would be too salty to be eaten on its own.
Thanks Mun! 🙂
That’s a good question, I think it would be in their a la carte menu, their menu is VERY large. I remember going there for a company dinner a few years back and their menu is very extensive and we had the prawns too, although it wasn’t like this. They have different methods of preparing prawns, covering two pages with photos, if I recall correctly.
Yup, only the egg yolk is salted duck egg, the surrounding meat is fish paste so it’s kinda like an Asian take on the Scotch egg but they use salted egg instead. I told my better half it’s a Scotch egg at first coz I was gobbling it down (very hungry) and didn’t realize that it was actually a salted duck egg until she told me. Haha.
I attended a wedding there when it was newly opened and the food was very superb & good too! When I heard about the cost of per table, I had to increase my ang pow by 2 folds!!
Yeah, they have very good packages for weddings! 🙂
I know a lot of people have their weddings here, I remember they had a food review which I didn’t make it where they were promoting their RM 1,088 wedding banquets for a table of 10. It comes complete with bridal suite for one night, pralines for guests, champagne etc etc. It’s a very good deal.
They have good yee sang/sau kong 9-course dinner for under RM 1,000 too – saw that in an advertisement they had out.
Definitely not your typical wedding dinner selection with boring recycled dishes. Also, here’s a big FUCK YOU to all the anti-sharksfin sheep crusaders. There’s nothing I can’t stand more than people who form strong opinions based on mere surface-level subject knowledge.
Indeed mate! 🙂
I totally agree with you on that. Having lived in New Zealand, I have encountered quite a few Sea Shepard types who’re all about the Japanese whale research vehicles and conveniently ignore that the Norwegians are doing the same – it’s more of a race issue than anything, since a poll showed they are the same people who are for anti-immigration bills.
Congratulations to the newlyweds!!! Combination platters are always my fave and they’re a great opener to the dinner that lie ahead! Lol. The shrimp and dessert tie for second place for me!
I don’t ever really understand why there’s always a rice dish there nearly towards the end. It’s almost always such a waste..