Wong Birthday Banquet

I am proud to introduce my guest to my blog who is a true connisieur by palate and a true lingualist by tongue! Here is his true to his word on his experience on 'pleasure and pain' (according to my family who has to endure and enjoy my cooking challenge week and week out).

To celebrate our birthdays last week, my wife and I had the privilege of being invited to sample some of Neil Perry's best, dining in style and comfort in the home of our lovely friend, accomplished chef, and author of this blog. Having seen some of the tantalising creations regularly posted here, I couldn't wait to see what we were going to be served.

The starter was hot-and-sour soup, practically a meal in itself with prawns and rice noodles. It was similar in taste to tom yum, and very spicy - just the way I like it. This was accompanied by no less than four(!) exquisite dishes:

Sashimi salad: Notable not only for being extremely tasty - with the salmon perfectly matched with a vinegar and wasabi-based dressing and cos lettuce base - but also for being so freakin' humongous! The sauce and lettuce also went so well together that if it weren't for being completely and utterly stuffed from the other dishes we probably would've polished off every last leaf (remember: this thing was HUGE).

Braised Soy Tofu: Seriously, this dish was restaurant quality. The trick mentioned in a previous post of coating the tofu and frying it a bit beforehand was ingenious, giving it that slightly-crispy-on-the-outside-but-soft-and-silky-inside texture. This dish gets my vote for dish of the night (followed closely by the sashimi salad) - even with the tofu gone, I greedily grabbed an extra bowl of rice and finished off all the vegetables.

Roast duck and lychee salad: I've never been a huge fan of using fruit in cooking, and the duck was store-bought, but otherwise this too was on par with what you'd find in a restaurant. There's just something about peanuts, duck and shallots (I think!) that goes really well, and the sauce held it all together wonderfully.

Steamed fish fillet in black bean sauce: Set on a bed of asparagas, the perch fillet was perfectly done - the meat fell apart but was still soft and tender; neither over- or under-cooked. I think the original recipe called for some kind of cod, but I really didn't notice the difference. What was hilarious though, was seeing these pieces of fish cooked in a huge bamboo steamer. (For the record, I also nabbed the last crumb of fish but was beaten to the last of the asparagus.)

There were six of us in total, and we only barely managed to finish everything, and that's only because we forced ourselves to over-eat due to everything being so tasty - I even suggested keeping the sauce from the sashimi salad, only to have it pointed out to me by slightly more level heads that because it had raw fish in it, it guess wouldn't keep. If there was any one thing that could have been improved about the meal, it'd be to suggest getting a gas stove! Some of the dishes got cold a bit too quickly and would've been even nicer if they'd maintained their temperature for longer. Having said that though, I've always had access to gas so I probably don't truly appreciate how difficult it was to have made everything above using an electric.

We finished off the meal with a rousing rendition of happy birthday, punctuated with satisfied burps (well, at least on my part), over a yummy green tea cake from the shops, but the memories of the amazing tastes lingered on in my mouth and in my mind. A very generous meal, and a truly remarkable effort from a full-time working mum - thank you!

- Caesar