It's Friday night. It's been a long week. You're feeling a little peckish. What do you do...? You grab 5 friends and eat 4kgs (9lbs) of seafood of course! Please read on to find out how a quiet Friday night ended up with crustaceans, pippies and fried rice flying everywhere.
What is it with Chinese restaurant names?!
You guys know what I mean...I feel like you've got two main methods of naming Chinese restaurants:
1) You go with the mythical, lucky theme which requires the use of words such as "Golden", "Dragon", "Fortune", "Lucky", "Crystal", "Jade", "Unicorn", "Eight", "Century".
No joke, I bet if we picked a couple of these words in random order, it would be the name of a restaurant you've eaten at. Have you ever heard of "Lucky Golden Dragon"? Yup, I thought so ;)
2) The alternative is to go down the route of being direct. Straight to the point. "Tasty Chinese". "Delicious Chinese". "Excellent Dumplings".
Or how about "Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant"?
Found it!!
Enough talking, let's bring on the seafood!
The restaurant is packed, thank god we booked! We sit down and dive straight into the menu. But first, not without the complimentary broth/vegetable soup :)
Being a foodie at heart I have obviously already reviewed the menu the night before and my friends are on the same page. We order, select our seafood - I won't show it here because I know some people can be sensitive about seeing the seafood alive beforehand, and we're ready to roll...
Ginger and Shallot Mud Crab
Haha you can tell we were hungry, it was chopsticks and hands in as soon as the crab hit the table!! I barely had time to take a photo, I was ABSOLUTELY STARVING. The crab was beautifully cooked...it was tender, sweet and succulent drool.
We had a 2kg mud crab and it was a big one! Plenty for all 6 of us to have multiple servings.
Pippies and Vermicelli in XO Sauce
Nope it's not the perspective of the photo, the plate was ACTUALLY that big. Ever wondered what 2kgs (4.5lbs) of pippies looks like? Yep...
What made it infinitely better was that it was sitting on a bed of crispy vermicelli that soaked up the XO sauce. It was so addictive I think I had about 50 pippies on my own.
Both the crab and pippies were finger-looking good. It is not possible to look attractive eating this meal so forget it haha.
Wasabi Beef
I actually hadn't tried this before but my friends recommended it and wow. It was very tender and great with the creamy, wasabi sauce.
Braised Beancurd, Chinese Mushrooms with Mixed Vegetables
Come on, we're all about balance. We had to wash down the seafood with something right? I love my meat don't get me wrong but this is actually one of my favourite dishes when I visit Chinese restaurants. The mushrooms have a bit of a bite to them and go perfectly with the silky tofu and fresh greens.
A strange ending to dinner...
A fortune cookie...yay! But wait, what is the insightful and inevitably truthful prediction inside...?
"Family relationships will improve with time in bed"
I AM SO CONFUSED. I think family and I think my parents and sister. Why is this message telling me to hop into bed with all of them?! NO one else at the table got a remotely seductive message, it was typical mysterious messages of good luck and riches but mine was ... confusing.
If anyone can provide me with their interpretation of this message I'd be glad to hear it! Haha it was hilarious nonetheless.
Rolling back home...
Yep we were so stuffed, I'm really glad I wore my stretchy pants on this night. As we left, we said goodbye to the tanks full of crustaceans and I was ready to fall straight into a seafood coma.
Satisfied, full and definitely not phamished anymore I was a happy lady.
Hope you guys enjoyed this post!
Let me know what you guys usually order at Chinese restaurants, I always love finding out what people's favourite dishes are :)
