U-Banquet, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

This late lunch quest comes from my cousin's wedding reception dinner, which was a twelve course banquet held a week last Saturday. My wife and I were invited to go a restaurant called 'U-banquet' located in Causeway Bay, so not far from where we live. It was booked out with 20 tables of guests so over 200 people were attending this dinner.

'U-Banquet' caters for weddings and the restaurant hall has chandeliers and a large staircase for the happy couple to make their entrance. The hall even has fake stained class windows and church altar setting for a more European / Christian feel!

During the length of the meal, each dish was placed on the centre of the table and then spilt into the individual portions for everyone.

The first course was Roasted Suckling Pig, which is a traditional starter at these events. It was roasted well, with meat, fat and crispy skin in the right amounts. It was a bit kitschy placing the plastic hearts in the eyes, but it was a wedding after all.

Roasted Suckling Pig

Second course was sauteed prawns and scallop, where we received one of each as the photograph shows below, which can along with fried peas and pepper. Also nicely cooked but slightly small portioned dish.

Sauteed Prawns

Next we had a crab claw that was stuffed with shrimp paste and wrapped with almond flakes. It was a good finger food gimmick using the claw as the handle as demonstrated in the photograph. The shrimp paste filling was OK but the almond flake covering did not work for me.

Crispy Japanese Crab Claw

A braised Whole Conpoy (dried scallop) was served next, accompanied with Sea Moss. This was an enjoyable dish with a varied vegetable assortment and a flavoursome sauce to make it more moist.

Braised Conpoy stuffed with Marrow Vegetables and Sea Moss

We then were served with the Shark's Fin Soup. This was double boiled and had Chinese cabbage in it. The soup could have had more flavour and for double boiled, did not seem as thin as I expected. As usual the controversial fin slices did not add much to the dish apart from exclusivity.

Shark's Fin Soup

The abalone course is common in wedding banquet menus and this was a South African one, which was braised and came with a single pak choi. A very chewable dish, with the vegetable adding a bit of crunch to it.

Abalone

The last savoury dishes to arrive were fried rice and noodles, which you choose only one type after they are served (although counted as part of the twelve courses you receive). I chose the noodles hence the picture below. These egg noodles were well cooked with the flavour coming from the ginger and spring onion and topped off with abalone sauce.

Braised E-fu Noodles

The banquet was finished off with two sweet dishes shown below. Sweetened Walnut Soup had glutinous rice dumplings. It was warm, sweet and nutty and the dumplings were sweet too and chewy. The Petits Four were marshmallows, little pastries and gelatine type cakes and were a little disappointing and not as good as their European equivalents. They gave us oranges as well, which you can see in the background of the photo.

Sweetened Walnut Soup

Petits Four

There was two courses that I did not take pictures of and they were the Steamed Tiger Garoupa and Deep Fried Crispy Chicken, which to me were the best dishes of the night, unfortunately. The fish was deliciously steamed with ginger and spring onion, draped in a hot soya-oil sauce. The chicken meat was moist and skin was crispy and flavoursome.

Whilst it took long to get the first course on the table due to speeches and announcements, the service was very quick. In fact we probably received the first dish until 8.45pm and finished eating about 11.00pm so it was about 10 minutes a course. However, that is not uncommon for Chinese wedding banquets.

Anyhow, a good night was had and congratulations to my cousin and his new wife!

Scores:
Food: 3/5
Presentation: 3/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 4/5

Overall: 13/20

Total bill: The cost of the wedding present to my cousin.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: A beer before the meal, a few glasses of Australian Shiraz during and a few more glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon towards the end of and after the banquet.

I wore: Smart suit and shirt.