Have you ever been to a real Chinese dinner, because I have. On Sunday night we had the opportunity to go a fundraising event where we were served an actual Chinese meal. What’s so different than a normal meal you might ask yourself. Well, first off, it is an eight course meal that is served one dish at a time family style. This means that it took us 2 ½ hours to eat-we were not done until 10:30PM. We had the opportunity to sit with 5 Chinese people who showed us what everything was and how to eat it. This was both good and bad…it was bad because I had to try everything no matter what it was. Which, in the end I loved everything and would eat most of it again.
1. 1. Four Seasons: A delightful dish that included fish dumplings, chicken threaded spring rolls, and jelly fish. Yes, you read that right, jelly fish. It was actually pretty good-spicy and crunchy, but not fishy!
2. 2. Fish soup that we were originally introduced to as shark fin soup. It had chicken, fish, mushrooms and who knows what else. It was ok, and I had two bowls of it because the people insisted I did.
3. 3. Red Snapper: I am not a fish person, and have had a considerable amount of it in Asia. However, if all fish was this good I would eat it. It was fabulous and really yummy. No, I will still probably not like fish when I get home because that just tastes fishy.
4. 4. Sweet and sour fried chicken- yumm.
5. 5. Pork that was the equivalent to our ham but different and Chinese steamed buns. Pretty good.
6. 6. Mixed veggies with peas, lotus root, and much more. Yay veggies!!
7. 7. Glutinous rice.
8. 8. Red bean steam bun and some sort of sweet soup with gelatin.
Did you notice the lack of carbs? It was great!! Also, there was a lot of entertainment including a comedian and Joanne Yeoh who was an amazing violinist (she had an electric violin that was blue) and played Lord of the Dance. I almost cried I was so happy to hear it. She came up to our table while she was playing and said “I saw a group of Americans from the stage so I wanted to say hi”. It was fantastic. Kate, I thought of you when I heard her. All the funds went to a migrant missionary program that was a Christian ran thing.
