Dinner in Aberdeen
This was one of the Chinese banquet dinners we had in Hong Kong. We were dining with locals and they recommended we eat at the Paramount Banquet Hall restaurant.
The restaurant serves food in the Guangdong or Yue cuisine style where the flavours of food compliment the main ingredient of the dish rather than over power it.
I must say that I was a little bit wary about Guangdong or Yue style banquet food. It is renowned for “rare” ingredients such as snake, snails and all sorts of organ meats. But I didn't really need to worry. The locals we were dining with shared my same boundaries for exotic foods.
We started with a plate of traditional Chinese cold meats – jelly fish and pork. The jelly fish was as exotic as it got tonight.
We also got a platter of Siew Yoke, crispy skin roasted pork. The crackling was divine!
Lotus root with greens (Marilyn - shall we say...some green thingy??
).
Abalone with home made fish balls. The abalone was perfectly done and beautifully tender.
Fish – I never quite worked out which type it was – and green vegetables.
Pork in a sweet and sour like sauce (now that I come to think of it, the sauce was more like a plum sauce). The pork had been fried with some sort of thin batter beforehand. The batter was a really thin skin, rather like tempura, and still had a slight crunch to it despite being coated with that lovely sauce.
These prawns had been steamed with gingko nuts.
This was the tofu dish, in an oyster based sauce. The tofu was wonderfully silky and soft inside; despite the fried puffiness on the outside.
The steamed fish. Perfectly done. The topping are pickled chinese vegetables. Rather unusual to my taste as I’m so used to having steamed fish with ginger and shallots and soya sauce.
Scallops with fried egg white. As you can see, the yolk was left whole and raw for us to mix in to the dish before serving.
The pork in this dish was really lean and tender. The sauce was more savoury i.e., salty than the sweet and sour we previously had.
This dish was technically not part of our banquet. DS needed something more ‘Western Chinese’ to eat.
Aside from DS’ fried rice, steamed rice was not served with this meal. Why? That's the way the locals eat. They focus on the dish and don't need to bulk up with carbohydrates.
We did finish up the meal with a complimentary plate of fruit……which included dragon fruit.
Dinner was fantastic value tonight. We were up for about $16 per person for this meal. Always eat where the locals eat!
Why were we in Aberdeen?
Because we were out visiting the Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurant. We just went to go-see; the locals did not recommend eating there.
....
I had been doing 2 miles on the exercise bike, then using the exercise machines, then back to the bike for another mile. The last time I went I managed to get an extra mile during my second bike "ride" and was able to do it again Monday, no problem. 
I need a nap, that is all!
