Feeling completely underdressed I went along for this amazing dinner at the very very expensive and posh hotel that is the Jinji Hu Hotel. I was invited there by my good friend Amy who I haven’t seen for a while and so it was great to catch up in such a wonderful atmosphere. This is what greeted us when we walked into the reception room, so many wonderful looking starters and they even had Mocktails.
The main dining room was a sight to behold indeed and I’m not sure if I’ve ever had the pleasure of entering a room like this and being allowed to stay and eat. I was there as a filler for one of the empty seats, but that’s ok I had a great time eating food I’ll never be able to afford. Better still I was sitting near the front of the room and so it was perfect for watching the entertainment. I was also impressed that they got my name right, it was only after I saw my name I realised that I could stay. I have no idea what these snacks were in front of my name card because I was so full from eating everything else.
There was one person looking after two or people, our own personal hand. The young girl stood right behind me so I could not see her. Initially I was amazed when she appeared like magic to remove my first course plate. I had no sooner put down my chopsticks and there she was. The first course was a selection of meats and vegetables which was designed to look like one of the mountain ranges nearby Suzhou, in fact if you go to the Suzhou Museum you will see a similar representation made from cut stone near the central pond.
We had Musician’s and Kunqu Opera singers and as usual the volume is way too high, a common problem at Chinese events. To make matters worse I was about 6 feet from the huge speaker stack and so I had to put my finger in my left ear to stop it exploding, my ear that is.
The food kept coming, wave upon wave of perfectly presented dishes and I ate just about everything apart from the sweet and sour fish which was tasteless. The abalone dish was so so, but the tastiest dish by far was the small portion of Australian Beef that had been cooked for two hours and fell apart just by looking at it. Suzhou food is traditionally sweet and quite tasteless really, so I tend to eat the more spicy food and so this banquet is really wasted on me because I think that the food has little or no flavour. The surroundings and the presentation and the service and the entertainment was all marvelous but at the end of the day the flavours were bland. I have no idea what this would have cost in the real world but I know that I would have been disappointed if I had to foot the bill.
