Thursday, December 1, 2011

Zilver - Haymarket

Our friend's wedding banquet was at Zilver, a lovely Chinese restaurant situated opposite Capitol Theater and Market City. The bride and groom were awesomely beautiful and handsome like they usually are and the food at this Chinese banquet did not deviate much from the norm.

First off was the crispy suckling pig with jellyfish. This was alright. The skin was crispy and the meat was tasty and salty. It's not the best suckling pig we've had and the looks of the pieces could have been improved. The jellyfish portion would have also been much better if it were bigger... but these seem like just my personal choices as everyone else seemed to enjoy this course.

suckling pig with jellyfish

The next course was prawns sauteed with beans and macadamia nuts. I liked the prawns - they were yum. I like macadamia nuts too. However, in my mind, prawns and macadamia nuts don't really go together. It's more an 'asian' thing - chuck the prawns in with prestigious nuts so it makes the whole dish more grand :)

prawns with macadamia nuts

The next dish was interesting. Scallops were enveloped with taro paste and deep-fried. This resulted in perfectly cooked scallops with mushy and crunchy bits. Not sure if taro and scallop go together... but on their own, both are delicious!

Deep fried taro scallop

My favourite course was next - the sharks fin. There was a good amount of sharks fin in the broth (not too much, and not non-existent). There was a bit too much chicken bits in it but - and they got a bit annoying after a while. But in general, the consistency and the taste of the sharks fin was really yummy.

Sharks fin soup

Lobster cooked in supreme soup was the course my hubby and various others on the table were long-awaiting for since the start of the day. I was disappointed by this dish... The lobster pieces were TINY! The all-meat pieces were about the size of a 20cent coin and the leg pieces were so small that there simply was no meat in them. My hubby still liked it though and argued that at least the taste of it was good.

Lobster cooked in supreme soup

The next course was the abalone with chinese mushroom. The abalone piece was tender and infused with sauce. The mushy was super huge and again, cooked reasonably well. If I were one to like abalone and chinese mushroom, I think I would have enjoyed this dish muchly.

Abalone with Chinese mushroom

Instead of the usual crispy skinned chicken, we were served with roasted pigeon. Again, the portions were rather small so everyone's pigeon piece sat rather conspicuously on everyone's plate. How could we eat something so tiny and fragile? We just did.

roasted pigeon

Steamed fish was next. It was steamed well. The fish meat was soft and tasted quite fresh. If only they could dish it out in a way which made it look more impressive...

steamed fish

Noodles and fried glutinous rice came next. I opted for noodles. This was not yummy. It was tasteless and soggy and plain...

Noodles

Dessert-wise, we had fruit, little chinese cakes and biscuits, wedding cake slices and red bean soup. Nothing surprising. Not spectacular but by this stage, we didn't really care - we were full and ready to go home.

Red Bean Soup

It was a wonderful and awesome wedding. Banquet food - wise, it was average. You got your normal 10 course meal... some were good and yum, some were slightly disappointing. But I guess when you go to a wedding, it's not really the food that your meant to pay attention to :)

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money - ?
Overall - 20.5 + ?/40

Zilver
477 Pitt Street
Haymarket
NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 9211 2232

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