Birthday feast: 15 course dinner

Just came back from celebrating a birthday in the family. Had a lavish 15 course dinner and feel super bloated right now. Just want to sit back and watch TV. Everything was so tasty! Here are some photos (not of everything) and description of the dishes.


Huge, expensive, multi-tiered cakes are a thing of the past. We much prefer more dishes and more food these days!


Butter Prawns 1. Shrimp, de-shelled and de-veined, coated in light batter and fried in butter. The crumbly stuff around the shrimp is fried vermicelli if I’m not mistaken.


Soft fried tofu in thick gravy + spring onions and minced meat. The sliced tofu pieces soak up the gravy nicely.


“Long-life Noodles” - this is actually a requisite dish in many birthday dinners or celebrations, particularly in Malaysian Chinese culture. Long-life because the noodles are made in such a way that they remain long continuous threads.


This was really good, duck breast slivers + mango in sweet sauce.


This was great too, mixed-vegetables stir-fried with lots of abalone, clams, shrimp and squid (calamari).


Seafood variety platter with seaweed rolls (stuffed with minced seafood), fish cake (with tartar sauce), seafood roll, calamari rings, fish-in-batter and shrimp-stuffed yam balls.


Butter Prawns 2. Split in the middle, de-veined but with shells on. Coated in a light batter and fried in butter with a bit of bread-mix or crumbs.


Sweet and sour mango fish with onions, sliced chili and mango slivers.


Yam basket. The outer ring is made of mashed sweet yam and the inner cavity filled with stir-fried mixed veges.


Shark-fin soup. Very rich soup. I think there’s also sea cucumber in it.


Emperor’s Chicken. Whole chicken wrapped in plastic and foil with herbs and spices, steam-cooked in a steamer, ensuring all the juices and goodness locked in.


One of the most expensive dishes. Fish maw wrapped around minced meat in thick gravy + egg. There are different types and grades of fish maw and this was definitely one of the finer, softer and more expensive types.


Roasted duck with spicy dipping sauce.


Variety platter 2 – Seafood balls, fish roll, fried tofu skin (bean curd) wrapped around seafood, ostrich meat in black pepper sauce and baby octopus in spicy sauce.


It was my first time eating baby octopus. I had two! Pretty tasty!


Fruit salad – papaya and star-fruit.


Watermelon. Fruits are always popular!


Orange juice, add your own ice! :D

Here in Malaysia, this is a typical dinner for family get-togethers, events such as birthdays, seasonal celebrations (Christmas etc.), or even just welcoming a relative who’s in town for a visit.

No alcohol served. We love our food and we eat a lot (and all the time!) but we don’t drink. Kind of ironic actually, try to stay healthy by not drinking but we stuff ourselves by eating cholesterol and oil laden foods! Haha, GOOD STUFF!!