Lunch at Swissotel Merchant Court @ Clarke Quay

20 Merchant Road, Lobby Level Ballroom, Swissotel Merchant Court Hotel, Singapore 058281

Tel: 6337 2288

Website: http://www.swissotel.com/hotels/singapore-merchant-court/meeting-events/ballrooms

Seldom write about weddings or corporate events, or rather, never used to - until recently. Anyway, there was Xin Cuisine at Holiday Inn Atrium (review here) and Si Chuan Dou Hua at Parkroyal on Beach Road (review here). The most recent one was at Swissotel Merchant Hotel, where I coincidentally bumped into *Chantal and hubby.

Nice decor in the huge ballroom, with servers who were professional polite but rather eager to clear every plate on the table in between courses. It was a wedding lunch, this particular event.

Anyway, the Five Treasures Cold Dish was served first, comprising of prawn salad, roast duck, seafood roll, mini octopus and BBQ pork coin. This dish was surprisingly well done. The roast duck was succulent, as were the sweet salad prawns. The seafood rolls were resplendent of crab / prawn flavor, and the mini octopus were chewy and well-flavored.

Moving on, the Shredded Abalone Soup - with crab meat, conpoy (dried scallops) and dried mushrooms. It was a tasty soup with a silky clear broth, a good replacement of the usual shark's fins or bird's nest soup.

Next, Deep-fried Boneless Chicken with mango in Thai sauce.  This was also an interesting deviation from the usual roast chicken dish, and I liked it because it was so interesting, so westernised, and surprising to be found on a Chinese wedding dinner menu. The chicken skin was crispy and flesh was tender; the only issue was the layers of fats found on many pieces. The mango strips were sweet and juicy, a lovely complement to the chicken.

Steamed Sea Bass in superior soya sauce was served after that, the quality of the fish judged by its freshness. Well, satin-textured flesh served piping hot, on a bed of good sauce; I rather enjoyed this fish dish.

The next course was Wok-fried prawns with Brocooli in Yam Ring - a delightful dish served with many other ingredients such as cashew nuts, peppers and deep fried crispy strips of vermicelli. The prawns were rather fresh and the yam ring was sweet. It is one of my all-time favorite dish.

Following that was the Braised Black Mushrooms with Seasonal Vegetables - mushrooms so juicy that the gravy it soaked up squirted into the mouth deliciously upon the first bite. The leafy greens were soft and a refreshing break from all the meat items thus far.

Then there was the Fried Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaf - served to us in separate portions so we did not get to see the lotus leaf anyway. The rice retained a kind of crisp to it, and was exulted by the stronger aroma of mushrooms, making this a very scrumptious dish, easy to simply eat bite after bite without realising that one has polished the entire bowl of rice off completely.

Finally, dessert came in the form of Yam Paste with Gingko Nuts and Pumpkin. A sticky and sweet hot dessert this was, comprising of the gentle notes of yam as well as the sandy-textured pumpkin. It was quite nice, this dish, but not the best yam paste I'd had so far.

Anyway, it was a hearty meal overall, and the most important thing was the joy felt for the newly-wed, as well as the catching up / mingling with the other guests around the banquet.