This time, our funky uncle, Tuck-Sook, turns one year older, and dinner was held last Saturday at Min Jiang at Goodwood Hotel. My previous experiences at this restaurant chain have been marked by bad service, and lower than mediocre food. Nonetheless, I went with an open mind, hoping that the current competitiveness of the Chinese fine dining scene would have done the restaurant some good. Sadly, it did not fail to disappoint, yet again.
Our appetisers of deep-fried whitebait arrived cold to the table. Crispy, but cold and way too salty. The cold drunken chicken was alright, as were the beancurd rolls. Next, I had pork and arrowroot soup, and Fuzzy had the shark's fin; both were average. We also had Peking duck, deep-fried Soon Hock, black pepper beef, Kurobuta pork chops, Hong-siew pork belly with deep-fried bread, fried Ee-fu noodles with crab meat, and white asparagus with cabbage. The worst dish was the beef. It was overly, artificially tenderised, and the meat was very stale. Even the strong black pepper flavour could not mask the foul smell of the meat. The Peking duck was far below fair standard. The piece of crepe used for each roll/pancake was too big, and we couldn't taste any duck skin. The white asparagus and cabbage were over-cooked to the point of being mushy, which is a waste of the seasonal, and expensive asparagus. The pork belly was not braised for long enough, so the meat was still slightly stringy and chewy. Best dish of the night (if I had to pick one) is probably the Kurobuta pork chops, simply by virtue of the good quality of meat used. The accompanying tangy sauce with onions was only so-so.
Despite the less-than-tasty dishes, what we were most appalled by, was the service, or the lack of it. Fuzzy doesn't think there was any service provided at all. First of all, we were given a table that was way too small for our company of 15. All of us were elbow to elbow, and there was no space for cutlery to be placed properly. The layout of the restaurant was so bad, the the waitresses could not reach some of their guests to clear plates (which we had to keep reminding them to do) or serve food. So I was passing dirty plates to the waitresses and getting clean ones in return to hand to the person beside me. Our teacups were also refilled this way, which is very dangerous considering Chubbs was sitting right beside me.
Bad food and service aside, the point of the get-together was to have dinner as a family and celebrate with Tuck-Sook. So we didn't really let the disappointing culinary skills of the chef get to us. Moreover, Chubbs was going around entertaining the Grandies and Great-Grandies, and the tables next to us. It was heart-warming to hear his squeals of laughter and babbling over the din of the dinner service.
But the best part of the night came when Fuzzy carried Chubbs to the lobby to listen to the live jazz band perform. Chubbs was mesmerized, and couldn't take his eyes of the musicians. He danced enthusiastically to the music (too adorable!), to the amusement of the performers and passers-by.
We came home for cake, and while waiting for everyone to arrive, Chubbs read a magazine to kill time.
He later proudly displayed his candle-blowing skills to birthday-boy Tuck-Sook.
The party only died down close to midnight, when Chubbs finally got to take his bath and get his beauty sleep.
