Reunion Lunch

This year, instead of a home-cooked meal at my sister-in-law's place, we had our reunion lunch at a restaurant. We went to the Bottle Tree Village, an interesting little waterfront place located off Sembawang Park that overlooks the Straits of Johor.

I guess most people usually have theirs as a dinner instead of lunch because we had the whole place to ourselves! There was lots of space for the kids to run around and we did not have to worry about them getting into the way of the restaurant staff and diners. There was even a little playground to keep them well-occupied while we sat down to our meal.

The food was generally sumptuous.

Yu Sheng : Nothing to shout about. Our server gave us a pair of mandarin oranges and wished us before he proceeded to prepare the dish. The appropriate auspicious sayings were uttered as each different ingredient was added. Afterwhich, everyone including Big Buddy stood up to toss Yu Sheng. This is the first year he joined in without tossing the Yu Sheng everywhere except within the dish.

Sharksfin Soup with Beansprouts: This came in generous whole fin servings, not the gooey soup with the occasional sliver of sharksfin that many restaurants tend to serve. The beansprouts added crunchiness to it.

Fish : The red grouper was fresh and thoughfully cut and arranged to allow diners access to the flesh without having to turn the fish from side to side.

Sea Cucumber with Dried Scallop : The sea cucumber was stuffed with minced pork and I though the saltiness of the whole dried scallop gave a good balance to the mildly-flavoured stuffed sea cucumber.

Lobster : This dish deserved a special mention; it was cooked with cheese and corn. Although the restaurant refused to divulge anything further than that, we detected a hint of curry powder in the sauce. Delicious.....we would go back just for the lobster.

Chilli Crab with Mantou : There nothing sensational about the two average-size crabs but the gravy was not overly starchy nor too spicy.

Cold Longan Dessert : The coolness was a good roundup to the whole meal. I thought the bits of colourful 'tadpoles' added some gaiety to an otherwise plain-looking bowl of dessert.

It was a good place and time for a reunion lunch as there was no crowd to jostle with. We may go back on another day for a meal, except that the distance from our home will probaby make us think twice.