Text 3327, 94 rader
Skriven 2013-08-10 00:46:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: banquet 982
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On the way, Otto had confided that he missed these dinners,
of which there had been many at Royal East in the day. This
was only my second banquet at Su Chang, the new place, the
first being the echo dinner I'd arranged some years ago.
I must admit that I missed them too.

As soon as we were all assembled, the waiters started their
dance, perhaps a bit accelerated, as we were close to an
hour behind, and the dinner had threatened to butt up against
closing time even as originally planned.

Nicholas had brought a bunch of samphire, which he had
harvested himself from some secret marshy area near his
house. Though of impeccable freshness, it was tenderer and
less crisp than the stuff I had become familiar with while
foraging with my old girlfriend Sharman on Puget Sound late
in the last millennium. The taste was similar - slightly
iodiney, very salty (it grows well in saltwater) -, and it
served well as a palate tickler, though Nicholas admonished
us to save some to eat with the fish courses.

Our appetizer per se was chicken soong - minced meat with
vegetables and pine nuts served in lettuce wraps. This was
a wine-friendly version and had neither hot spice nor
hoisin sauce, which many inferior versions include perhaps
to make up for lesser quality ingredients. Here, the pine
nuts were prominent. Unfortunately, Otto had given us a
little lecture about how it was hard to get good Italian
pignoli, but they were so superior to the Chinese variety
that he was happy to spring for them; and in fact, the
soongs and their pine nuts tasted very good, but I looked
inside and the nuts used were the Chinese ones (the shapes
are very different).

Next Mr. Lobster reappeared in three preparations.

First to come out was an enormous platter, maybe five
pounds, of salt-pepper fried: mostly the knuckles and
claws. The preparation was I thought slightly heavy on the
salt and slightly light on the hot pepper, but the garlic
and other spices were pretty in balance. As the pieces of
lobster were so big, there was no way the seasoning was
going to penetrate all the way through anyhow.

Then two similar sized platters of ginger-scallion sauteed,
another standard but delicious preparation using mostly the
tail. The waiter kept loading us up, but during a moment of
inattention I grabbed a big tail section and popped out a
filet-mignon-size chunk of meat - close to 6 oz right there.
All in all, I must have eaten close to a pound of lobster
meat by myself.

A word on big lobsters. Americans don't like them, possibly
because they are not amenable to being cooked Western-
style, i.e., whole. When I had my 16-pounder many decades
ago, I solved this problem by baking it in two pieces. Otto
likes them, as the Chinese chop and stir-fry (or deep-fry,
as in the case of salt-and-pepper) method ensures that the
meat cooks evenly and is tender throughout. In this case,
the tail meat came out tender and fluffy, without the
stringiness that people associate lobster with, as the
muscle has been cut across into short sections. Surprisingly,
the claw meat got a texture more like dried scallops, the
deep-frying solidifying the meat in a way with which I was 
previously unfamiliar. Otto claimed that the flavor of older
lobsters was less sweet and more shellfish-intense than that
of the smaller ones. I didn't find that so - less sweet, for
sure, but I found the flavor pure but exceedingly delicate.

The tomalley was made into an omelet with half a dozen eggs,
which was the third way: it was delicious, but after all that
lobster, who needed eggs? I would have been happier with a
couple tablespoons of just plain tomalley, which would have
been more satisfyingly intense and less filling.

How do you divide 19 lbs of lobster 8 ways? There was really
not very much left when we were done with the course, though
a few pieces went back to the kitchen, where the help no
doubt eagerly disposed of them. I also notice that the little
legs and the bodies didn't make it out onto the table, so
some snacking probably went on on them there too.

As John had written in an e-mail earlier in the week, good
sense would have dictated that this have been the end of the
meal. But as it was a banquet, we needed a variety of dishes,
and conspicuous consumption was the order of the day. At this
point the dinner was not even half done, and my belly was
about as full as I wanted it to be, but there was the need to
soldier on; - please feel free to feel sorry for me as you see
fit.

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