Saturday, January 22, 2011

Celebrating Kuan's Birthday at Tung Lok Signature Restaurant in VivoCity

Arranged a dinner to celebrate Kuan's birthday (actual day is 14-Jan) among close friends... with myself, Cheang and Hong with spouses. Originally scheduled for 15-Jan but postponed to 22-Jan due to unforeseen circumstances.

Arranged for 6:30pm as Cheang's family normally take early dinner. I went there at 5pm and window shop around. Was really tired by the time it hits 6:30pm. Cheang and wife were punctual and was there by 6:30pm. Hong sent SMS alert early that he maybe late and arrive around 7:15pm due to carpark full.

But Kuan thought the dinner was at 7:30pm and he finally arrived at 7:45pm!! Cheang, his wife and me were starving.

The food were generally very good. First dish was suppose to be mantis prawn cook in 2 ways but they run out of mantis prawn and substitute it with coral prawns. All of them love it but I felt a bit disappointed as the mantis prawn texture were actually significantly much better.

Another favourite dish of mine is the crispy burnt rice with seafood broil (with generous portion of fresh crab meat), very delicious. Ordered their best signature desert... young coconut with mango sago and ice-cream.


During advance booking for the restaurant I asked the manager to arrange a dinner set of about $50 each for 8 people. The menu came back indicating about $478. I did a mental sum and thought it was about $45 per person (!!!). How wrong I was. Then I ask her to change the desert from
Chilled Purple Taro and Pumpkin Cream topped with ice-cream to Mango sago and pomelo with ice-cream served in young coconut. And the total bill revised to $498 and I did a mental sum and thought it was about $49.80 per person and still within budget before GST. That's really a big mistake on my part.

At the end the bill came in at $605 which is about $75 per person. Quite expansive since the dishes are not of very expensive ingredients (though all the dishes were excellent). Hong, Cheang and myself pick up the bill since we are giving the birthday boy Kuan a treat.

 Overall had a good meal and a good time catching up with each other.

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