Yee Sang at Grand Margherita Hotel

Every year, the little Simon family get together for a Yee Sang dinner. According to dad, its good for our career. Err..something like the higher you fling the yee sang, the better your outlook is. Something along those lines. Mind you, this is Simon Minggu's belief only. :)



This year, we chose to have our Yee Sang dinner at Grand Margherita Hotel (the old Holiday Inn). The set dinner we chose was RM 888 ++. There were two choices: RM 666 or RM 888. Ya freaking expensive. Not inclusive of taxes and service charge some more. But we have 50% discount because of Prestige Club. So yea. Still okay.

Me and my siblings:



Coincidentally, there was a wedding dinner on that night as well, so maybe that is why the food came up rather slow. We arrived at about 715 pm, and our last dish arrived at about 10pm. It was a 8 course dinner. In the beginning, there was a 30 minute interval between dishes and we complained: can you guys hurry up or not?

That aside, service was actually good. It was always service with a smile, they were all very polite and efficient.


Cs is now a part of the family. Heh heh.

This is Yee Sang:



For most yee sang, they add salmon to it (cos its cheaper). This was the first time I had abalone with yee sang. I actually prefer salmon cause at least I can taste it. The addition of the abalone was erm..just ok. Maybe cos I only managed to pick one out. The rest were walloped by the others. :(



This is what I meant by fling fling flinging the yee sang. After our server has added the abalone, oil, pepper, and crackers, we (everyone at the table) should all take our chopsticks and mix the ingredients together by flinging it around. Haha. I suck at describing things don't I? I seem to be using a lot of market talk.



Next up on the menu was shark fins soup. I know that there are a lot of articles out there about how we should stop eating shark fins soup cos it has no nutrition whatever but most importantly we have to stop killing sharks.

But I am a typical Malaysian chinese and I follow society. Dad says we should have shark fin during my upcoming wedding. So be it. It does not look good if I don't. Personally, I think shark fin soup tastes good so I eat it. Never mind that it has no nutrition. I eat maggi mee and it has no nutrition too what. How? Supposedly cancer causing too. Even worse.

About the slaughtering of sharks. That's quite a pathetic excuse ler. If you preach about killing sharks, how about the slaughter of chickens, pigs, cows, and other fishes? Salmon? How? Why should sharks be exempt? Hmm..how does this work then?

And I suppose alot of people could write me a long, long reply to my little rant here but don't please. I am a silly naive individual. Replying me would have no benefit whatsoever. I will still have the shark fins soup. And if I stop having it, how do I actually save the shark anyway? Other people will still kill it. Hmm..

Its like the saying, you know when we are kids, parents tell us we must FINISH up our rice. Because the children in Africa have nothing to eat. But really, if I finish up my rice, does this mean the children in Africa have food to eat? No. Its silly really. Make your point across with other methods lar. Don't reply me. Btw, I must remember never to tell my kids this in the future. Silly really.

This is just my view only okay. I mean no disrespect to those people who don't eat shark fins.

Oh digressed alot. Back to topic.


Shark fins soup is a staple at most Chinese dinners. At weddings, people see this as almost as a way of status. If you don't have shark fins soup at your wedding dinner, people will remember. And alas, I am a follower.

Next up is the duck:



This is how it looks like inside:


Filled with a lot of goodies: I know the names of only the mushrooms and chicken. Haha. Sorry for not being very informative!

This is a white pomfret. At least I know this fish can get quite pricey at the market. According to the parents at least.


Nicely done - tastes great.

Some vege - is it asparagus? - with big ass scallops and Brazil nuts and something else. Yum.



This was some bak choi with vege and a lot of oysters and big ass scallops again. By now I am too full to eat much already.



After this, there was a glutinous rice with some 8 treasure thingy. I thought it was a bit dry. I was too full to move to take a photo of the rice. So yea. Never mind.

So what do you think of the dinner? Was it worth the RM 888 ++ price tag?

I think that the dinner itself was very full of rich and expensive food that made the dinner kinda worth it. But eating this kind of stuff, I am kinda glad that its just once a year. Its too rich, and just not that fulfilling. But that's just me.

I mean, you know that the dinner is expensive simply because of the abalones, the scallops, and shark fins etc. But the portions are quite small (kinda) and what I mean is..aiya I don't know how to explain la. You know what I mean right? (hehe yea right).



After the very expensive dinner, we went to a Meet Your Valentines Party at Senso. It was quite impromptu and I expected a bigger crowd than that. Grr. Drinks are soo pricey. I know lar. Hilton - what do you expect mi? Yea anyway. I met a few friends there and we moved the party to McGregor's instead.

Haven't been there in ages. But it was nice. To forget about saving money for one night. That said, I am back to being frugal. It is Valentines Day today actually (past midnight).



I have a plan for an economy Valentine's. I will prove that we can still have fun with him without spending much. :)



Read here for our first Valentine's together, where I was soo pampered! The second year (last year), Valentines day was also the first day of CNY so we didn't do anything at all.

If all goes well, I will write about our 3rd Valentine's together. Hehe..:)

Good night!