The Year of the Dog 2018, the 11th animal in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac sign, fast approaches. With the dog’s ever sociable and loyal characteristics that make it man’s best friend, the coming year promises an abundance of excitement, challenges and opportunities. At the Park Hotel Clarke Quay, Chef James Wong – a culinary specialist with nearly four decades of Oriental and Cantonese cuisine – presents a line-up of Park Hotel Clarke Quay CNY Reunion Dinners and lunches to welcome the Year of the Dog with loved ones, colleagues and business associates from 8 February to 2 March 2018.
Park Hotel Clarke Quay CNY Reunion Dinners – The Menus
Comprising an 8-course Prosperity Menu, 8-course Fortune Menu, 7-course Harmony Menu and 6-course Success Menu, Park Hotel Clarke Quay feasts are brimming with signature must-haves, artfully paired with the culinary maestro’s unconventional interpretations of flavours and preparation methods. Come follow us through this sumptuous experience of sight, smell and taste as we sample some of these signature dishes.
Park Hotel Clarke Quay CNY Reunion Dinners – The Main Star
The celebratory centre stage is the Ultimate Success Premium Abalone Yu Sheng, artfully arrayed in lofty layers of purple cabbage, radish, shimeji and enoki mushrooms, lycium leaves, yellow chives and carrots. It is a pretty pyramid of health! 
The rainbow of colours with an exquisite combination of flavours and textures is paired with premium gold-dusted abalones and a sprinkling of fragrant kaffir leaves with Chef’s home-made sauce. It is a perfect dish for you to extend blessings of fortune, health, luck, harmony, peace, abundance and longevity to those who matter most.
The Prosperity Tuna Yu Sheng meanwhile comprises meaty cuts of tender, pan-seared tuna with kombu, aptly known as the King of Seaweed, honey mustard and sesame seeds. To know exactly what to say doing a Lo Hei, visit our post on Chinese New Year Auspicious Phrases During Yu Sheng (Lo Hei)
We love the refreshing taste of the Chef’s home-made sauce which went perfectly with the rest of the crunchy ingredients. To be very honest, the part that thrilled everyone the most was that everyone gets their own premium gold-dusted abalones. Gold-dusted abalone…. you cannot get more luxurious than that. 
Park Hotel Clarke Quay CNY Reunion Dinners – The Signature Dishes
Next came the traditional must-have, Superior Braised Shark’s Fin Soup with Crab Meat and Homemade Stuffed Crab Claw. For folks who are not too comfortable with the traditional shark’s fin soup, they can choose to go for the 8-Treasure Soup that is served with Crabmeat, conpoy, fish maw, sea cucumber, abalone, fish lips, golden mushroom, Chinese mushroom. The request must be made in advance to allow the chefs ample time for preparation.
We loved the flavourful starchy concoction and the chef was really generous with shark fin, we tasted it in every sip. 
The Steamed Whole Red Garoupa in Superior Light Soy Sauce – with bones cleverly extracted was a sight to behold!
Delightful rolls of tender flesh were carefully rolled around with crunchy asparagus stalks for individual servings. We applauded the additional work that goes into preparing this dish. It is a thoughtful, convenient and novel way of enjoying the family feast with the young and elder generations.
Stir-fried King Topshell with Chinese Greens was weaved in deliberately to help ease in the more unconventional dishes that would be coming up next. The topshell was a little chewy (a texture which we like) but it was a little too salty for our palate.
Folks who love Poulet’s French-style, creamy roast chicken are going to love this dish. No offence to Chef James but his version of Golden, Crispy Chicken with Fresh Button Mushroom in Cream Sauce was amazing and tasted almost exactly the same as that of Poulet. This unconventional reunion feast dish will definitely go well with the younger folks in the family. 
The Tiger Prawn Toast is another not so traditional dish where succulent, sprightly crustacean meets scintillating tomato salsa that wowed us. The burst of flavours from natural sweetness to tanginess culminate in the intense tenderness of marinated, chunky tomatoes.
To bite into all the goodness in one mouthful, ditch your chopsticks and just grab your prawn!
By the time we reached this dish, we were closed to reaching our personal limits. It was a pity because the Fragrant Egg-white Fried Rice, with fluffy grains paired with crunchy root vegetables, presented in an intricately “woven” vermicelli basket was really good. 
We ended off the meal on a sweet note with their refreshing Mango Peach Jelly. No matter how full we are, there is always room for desserts.
Overall, we enjoyed the reunion dinner, it gave us a feeling of prosperity (we cannot get the gold-dusted abalone out of our minds) and left us really satisfied. We were impressed with Chef James Wong’s CNY creations and would definitely be back for more in the near future.
Park Hotel Clarke Quay CNY Reunion Dinners – Reserve Early To Avoid Disappointment
The menus are available from $338++ for a table of four to five diners, to $628++ for a table of nine to 10 diners. It is inclusive of free-flowing red date tea and soft drinks, alongside Lunar New Year carrier bags with red packets and mandarins. Three dining sessions are available: 12noon, 6pm or 8.30pm.
For reservations, please contact 6593 8825 / 59 or [email protected].
