Dinner at Flower Drum
Wow, I suck. Not a single post since the last Dinner club dinner three months ago. Oh well. You get a real life and your online life suffers a bit.
Flower Drum was absolutely divine. Red carpet service all the way, from when they open the front door for you, to when they press the lift buttons for you, and check your coats and bags for you - very helpful in late autumn in Melbourne when you tend to wear more than three layers. There were five in our party this time. We were seated near a wall mid-dining room with a good view of the rest of the floor and the enormous and beautiful flower arrangements about the room. It is a lovely room.
A waitress set us up with water. I noticed she carefully inspected and discarded three glasses for having microscopic specs on them. We ordered cocktails from an old-fashioned list while we looked over the menus. I had a brandy alexander and it was one of the best I've ever had.
Eventually we decided on ordering individual entrees and then ordering a main each and sharing them - but the peaking duck pancakes ended up being their own little course in between. And they deserved to be too. The were outstanding. Throughout the meal we had never-ending cups of green tea, which I think is the best accompaniment for chinese food.
My entree was quail san choy bao which was light and spicy and delicious, though it made a mess, as the quantity was too great for the single lettuce leaf it was served on. I could have used three leaves. Every finger-food dish served throughout the night was also served with a wet cloth on a silver tray for each diner and, in some cases, a finger bowl of lemon water.
The mains we shared were really something. I ordered the honeyed pork spare ribs. The meat just fell off the bone and the glaze sauce was just perfect - not greasy at all. The beef in black bean sauce was made with eye fillet steak. Normally, I'd have an eye fillet an inch and a half thick and cooked blue, they are so good. But when you use a cut of meat like that in a stirfry it ends up being so tender it literally melts in your mouth. The sauce was delicate enough that it allowed the flavour of the beef to shine through.
Another dish our party chose was szechuan scallops. The sauce was wonderfully spicy and contrasted with all our other choices. The scallops were bordered on the plate by crisp fresh snow peas, lightly stirfried in the same sauce. The only thing that could have made this dish better is if they had left the roe attached to the scallops.
We also had some stirfried greens that included lotus, chinese broccoli, sugar snap peas, snow peas, shitake mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms. The last dish to arrive on the table was stuffed and tempura battered eggplant. This was a very delicately flavoured dish that I found a little bland and needed to add soy for salt, but the textures were wonderful. Normally this dish consisted of four pieces, but when it arrived, there were five pieces on the plate. One for each diner. They also had customised our peaking duck pancakes so we had two a piece. I was very impressed by this, as the quantities were altered without us having to ask to have it done.
We each also had a small bowl of steamed rice which, of course, was perfectly cooked.
All the portions were just the right size and between us, we emptied every plate.
And still there was room for dessert.
I ordered the toffeed apple and icecream. Four quarters of crisp apple, tempura battered and deep fried, then coated in toffee, served with a scoop of vanilla icecream and spun toffee. Yum, yum, yum!
The meal came out at under 100 dollars a head, incuding drinks and dessert, which somewhat surprised us all, as we'd heard that we'd need 150 dollars at least to eat here. We put in 100 each to give a bit of a tip because the service all night was impeccable, and left there very happy and very satisfied.
Flower Drum was absolutely divine. Red carpet service all the way, from when they open the front door for you, to when they press the lift buttons for you, and check your coats and bags for you - very helpful in late autumn in Melbourne when you tend to wear more than three layers. There were five in our party this time. We were seated near a wall mid-dining room with a good view of the rest of the floor and the enormous and beautiful flower arrangements about the room. It is a lovely room.
A waitress set us up with water. I noticed she carefully inspected and discarded three glasses for having microscopic specs on them. We ordered cocktails from an old-fashioned list while we looked over the menus. I had a brandy alexander and it was one of the best I've ever had.
Eventually we decided on ordering individual entrees and then ordering a main each and sharing them - but the peaking duck pancakes ended up being their own little course in between. And they deserved to be too. The were outstanding. Throughout the meal we had never-ending cups of green tea, which I think is the best accompaniment for chinese food.
My entree was quail san choy bao which was light and spicy and delicious, though it made a mess, as the quantity was too great for the single lettuce leaf it was served on. I could have used three leaves. Every finger-food dish served throughout the night was also served with a wet cloth on a silver tray for each diner and, in some cases, a finger bowl of lemon water.
The mains we shared were really something. I ordered the honeyed pork spare ribs. The meat just fell off the bone and the glaze sauce was just perfect - not greasy at all. The beef in black bean sauce was made with eye fillet steak. Normally, I'd have an eye fillet an inch and a half thick and cooked blue, they are so good. But when you use a cut of meat like that in a stirfry it ends up being so tender it literally melts in your mouth. The sauce was delicate enough that it allowed the flavour of the beef to shine through.
Another dish our party chose was szechuan scallops. The sauce was wonderfully spicy and contrasted with all our other choices. The scallops were bordered on the plate by crisp fresh snow peas, lightly stirfried in the same sauce. The only thing that could have made this dish better is if they had left the roe attached to the scallops.
We also had some stirfried greens that included lotus, chinese broccoli, sugar snap peas, snow peas, shitake mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms. The last dish to arrive on the table was stuffed and tempura battered eggplant. This was a very delicately flavoured dish that I found a little bland and needed to add soy for salt, but the textures were wonderful. Normally this dish consisted of four pieces, but when it arrived, there were five pieces on the plate. One for each diner. They also had customised our peaking duck pancakes so we had two a piece. I was very impressed by this, as the quantities were altered without us having to ask to have it done.
We each also had a small bowl of steamed rice which, of course, was perfectly cooked.
All the portions were just the right size and between us, we emptied every plate.
And still there was room for dessert.
I ordered the toffeed apple and icecream. Four quarters of crisp apple, tempura battered and deep fried, then coated in toffee, served with a scoop of vanilla icecream and spun toffee. Yum, yum, yum!
The meal came out at under 100 dollars a head, incuding drinks and dessert, which somewhat surprised us all, as we'd heard that we'd need 150 dollars at least to eat here. We put in 100 each to give a bit of a tip because the service all night was impeccable, and left there very happy and very satisfied.