2005 Menu for Gung Haggis Fat Choy™ at Floata Restaurant

I just got back from the Floata Restaurant where I put the final touches on the 2005 Gung Haggis Fat Choy™ menu with manager Antonio Hung.  We first seriously discussed the menu items back in November when we filmed the segments for the Dec 7th broadcast of CBC TV's "The National."  That was the first time Floata chefs attempted "haggis wun-tun" and "haggis springrollls."

Every year we balance lots of exciting and savoury combinations of dishes with our favorite traditional Chinese New Year dishes and enough to keep the vegetarians happy.  In 2004, with Flamingo Chinese Restaurant, we presented "haggis wun tun" and "haggis springrolls."  Definitely a "hit" with the patrons and the media - who "ate" it up!  Seriously!  I took haggis wun tun to Shaw's "Urban Rush" and Global Morning News, as well as CBC Radio's The Afternoon Show, and CBC TV's "Canada Now"

Our selections are not a real "traditional" Chinese New Year dinner menu - but a blending of favorites, and brand new fusion-fare.  It is created to help introduce "real Chinese banquet fare" to Scottish-Canadians and to help make "haggis" safe for Chinese-Canadians.

Here is the menu for 2005, subject to change at my whimsy and the kitchen's demands:

1 -  Appetizer Plate with Haggis Wun Tun, Haggis Spring Rolls, Shredded Jelly Fish, and Spicy Tofu. (Haggis Wung Tun was first created in September 2003 when I walked into New Town Restaurant in Chinatown with a Haggis from Peter Black's and asked them to make wun tuns for me to take to the CBC Radio reception to welcome Shelagh Rogers and "Sounds Like Canada" to Vancouver.  Shredded Jelly Fish really is made of Jelly Fish, and it is one of my favorites - yum!)

2 - Hot & Sour Soup (Always a favorite for everybody - and vegetarian to boot!  Warms up the innards on a cold January night.  I am sure Burns would approve.)

3 - Deep Fried Shrimp Balls (The last two years, we have had crab & lobster at the Flamingo Restaurant - but it has been very messy on the hands and fingers.  This causes lots of problems for the musicians. In May I emceed the West Vancouver Rotary Club's "Shanghai Nights Dinner" and was introduced to Floata's "Deep Fried Shrimp Balls on Crab Claws... yum yum!  We are dispensing with the claws to keep the costs down... Can't have 60 crabs walking around the restaurant without claws, can we?)

4 - Pan Fried Mushroom, Tofu and Vegetables. (After the rich seafood, vegetables and tofu to clean the palate.  It could be green beans, snow peas, Chinese broccoli... but it's got to be fresh!  Tofu is great... I grew up eating it since I was a little kid.  I know a lot of caucasians who detest tofu... maybe this venerable bean curd staple is the Chinese equivalent of haggis?)

5 - Sliced Beef with Broccoli  (Always a good staple.  Tenderized slices of "Ngah -yook" Beef meat - one of the first chinese food words I ever learned... actually it was probably "Ngah-Nigh" which means "Cow's Milk."  Stir-fried Beef strips was also one of the first Chinese dishes I learned to cook - I love adding it to my fettucine pasta with Teriyaki sauce.  What can you say about the accompanying vegetable, except: Eat your Broccoli!)

6 - Haggis (You can't have a Robbie Burns Supper without Haggis... The first time I tried haggis - I gagged.  It reminded me of poi - the Hawaiian taro paste.  I put some haggis in with my rice... it wasn't bad.  I added sweet & sour sauce.  Plum sauce was great with it.  Then I learned that I didn't like the lard recipe haggis and there were many other haggis recipes.  My favorite is from Peter Black and Sons, found at Park Royal Shopping Centre in West Vancouver.  It is savoury with Peter's unique and special recipe.  Featured on CityTV's City Cooks for the past two years in a row!)

7 - Vegetarian Lettuce Wrap (This is always fun.  Imagine a hamburger without the bun.  Oops... nothing is holding the patty together eithe and this time it's vegetarian made up of diced mushrooms, carrots, celery, etc.  Add the Hoi-Sin bbq plum sauce in the middle of your lettuce and remember that when it comes to filling the lettuce - less is more.  Otherwise your lettuce will crack and break and the sauce will run down your fingers. Delightfully messy!)

6 + 7 = Haggis Lettuce Wrap (Combine Haggis with a lettuce wrap.... people will think we are crazy.  Oops, we are crazy.  This is Gung Haggis Fat Choy Crazy!  Take a large spoonful of haggis, plunk it on a lettuce leaf, add the vegetarian filling, smother it with Hoi-Sin Chinese plum sauce, and voila - Another Toddish McWong culinary-fusion treat!  Actually we taste-tested haggis lettuce wrap last year, at the Flamingo a week before the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner - just to see what would happen... and it was G-O-O-D! but we were already committed to marketing the Haggis wun tun, so we saved it for 2005)

9 - Buddha's Mixed Vegetables  (So called because it is a favorite vegetarian dish for Buddist Monks.  It is also a traditional New Year's fare to bring enlightenment for the coming months.  Did you know that it was Buddha who first summoned the animals to come see him, and that he would name the years of the Chinese Zodiac after them? The Rat arrived first. I was born in the year of the Metal Rat).

10 - Special Vegetarian Chow Mein with Mushrooms and Onions (Always a Chinese New Year traditional dish, as the long noodles represent long life.  Sounds kind of superstitious to me.  Just remember the origins of Italian pasta go back to Marco Polo's journeys to China.  He was also probably the one who smuggled maps of Chinese naval voyages to Italy where they ended up with Christopher Columbus.  Every had the Chinese version of pizza?)

11 - Young Chow Fried Rice (Non-vegetarian.  I think we've put enough vegetarian dishes on the menu for 2005.  This dish will have diced BBQ pork, and baby shrimp, and maybe diced chicken... a good way to finish of f dinner - if you are still a wee bit hungry after a Chinese banquet.  Not bloody likely!  Whoever first came up with the idea that you are hungry an hour after eating Chinese food - probably never ate at a Chinese banquet.)

12 - Dessert (This will be a mix of puddings and pastries We do recognize that not everybody like to have red bean pudding after a banquet dinner.  Mango pudding and almond jello are my favorites.  We will definitely NOT have blood pudding - Scottish resturant for that stuff)

Hope you enjoyed these delicious descriptions... 

Dinner & show starts promptly at 6:00pm.  After first doing this event in a restaurant since 1999, we've had plenty of practice how to figure out how to combine an entertainment program with a simultaneous dinner program.  Serve the dishes approximately every 15 minutes, Performances for 10 minutes with a 5 minute intermission.  That's the idea anyways.  It used to be pretty easy serving everybody withing 5 minutes so there wouldn't be any waiters bringing food to your table while performers will demanding your attention to the stage.  But that was easier done, when we only had 4 to 20 tables.  Now we will have about 60 tables for Gung Haggis Fat Choy.  I think we will have to be a little more lenient and patient with the dinner schedule.

Toddish

Ó 2005 Todd Wong