2008 Menu for Gung Haggis Fat Choy™:
Toddish McWong's Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner
- Anticipating the Year of the Rat!
What: Gung Haggis Fat Choy™ Dinner
When: January 27, 2008 - Sunday
Time: Reception 5:30 pm - with Dim Sum appetizers
Dinner 6:00 pm
Tickets: $64.50 adult, $54.00 student, $43.50 children 13 & under
Purchase online www.ticketstonight.ca
NEW # ORDER BY PHONE:
604-631-2872
Additional $2.50 per ticket for phone orders
Call Gung Haggis Fat Choy Productions at 604-987-7124 by January 21 to reserve a table for 10 for $600
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. And if you are Ukranian-Italian-Japanese-First Nations... that's alright too!
Here is the menu for 2008, subject to change at my whimsy and the kitchen's demands:
Haggis Dim Sum Appetizer buffet
This will be available upon people's arrival soon after the reception starts after 5:30pm
The restaurant will have the bar open for 5:30pm
We have moved the dinner location to the South side of the restaurant so we can use the BIG bar.
1a - Deep fried Haggis Wun Tun
Haggis Wun 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 won tons for me to take to the CBC Radio reception to welcome Shelagh Rogers and "Sounds Like Canada" to Vancouver. She said that "the haggis wun tun and special plum sauce goes together like Bogart and Bacall." It's been a favorite ever since.
We ask the restaurant to mix the haggis with water chestnuts to make it crunchy - yum yum! Even the Scottish Studies coordinator from Simon Fraser University, Harry McGrath, has said it is "surprisingly good!"
1b Haggis Su-Mei (Pork Dumplings)
Pork Dumplings (Su-Mei) are classic cantonese dim sum, and we are adding haggis for great taste! Somehow the haggis and the pork seem to go very well!
1c Haw-Gow (Shrimp Dumplings)
non-haggis dim sum... one of my favorites! tasty morsels of shrimp wrapped in rice noodle wrapping.
1d Vegetarian Spring Rolls
Because we knew there would be people who wouldn't want Haggis or meat their Vegetarian spring rolls.
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 - Ginger Dungeness Crab
The West Coast equivalent to Nova Scotia Lobster and better tasting too! Flavoured with Ginger, it's always been one of my favorites. The best way to eat crab is to have somebody else crack it and de-shell it for you. If your husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend won't do this - invite somebody else.
4 - Buddhist's Feast
A traditional New Year dish - with rice vermicelli noodles and lots of vegetables and lotus root. All the good things that every vegetarian loves. The Chinese calendar is based on the 12 animals that came when Buddha called. Feb 7th starts a new 12 year cycle that begins with the Year of the Rat - the first animal to see Buddha. I was born in the Year of the Rat.
5 - Haggis
You can't have a Robbie Burns Supper without Haggis... We serve the best haggis that I have found. It comes from the Highlands of West Vancouver... or rather the Lowlands of West Vancouver's Park Royal, from Peter Black & Sons. Peter's haggis is like a nice liver pate. It is not too oaty, and it has many nice spices. Try it with sweet & sour sauce. But the Plum sauce is best.
6 Lettuce Wrap
We serve a vegetarian lettuce wrap. We had so many vegetarians who lamented that they couldn't eat the duck or the pork or the beef lettuce wrap... so now it is a vegetarian lettuce wrap. Very tasty.
We encourage people to combine Haggis with the lettuce wrap.... 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 it's great. People really like it. Before we invented the haggis lettuce wrap, there was always plenty of haggis left over. But now... everybody eats it up. We blame it on the lettuce wrap.
7 - Mongolian Beef
At one time the Mongolian empire was the largest contiguous empire in human history reaching into what is now Modern Poland by 1279. That's almost 90% of the distance from Beijing to Edinburgh! Mongolian beef is one of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team's favorite Tuesday night dishes after a hard paddle practice.
8 - Deep Fried Shrimp balls with fruit salad.
It's traditional to have a fish dish because the Chinese word for fish sounds like the Chinese word for money... But we are substituting this wonderful Floata Restaurant specialty. The shrimpballs are lightly deep-fried to a nice light crunch. The salad is melons with a mayonaise sauce... very much Hong Kong style. While, not one of the Chinese-Canadian dishes that I grew up with, but the Chinese members on our Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team really like it, and they assure me that it is a traditional style food dish for Chinese New Year.
9 - Special Long Life E-Fu Noodles
Long noodles signify long life - a very important part of traditional Chinese New Year greetings. I really like the E-Fu noodles. They are lighter than regular Chow Mein noodles - very heavenly. Another traditional belief is that the Kitchen God goes to heaven, to report on the family. Maybe this is why the e-fu noodles are so special!
10 - Dessert
The return of Mango Pudding. My girlfriend was happy to see this back on the menu after years of traditional Chinese New Year pastries. One of the top selling gelato ice creams at Casa Gelato is Death by Mango. We will definitely NOT have blood pudding - Go ye to a Scottish resturant for that stuff
Hope you enjoyed these delicious descriptions...
Each year we are challenged by the logistics of serving 350 to 450 people at the same time, in coordination with a fantastic musical and literary show. Every year we try to improve on the presentation and the execution of our event, while making it fresh with adjustments to both the menu and the performance schedule.
So.... reception starts promptly at 5:30pm.and the dim sum appetizers will be available because we know people will be hungry. The restaurant assures us that the bar will be open at 5:30pm and we have moved the event to the south side of the restaurant to utilize the large bar, and to be closer to the kitchen.
And of course... the entire program and menu is subject to change. We do our best to create a fabulous meal and evening of entertainment. And the best way is to be sensitive to the audience, the performers, spontaneous to great ideas, and meeting any challenges that come our way.
I look forward to sharing the surprises and joys of Gung Haggis Fat Choy™ 2008 with you!
Toddish
