China Tea House 14 August 2019

Small group, Andrew, John and Ron

Duck pancakes - excellent
Dry fried spicy lamb - favourite of the night, spicy, lovely sharp vinegary sauce
Yu Yuang egg plant - next favourite, very spicy, but still very nice
Stir fried fish fillets with snow peas and snap peas, a bit bland by comparison with the other dishes, but livened up by the two different pea accompaniments
Sticky date pudding, great to finish with on a cold night

Chairman and Yip 1-8-19

Present:

Megan (my birthday dinner); Kim, Ron, John, Karen (Jim was looking after the dog).

We had one entree as the rest didn't really do much for us.

The five mains we had were duck, lamb, pork, eggplant and tofu.
Most of us enjoyed the meat dishes but the ones I preferred the most were the tofu and eggplant.
Chairman and Yip seems to be the most Chinese of this group of restaurants.  All the dishes were done really well but there was not so much experimentation or fusion kind of cooking but more a combination of various styles of Chinese.

I wonder if we couldn't find any number of cheaper restaurants around Canberra serving up the same quality of food.  I think we were paying the extra for the ambience and service.

Lanterne Rooms 17-7-19

Present: John (it was his birthday dinner) Ron, Jim, Megan.

We had the $68 winter menu:

• Ocean trout profiteroles with grapefruit.  Superb with crunchy pastry and surprise szechwan pepper oil
• prowns tom yum, their signature dish with curry leaves, melon salad.  Again, unbeatable, the curry leaves gave fabulous contrast to the salad.
• Porkbelly, cabbage and chilli sauce was very tender.  The sauce complemented it well and was beautifully cooked.
• Chargrilled chicken sambal and cucumber was very tasty.
• The beef was everyone's favourite, very tender, again the use of the curry leaves was brilliant.
• Tofu with fried mushrooms was lovely
• Bass (fish) with vermicelli and silverbeet was very delicate.
• sago and mango pudding with pomegranated was very refreshing.

Great night as per always with the Lantern Room.