The Cathay Restaurant

2Rs and 2Js had our reunion lunch at The Cathay Restaurant, located at the 2nd floor of Cathay Building at Handy Road.

The restaurant is barely a month old. I was initially tempted to try out the food because of the discounts offered by various credit cards. You can check those out from their website.

However, we ordered a 7-course set-lunch instead, which cost $68+++ per pax. This is the cheapest amongst the set lunches they offer during this CNY period. Headache ah...

Probably due to our prior reservation, they gave us a private room - a cosy room for just the 4 of us. The table was big enough for 8 pax. There were some nostalgic photos hung on the wall and we even have a personal waitress who stations herself inside the room throughout. She sometimes stands there quietly, sometimes paces up and down in the room a little. But she was polite and cheerful. :)

The first dish was Yu-sheng, following by braised shark's fins with crab meat & roe (below). Most of the dishes were individually served.

The broth was quite thick. Quite nice except it has some fishy smell (腥味) and a little salty.

The 3rd course was braised dried oyster with lettuce and 'fa cai'. Most of us are not fans of oyster... did not quite enjoy it cos of the 腥味 as well. However, the beancurd skin which wraps the oyster tasted quite good.

4th course was pan-fried venison (deer meat) with mushroom. Looks fusion. Seems exotic since deer meat is not something we eat daily.

My portion was 'medium-rare'... so it was a little bloody. Eeks! The portion looks a little too small but actually it was just right. Anything more will make me lose my appetite.

My fav dish is the 5th dish - fried glutinous rice with chinese sausage. Haha... something close to daily food. hehe.

There were 2 dessert dishes. First is glutinuous rice ball in red date tea. The rice ball has a sesame filling which is not too sweet. I wish there were 2 instead of just 1 rice ball.

Lastly, we had golden ingots and nian-gao. The golden ingots is filled with lotus paste. Quite a novelty item.

I didn't mind the nian-gao (sprinkled with fried yam pieces on top) as well as I have not eaten it for some time already. But it was a little too sweet. :P

Would I go back there again? Yes, for the ala carte dishes. I think it will be cheaper.