GUINNESS CNY Banquet Feast @ Grand Imperial Restaurant

Celebrate a Bold Start to a Prosperous New Year with GUINNESS®

It’s all about black gold with GUINNESS®! Festive cheers are made more luxurious and delicious with GUINNESS®, Malaysia’s favorite stout. Ushering in the Year of the Goat, GUINNESS® is the perfect stout to be paired in the festive Chinese banquet menus that many indulges for this festive season.

Going all out with a delicious gesture, GUINNESS® is teaming up with Grand Imperial Group of restaurants this festive year to create a special GUINNESS® Chinese New Year Banquet Menu available at all 6 Grand Imperial restaurants across Malaysia. Gourmands can now enjoy eight sumptuous courses paired with the rich and flavoursome black gold GUINNESS®. Each course is carefully matched with GUINNESS® to bring out the full flavours from both dish and stout.

Our preview of the evening took placed at the Grand Imperial Restaurant at Bangsar Shopping Centre with distinguished guests, members of the media and bloggers. Our emcee of the evening was Owen Yap and the evening took off with a special Chinese calligraphy presentation by Haze Long. She was really so good because her calligraphy really had a unique and artsy feel.

Hailing the collaboration, Bruce Dallas, Marketing Director of , GUINNESS® Anchor Berhad, said “ GUINNESS® is known the world over for its superb quality, rich taste, and proud traditions. It is a beer Made of More – more flavour, more boldness, and made with passion and dedication by our Master Brewers. As such, I can think of no better beer with which to usher in this auspicious time of the year, when we gather with friends and family to celebrate sau-kong and to look forward to beginning the New Year in the best way possible.

By pairing with the Grand Imperial Group of restaurants, renowned across Malaysia for its sumptuous food, GUINNESS® ensures that you can begin the New Year in a bold and prosperous way while out to celebrate, as well as in the comfort of your own home.”

Dinner commenced with the Yee Sang with Silver Fish, a unique take on the auspicious Yee Sang featuring crispy golden battered silver fish. The Yee Sang here looks normal but the flavours and textures are just so awesome! I have had many Yee Sangs and this one definitely is few on top of my list of Yee Sang.

As we Lou Hei with our usual foodies, it was the merriment of laughter and shouts of joy that made me feel that its great company with good food that makes life feels so blessed!

The combo of loads of fresh cut greens with cucumber, carrot, radish, pickled ginger, fresh sour mangoes, pickled onions, jellyfish, pomelo, chicken floss, peanuts and dressing is utterly tangy and so refreshing in each bite. Many of us raved about this Yee Sang for its flavours. We polished off this dish with much gusto!

The next course had everyone at Hello! Our table was silent, as everyone enjoyed the lavish bowl of Braised Bird’s Nest with Fresh Crab Meat. Going eco-friendly, the restaurant still manages to amp up the opulence of the feast with bird’s nest. Teaming up with fresh chunks of sweet crab meat and speckles of truffles, the soup tasted just as majestic as it sounds. The strong and earthy truffles worked well with the GUINNESS® if you asked me. It seemed to be the link between the stout and the soup. We loved this course dearly…

A traditional Chinese banquet meal cannot be completed without the ever popular and sought after Roasted Whole Suckling Pig! Ours was roasted to perfection, showing off super golden crackling with a luscious note. Our table left nothing on the plate as we literally devoured every single part of the suckling pig with loads of happiness. This course is pure 100% satisfaction and went so well with GUINNESS®.

Classic Steamed Pomfret Traditional Style will always be a favorite this time of the year. The highly prized pomfret is best savored steamed with superior soy sauce as usual.

Our prawn course was another luxurious pot of Fresh Water King Prawns in Casserole. The aroma was heavenly and the prawns looked all gloriously delicious coated in a sticky sweet and lightly spicy sauce. The robust sauce deserves a bowl of steamed rice. The prawns came in different sizes so some were cooked right and some were slightly over cooked. Other than that, there were no complaints as the flavours of the sauce were good and addictive while the prawns had a nice light note of sweetness.

Another highly sought after seafood took form in Braised Slice Abalone with Black Moss & Dried Oyster. This course is always a favorite with the older generation as abalone considered a precious ingredient that only the rich could afford. Slices of abalone together with braised dried oysters, black moss, mushrooms, bean curd sheets and greens are drenched in the classic brown abalone gravy. It’s prepared well but I happen to prefer other dishes compared to this one.

Claypot Rice with Chinese Sausage & Dried Meat Hong Kong Style is another popular dish that never fails to be ordered by many during the lunar festive season. The star of the pot is all the waxed and cured meat and sausages which basically lends the aroma and flavour to the rice with the helping of a flavoured soy sauce. It was certainly a generous helping of two types of Chinese sausages, waxed duck and cured bacon. While the meat and sausages were gorgeous, the rice fell short as it didn’t have enough flavours or crispy crusty bits that I would normally love in this dish.

Dessert ended with two types of Chilled Fresh Mango Puree with Sago & Pomelo and Deep Fried Nian Gao & Deep Fried Sweet Potato Pastries.

The Chilled Fresh Mango Puree with Sago and Pomelo is fresh and bursting of the sweetness of the mangoes. With bits of pomelo sacs and jellied sago, the chilled sweet dessert has always been a crowd pleaser.

Deep Fried Nian Gao & Deep Fried Sweet Potato Pastries completed the evening feast on a really wonderful sweet note. Both are pretty good and satisfied our sweet-tooth cravings well.

GUINNESS® New Year Banquet Menu priced at RM1888 nett, available from January 13^th until March 5^th, and includes two quarts of, GUINNESS® stout, as well as two sets of exclusive , GUINNESS® ang pow.

Additionally, between 5^th January 2015 and 28^th February 2015, consumers throughout Malaysia may be in the running to win one of the 100 pure gold bars, worth up to RM1 million, with any big bottle of GUINNESS®, Tiger, Heineken and Anchor by looking out for the winning bottle cap liners and answering a few questions! Good luck…

GRAND IMPERIAL RESTAURANT

3rd Floor, East Wing,

Bangsar Shopping Centre,

285 Jalan Maarof,

Bukit Bandaraya,

59000 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2283 1118

GPS: 3.142808, 101.667448

Website: www.grandimperial.com.my

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GrandImperialGroup