Lorna invited me to the 9th annual dinner of Friends of Tai Chi in the middle of March. Lorna was a Tai Chi student before.

I knew the master Tai Chi, Annie through the multicultural community kitchen in Gilmore Park Church some time ago. There were several Tai Chi demonstrations prior to the dinner.

The celebration was held at the Continental Seafood Restaurant on Cambie Road. From the conversation, I learned that it’s difficult to book a restaurant for function nowadays. One of the popular restaurant for banquet like Shiang Garden Seafood Restaurant has closed down the lower floor for a hotpot restaurant.

Here are the dishes for the banquet. First up was the appetizer platter which consists of several items like roast chicken, BBQ duck, pork hock slices, another kind of slice meat and jelly fish. The serving here is generous.

Next was a Chicken and some kind of seafood stir fried with celery. The meat was tender while the celery adds crunch to this dish.

Deep fried prawn paste wrap in bean curd sheet was crunchy. This goes with a dipping sauce of sweet chili.

A thick soup of mushroom and chicken with some vinegar to cut the creaminess of the soup.

Steam broccoli and prawns in creamy and tangy salad dressing also gives a contrast texture. The prawns were sizable and crunchy.

A vegetarian bok choy dish. The thickish sauce has enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms and slivered carrots. It resembled some of the vegetarian dishes I had at Zen Kitchen.

Fish two ways, crunchy deep fried fish fillet and tender braised fish fillet on top of some crunchy sweet peas. A great combination of textures.

Chinese style Roast Chicken, to be eaten with pepper salt.

To round up, a platter of seafood fried rice. We were way too full already. The rice was hardly touched.

The sweet endings of cookies and “siu hao jo”; a deep fried pastries with sesame seeds.

The red bean soup was thick and has a pronounced fragrance of dried tangerine. This is one of the better red bean soup that I have.

Here is something I learned from Annie; soft drink can help to neutralize the effect of MSG. That why she drinks soft drink only at Chinese banquet.

It was a fun night with tai chi performances, games and lucky draw. Lorna and I had lucky tickets and both of us won something. Lorna, thanks again for the invitation to the dinner.