As the weekend welcomed in the year of the Rooster, Bugis Street Brasserie, in the Copthorne Tara Hotel in Kensington, is offering a feast to celebrate Chinese New Year. A special Deluxe Menu has been created for the occasion for a minimum of two people sharing, and believe us, you’ll want two hungry people!
The starter is called Tossing Up Good Fortune (Lo Hei) and is a take on a traditional New Year rainbow salad with smoked salmon. When the (huge!) salad is brought to your table the finishing ingredients to make the dressing are added, along with peanuts, sesame seeds and crispy prawn crackers, then it’s down to you to mix it all together. Stirring the salad brings good luck and is an opportunity to make a wish for the year ahead. The salad was bright, colourful and beautifully fresh. Not often tempted by salads on a menu, we would happily eat this again and again. It was so good in fact that we had to stop ourselves eating it to make sure we had room for the rest of the dishes!
Narrowly beating the rainbow salad for our favourite dish of the evening was the intermediate course, Golden Prosperity – fresh whole lobster steamed with Chinese rice wine and egg white. The lobster was cooked to perfection, the succulent and juicy meat was complemented by the fragrant sauce. Topped with a sprinkling of spring onion, we couldn’t stop ourselves from finishing this course!
Three main courses are offered; Good Luck Dish (Hoong Seow Tofu), House of Fortune and Harmony and Bliss (Hor Yip Farn). The Good Luck Dish, sizzling golden tofu with straw mushrooms, was light and packed full of flavour. House of Fortune, sautéed diced fillet beef with black pepper sauce, had the perfect peppery kick and gorgeous, tender beef. Harmony and Bliss, Lotus leaf rice with Chinese sausages, BBQ pork and Chinese mushrooms, was sticky and packed full of flavour.
Feeling pretty stuffed, the Golden Dessert (Sago with fresh diced mango and chilled mango purée) was a welcome sight. Cool and refreshing, it was a great way to end the meal and cleanse the palate.
Alongside the Deluxe Menu, a Chef’s Special menu is also available if you prefer to pick and choose your own meal. This features all of the dishes on the set menu, as well as a few more, including the very tempting Ocean of Happiness – stir fried scallops and prawns served with asparagus.
Running until the 21st February, there’s still time to celebrate the year of the Rooster in style!
The Deluxe Menu is £35 per person, with an additional charge of £15 for the lobster course. For more information, visit:www.millenniumhotels.com/bugis-street
