One last dinner at Metropol

When my friend announced the impending closure of his family's Metropol Restaurant (名都酒樓) after 35 years, one of the first things that popped into my mind was to organize a dinner for a group of our school alumni. We've had a few gatherings there over the years, since the boss is one of us. I managed to round up about a dozen of us whose classes spanned 32 years, and even invited Kutsuyama along since Sacred Heart and St. Mary's are kind of sister schools.

The boss very kindly arranged a menu for us, and as a classic Cantonese banquet meal, it included shark's fin. I was happy to give my portion up.

Roasted whole suckling pig (鴻運乳豬全體) - it's pretty common for banquet feasts to start with roast suckling pig, so I was pretty happy to see this.

Pretty tough not to like when there's crunchy crackling with tasty fat.

Braised shark's fin with vegetable in brown sauce (紅燒菜膽排翅)

Sautéed prawns with garlic and mayonnaise sauce (翡翠鴛鴦蝦球) - I've had this here before, and the contrasts between the two sauces make this pretty interesting.

Sautéed sliced sea-cucumber and scallops with scallion (蔥燒刺參片帶子) - I thought the sea cucumber would come in a more tradtional sauce, but this actually had more kick than expected.

Braised whole fish maw (7 heads) with vegetables (原幅七頭花膠扣菜膽) - I've grown to really like fish maw, and these were definitely pretty big.

Pretty well-executed, and very soft with the right amount of bite.

Steamed spotted grouper (清蒸海星斑) - tough to go wrong when you've got good steamed fish. Very tender, of course.

Poach vegetable with wolfberry in fish soup (魚湯杞子浸田園蔬) - we've got leafy amaranth (莧菜) tonight. Very classic.

Roasted goose (脆皮燒鵝皇) - it's amazing that for most foreigners, they don't realize that local Cantonese would almost always choose roast goose over roast Peking duck. I do, too.

Fried rice with scallops and "Yunnan" ham (金腿帶子粒炒飯) - pretty nice with the tender cubes of scallops and the seasoning from the ham. Nice wok hei (鑊氣) here.

Chilled coconut jelly with fresh mango (香芒腸粉) - always happy to have this mango dessert, and better when it comes with the black sesame roll known colloquially as "film (菲林)" for its resemblance to old-fashioned rolls of photographic film.

Since this may be our last gathering here, I brought along a couple of magnums of very good wines.

2012 Cayuse Syrah Special #4, from magnum - decanted and served right away. What a beautiful nose! Big notes of leather and bacon, and that sweet fruit was really stunning. Didn't expect the wine to be so approachable right away, but this was fantastic!

2005 Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select, from magnum - started serving about after 1½ hours in the decanter. This was really minty and sweet on the nose, and that concentration was amazing. This could go on for another 2 decades easily.

I was grateful to have the turnout we did from our alumni group, and we don't get many chances to catch up. Really happy to have had the opportunity to dine here another time, and hopefully I can get one or two more chances before the end.