Classic claret for classic dim sum

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I've been a terrible friend. I had promised to attend a gala dinner with my friend last year, but had to cancel on account of family obligations. We were trying to catch up again a couple of months ago, and again I had to postpone because of family. I'm very grateful for my friend for being so understanding, and really happy that we finally found the time to grab lunch together. It's been more than a year since I was last at Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店), and I was thrilled when he suggested it for our catch up.

I'm a cheapskate when it comes to lunch, and usually just stick to dim sum at places like this. Service is always great here, and today they offered to serve just one piece of each item for each of us, so that we can taste a larger variety of items.

Forum steamed premium shrimp dumpling with pork (富臨蝦餃皇) - pretty much the standard for me.

Steamed pork dumpling with crab roe (懷舊蟹籽燒賣)

Deep-fried spring roll with shredded chicken (懷舊雞絲春卷) - much to my surprise, this tasted more interesting than usual.

Roasted chicken wing stuffed with birds nest (官燕燒釀雞翼) - I remembered to ask my friend to preorder this, as it cannot be ordered on the fly. I love how crispy the skin looked.

I loved how the finely-shredded crab meat had such beautiful flavors, and the texture contrasted with the shreds of birds nest. I was really, really happy that we took this.

Deep-fried radish cake stuffed with preserved meat (蘿蔔絲酥餅) - I love the delicate puff pastry.

This was interesting in that the stuffing consisted of not just the normal white radish, which could get soggy after cooking, but also shredded carrots and possibly even green radish? What was also interesting was the use of cloves for their unique fragrance.

Ah Yat fried rice (阿一炒飯) - always a good choice.

Steamed pork soup dumpling with dried velvet mushroom (鹿茸菌小籠包) - I was intrigued by the addition of a mushroom I've never tried, but when this came I was pretty disappointed. I did not taste any mushroom flavors AT ALL. Instead, the use of ginger with the minced pork pretty much overpowered everything. Meh.

Deep-fried sesame glutinous ball (黃金煎堆仔) - I always try to end a meal here with this beautiful dessert. These are literally "full of hot air", but the deep-fried thin layer of dough is just so, soooo fragrant thanks to the sesame seeds.

Per SOP, I brought along a bottle of wine. As this was to make up for me bailing out on previous occasions, I made sure it was a pretty decent bottle... at least on paper. In reality, the ullage on this bottle had gotten dangerously low and needed to be drunk ASAP.

1961 Pichon Baron - level mid- to low shoulder. Served immediately after decanting. The nose was kinda sharp and alcoholic, like those paint thinners that smell of bananas. At 65 years' of age this wine was surprisingly ripe and jammy, and the nose was a bit oxidized and showed stewed fruits, very plummy, like Chinese sour plum soup. Still full-bodied. Still not doing too badly after 1½ hours in the decanter, but the wine was clearly no longer at its peak.

It was so nice to catch up with my friend, and I'm glad the wine wasn't a total disaster. Let's hope our next lunch won't take another year for us to schedule...