Food Cantonese Cuisine | Poon Choi or Big Bowl Feast
 

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Cantonese Cuisine | Poon Choi or Big Bowl Feast
Written by Shirley T   
Friday, 31 July 2009 05:34



Talking about Penang and food, there is always a positive correlation or should I say Penang = Food! But talking about Cantonese cuisine, this is what Penang is likely to be a little bit behind. Not far though!

Having said that, I am excited to share a Cantonese dish that I discovered last week. I don't even how to pronounce this dish when I first heard about it. All I knew, it is going to be a very luxurious dish including the top of the lines seafood items like sea cucumbers, prawns, abalone, shark fin, fish maw, crab besides dried mushroom, bean curd, Chinese radish so on and so forth. Sound awesome for a seafood lover like me!
Wow..what's interesting?
Poon Choi (Phoon Choy or in Mandarin 盆菜) is literally translated as 'basin vegetables'. It is a popular dish in Cantonese restaurants and the best ones are mainly in Hong Kong. According to Wikipedia, Poon Choi is a traditional food originated from the walled villages in the New Territories of Hong Kong which is usually served in a wooden basin. Apparently, this dish was created to serve a young emperor during Song Dynasty and his army who sheltered around Guangdong Province and Hong Kong.
A huge basin on gas stove
Before Poon Choi is served, our table was placed with a gas stove, followed by a big covered bowl. It was heated up again before serving although I believe the contained ingredients were well-cooked. The unique part of eating Poon Choi is to consume layer by layer. As we opened the lid - wow! All the ingredients were nicely arranged and staked up. Mmm..enough of the pictures and I was ready to try this sumptuous dish!

Among the highlights we had in our Poon Choi were scallops, prawns, fish maw, sea cucumber, fish abdomen, pork veins, mussels, shellfish, dried mushroom, bean curd, broccoli and plenty of cabbages.
Poon Choi or Basin Vegetables is ready!
Check out what else we had at Starview Restaurant last Thursday at Penang New World Park for 10-pax dinner of RM600++.
Our appetizer - Four seasons or more?
Fried cod fillets with sambal
Fried Teow Cheow Noodles
Red bean paste and a huge black sesame dumpling
Half of the dishes were just so-so. The fried cod fish fillets were not fresh. Whilst, the fried Teow Chew Noodle was too oily and too soft. It was my first time to try Poon Choi so I do not have any benchmark or comparison.

It was a good experience, not too bad overall although I would expect much more for the money we paid!

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written by gill gill , August 08, 2009

how much for above all?
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written by Shirley T , August 10, 2009

gill gill, The total cost was about RM660 ~ 690 (inclusive of 10~15% service charge and tax). Sorry, I couldn't recall the exact figure. Hope this helps.
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written by Kuen Hoong , August 29, 2009

the Poon Choi alone already cost probably 200 to 300, so the overall price will be expensive。

So far, we have tried a couple of places for it.. some are before we started to recording them down.. here is where we went to the Hee Loi Tong at Autocity http://mylovelybluesky.com/2009/03/hee-lai-tong/ they do look like same. Starview Restaurant also serving this dishes.
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written by gill gill , September 20, 2009

Oh, btw...we've tried to make the poon choi ourselve before smilies/smiley.gif
this is our posts:
http://www.gourmetgarden.com.my/?p=339
http://www.gourmetgarden.com.my/?p=761

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written by Shirley T , September 21, 2009

gill gill, Thanks for sharing. I'd love to try one day smilies/smiley.gif
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