Mid-autumn in Hong Kong

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My Favorite Cousin pinged a couple of days ago and informed me that her parents are in town, so we arranged to have dinner together tonight... which was perfect as a family gathering on Mid-Autumn Festival.  I didn't have any opinion on where to go or what to have for dinner, so she decided to book at table at Tim's Kitchen (桃花源).  It's been a while since I was last here, and as it happened, my last meal here was also with My Favorite Cousin.

Double-boiled winter melon soup with shrimps, Yunnan ham, fresh crab meat and fungus (鮮蓮冬瓜盅) - normally we wouldn't be having this first, but since we didn't start with any small dishes, we were served soup as our first course.  The whole winter gourd was supposed to serve 4 but it was more than enough for the 5 of us.  In addition to the winter gourd itself, there was shrimp, crab meat, roast duck, conpoy, lotus seeds, loofah, bamboo piths, bamboo shoots, and shiitake mushrooms.  Great way to cool down the body on a warm day.

Steamed whole fresh crab claw with egg white (蛋白蒸原隻鮮蟹鉗) - My Favorite Cousin originally ordered the deep-fried version for all of us, but I chastised her for being too "gweilo"... For some reason, the restaurant could deliver a whole winter gourd soup but could not come up with enough winter gourd to steam the crab claw with... so I had to make do with the egg white version.  The crab claw was very good as usual, but for some reason I thought the flavor of the sauce was a little different from what I remembered.

De-boned "eight treasure" duck (八寶鴨) - I was a little surprised when I was told that this had been reserved, since a whole duck was a lot for the 5 of us.

We dug in once our waitress cut open the duck, which was stuffed with salted egg yolk, taro, lotus seeds, conpoy, and Job's tears... flavored with plenty of star anise.  Needless to say we weren't able to finish it and took home two plastic boxes full of leftovers.

Sweet and sour pork with pineapple (鳳梨咕嚕肉) - yup, another "gweilo" dish requested by My Gweilo Favorite Cousin.  Seriously, though, the pork was pretty tender on the inside and crunchy on the outside, and very tasty.

Sautéed kailan with ginger sauce (薑汁炒芥藍) - always need our veg!  Very well-received.

It was a little too early in the season for the restaurant to start serving fried glutinous rice with preserved pork sausage and liver sausage (生炒糯米飯), much to someone's disappointment, so we decided to call it a night.  I was even surprised that we decided not to adjourn somewhere else for dessert!

This is a drinking crowd so I brought a couple of bottles of drinking wine...

2007 Joh.Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett - nose of petrol and a little flint.  Slightly sweet but plenty of acidity here for balance.

1999 Guigal Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde de Guigal - nose was very open and fragrant, with leather and a little eucalyptus, and even floral notes like violet.

I was really happy to have had dinner on this important festival with family, since I chose not to go back to Taipei this year.  Burp!