Yesterday evening, Annikki and I had a great deal of difficulty in choosing which restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary. With so many friends in the restuarant business, we love the food of the restaurants that we frequent. The Royal Garden, New Bombay, Goreme, Pailin, Flavour Palace, Suola Aito, etc., etc...
Finally, since it was the Chinese New Year eve, the year of the Dog, we decided on Chinese. Annikki chose Michelle and Willy's restaurant, the Royal Garden, as she had not been there for quite a while (see below).
We did not pre-reserve or inform them that we were coming.
We found te restaurant quite quiet. They had a new waitress whom we had not seen before - a Punjabi girl, Ami. Her husband had been looking for a job in Oulu as a bartender, but not finding one had gone to Helsinki. Extremely pleasant girl.
We ordered Peking Soup, frittered chicken, fried beef with extra garlic and ginger, and the frittered banana with ice cream. Having determined that the cook was the Calcutta boy, Francis, we asked him to ensure that the garlic and ginger were a bit more than usual.
As we sat waiting for our meal, I just turned my head and saw Philip, Michelle's brother, who lives in a town in mid-Finland, Jyväskylä. It was nice to talk to him not having seen him for quite a while. He had come to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his sister, Michelle, and see his kids, who live with their mother in Oulu.
He told us that Michelle and Willy would be in soon to have the Chinese New Year's meal, and asked whether we would like to join them.
We apologised as we had ordered already. As he is a superb cook, we asked him to supervise the meal we had ordered. (Also, as Annikki does not eat prawns, pork, crab and a few other foods which are traditionally part of a grand Chinese meal, I thought it wiser to stay with the food which we had ordered!)
He, in fact, took the trouble and prepared our meal. It was really good.
As we were eating, Michelle and Willy arrived and asked us to join the Chinese New Year meal with them. We had to cry off as we had a huge meal in front of us.
Michelle sat and talked with us through the meal and gave Annikki some great news. Her youngest daughter, who is presently with her mother and father in Calcutta, would be rejoining the family shortly.
Annikki was thrilled at the news as she was virtually not on talking terms with Michelle when she had left the little baby with the grandparents the last time she had gone to see her parents. She was actually conducting a small boycott - bring back the baby campaign!!
We enjoyed our meal. Michelle offered me some delicious crab which they had made for their own meal. She had also a great tofu/meat cutlet, which Annikki and I tasted - delicious.
It is surprising that such good tasty dishes are not on the regular menu. But they maybe would not be appreciated by the traditional Finnish customer which frequents their restaurant.
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We had a great evening with great food. Thanks to Philip and Michelle, we had a very enjoyable 39th Wedding Anniversary.
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