Weekend buffet lunch @ Oriental Banquet

We celebrated my mom's birthday recently at Oriental Banquet for a weekend lunch buffet. We had originally wanted to try the buffet at Noble House in KL but they are always fully booked, thus we were told to try our luck at Oriental Banquet.

We managed to book our table without fuss for lunch on Sunday. Our reservation was for 11:30am and when we arrived there were only a couple of tables of guests there. The buffet line was not completely set up yet so I managed to sneak in some photos while they set up. There's a decent amount of food there so I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Our menu for RM39.00++ per pax consists of a bowl of sharksfin soup with crabstick for each person. The soup was quite mediocre although for RM39.00++ it's decent with real sharksfin.

I liked the appetiser section where the food is served in dainty spoons and shooter glasses. My favourite is the pomelo salad with octopus. The tangy salad and the chewy octopus topped with crispy squid is quite addictive and I found myself going back for more. The crispy fish skin topped with salsa is also quite good.

For the hot mains, there were a wide selection of dishes to choose from such as spinach tofu with mushrooms, moneybags, steamed fish, braised chicken, glutinous rice, yong tau foo and noodles.

There's a section of hot soups too with bak-kut-teh, yellow wine chicken and carrot soup.The selection of dishes are rotated so there is actually a wide range if you stay for longer hours. There's peking duck which I had to queue up for and also suckling pig for which I had to wait for the 3rd round before I finally got a chance to get to it before it's all gone.

I managed to take some pictures of the process for the Peking duck.

There's just a small table for desserts like Chinese pancake, ice-cream, fruits and hot desserts such as gingko and soya.

Oriental Banquet is a part of the Oriental Restaurants Group and is located at 16 Jalan 19/1, Section 19, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Tel : 03-7957 8488.

Fear of .....?

Fear. Now, that’s a word that many of us can relate to. Being human, it’s natural for us to fear the unknown. However, I do think that people go overboard sometimes. Like fearing a bespectacled boy like Harry Potter, for instance.

I am always amused at why books/movies like Harry Potter and Da Vinci Code even warrant a religious discussion. Because to me, these are purely entertainment. I very much doubt that watching a two-hour movie like Harry Potter is going to make people want to join the occult. Surely it takes more than just a movie (a PG-13 rated one at that!) to want to sell your soul to the devil? No doubt the invasion of the vampires will soon get some people’s knickers in a twist again.

How amusing it is that people fear books, movies, setting foot in other places of worship, yoga, sport anything that resembles a dragon or worse, participate in the funeral rites for one’s parent. Did these people honestly believe that by indulging or participating in any of the above their faith in their religion will diminish? Or wiped out? Is it that simple? If their faith can be so easily shaken by something as trivial as these then obviously they need to rethink their faith. And no, I did not just pluck these examples out of the air. It’s unfortunate but I do happen to know people who fear all the above. The last example is most upsetting. I think it's unbecoming for a child to refuse to perform funeral rites for his parent because it is against his religion. Surely God will not begrudge a person a final act of filial piety?

I’ve been to many places of worship, participated in the activities, have had Christian cell group meetings at my home and even pray alongside my children at night (to Jesus Christ!) but I’ve never been tempted to simply rush out and convert to Christianity. My faith in my religion has never been shaken and it will never be.

My point is, do we really need to be told that we can’t do this, can’t watch this, can’t do that? Are we incapable of making our own decisions? It is an inherent part of human nature to be curious about things and being restricted means added curiosity equals to mistakes. Anyway, we don’t need moral guardians, well, at least I don’t need them because they are an absolute insult to my intelligence. I just wish that people have a little more faith in themselves instead of feeling threatened by everything that comes along their path. Life is just not meant to be lived that way.