Birthday Chinese – 14th December 2011
I invited a number of close friends to join me for another birthday Chinese meal at the Jasmine Peking in Maidenhead.
With various people crying off for differing reasons, it was left with just five stalwarts left to head off to celebrate.
Mr Hill kindly offered the use of his car for the 5 minute drive into town and we duly piled in with Alan taking the front seat and Steve, Sarah and myself cramming into the back. Steve, in particular, had somewhat limited manouvrability due to the almost horizontal position of Martin’s drivers seat!
Heading to the Jasmine in Martin’s car
Fortunately we all arrived at the restaurant unscathed and some 20 minutes ahead of our scheduled booking!
The Jasmine were fine with our early arrival and we were speedily shown to our table.
It being the festive season, we had crackers laid out on the table. Once these had been pulled, three of the five contained the same joke!
Festive cracker
Steve perusing the menu
We opted for the standard 3 course meal while Martin selected the vegetarian version as usual.
Arrival of the starter
Alan
Martin
Sarah
Steve
The ‘starters’ consists of a variety of dishes served on a communal platter. This is followed by a ‘main course’ of duck pancakes. Finally, rice accompanied by various dishes topped off the meal.
The arrival of the duck!
Third course
One highlight occurred when one of the waiters was attempting to carry too many dishes from the table to the kitchen. This resulted in a loud crash as a number of them fell to the floor. We managed to salvage a shard of porcelain as a memento of the occasion.
Shard shocker!
The meal was completed with the arrival of warm ‘face cloths’ and a dish of orange segments.
Arrival of orange segments
Steve with two segments of orange
Alan being Alan
All the gang!
Following the meal, the majority of us walked home leaving Martin to drive back alone.
Despite the low attendance, it was an enjoyable evening and already plans were being talked about how to celebrate my upcoming 40th birthday in two years time. Whether the occasion would be on the same scale as my 30th birthday celebrations remains to be seen.
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