Chinese Banquet

On Sunday, Miguel and I were guests of my Grandpa Louie at the Soo Yuen Fraternal Association Los Angeles Spring Banquet at the Empress Pavilion in Chinatown. This is the Chinese New Year celebration that the family association puts on each year at all the major cities in Los Angeles. After the banquet on Sunday, my grandpa jetted off to Chicago, and he’s already attended the San Francisco and Seattle banquets. You might be wondering what is the Soo Yuen Fraternal Assocation. Well, all I really know is that it includes Chinese with the surnames Louie, Fong and Kwong. Here’s a link to more information.

Selections from the cold appetizer plate: marinated jellyfish, roasted chicken, cha siu, roasted duck and its sauce.

Then there was some shrimp with stirfried celery. Followed by platters of fishcake with vegetables, asparagus with beef, and sea cucumber on iceberg lettuce. (My photos were blurry as I was trying not to attract attention.)

Then a roasted chicken with shrimp chips, black vinegar and five spice powder. You can see some of the leftovers from the earlier dishes piled onto one plate in the front. This was followed by a bizarre dish of steamed fish layered with mushrooms, rapini and some sort of ham. Well, it just didn’t work.

Here’s a waitress serving our shark’s fin soup. She looks a little distracted. Probably by all the crazy KUNG FU action!!!

These are real Shaolin Monks currently touring the U.S. And they were very entertaining.

Ok, see this one? The guy with the wood pole proceeded to break it on the other guy’s leg. That wood pole is really thick, probably an inch in diameter.

But then he broke the pole between the other guy’s legs. And we are all quite flabbergasted.

My grandpa gave me a shoutout in his speech!

Then we get some mango pudding while enjoying the rest of the entertainment: Hawaiian dance demonstrations, groups of singing ladies, karaoke and many, many speeches.

An enjoyable evening since I rarely see my Gramps (he lives in San Francisco) and the monks sure were exciting. Unfortunately, Grandpa summed it up when he said the food was lousy. But guess who was waiting patiently at home for us?