Sheraton Wedding Menu

One of the pros of having our banquet at Sheraton is they allow us to choose dishes we like for our menu. Depending on whether you're having lunch or dinner, 7/8 course, you can choose from a list of dishes from category: Appetizer, Soup, Meat, Vegetables, Seafood, Fish, Noodles & Dessert.

The food are served  by Li Bai which is known for their awesome food, and also the main reason why I choose to have my banquet at Sheraton. Did some googling for reviews before making my selection for food tasting. All the food taste awesome, and we kept to our selection, except for drunken prawns. The prawns are fresh and taste pretty good like steam prawns and that's the problem. It doesn't taste like drunken prawns at all. It just taste like normal steam prawns. so we chose something else, and we're glad we did! 

Here's our selected menu, which we're glad to say our guests love the food!

Appetizer

Li Bai Deluxe Traditional Hors d'Oeuvre 

(Suckling Pig, Drunken Chicken, Prawn Salad, Seasoned Jellyfish, Deep fried Spring Roll with Minced Chicken, Prawns & Yam)

Everything taste awesome in this palette! My mum loves the deep fried spring roll with minced chicken, prawns & yan (yes that's the full name), and I love the suckling pig. It's so crispy! 

Soup

Thick soup of Abalone, Sea Cucumber, Fish Maw and Dried Scallops

We've decided from the start that we will NOT have shark-fin during our wedding. This thick soup of abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw & dried scallops is very rich in taste and it actually taste like shark-fin soup to me, minus the shark fin.

Seafood

Deep-fried Scallops coated with Taro

This looks like a bird nest to me, which is totally adorable. The deep-fried scallops coated with Taro replaced our initial choice of drunken prawns (see above for reason), and we're so glad we made this change! The taro coating taste so crispy, and if you love the zi-char Orh-Xiu (Yam Ring), you'll love this!

Fish

Steamed Canadian Cod with Garlic and Spring Onion Sauce

This is my personal favorite! The fish is so fresh, and the sauce compliments the fish perfectly. Even my dad, who is very particular and fussy about fish dishes (he grew up in a family in the fish business) is all praise about this dish! My only complain is the portion is so little. I think I can finish the whole fish by myself!

Meat

Roast Pi Pa Duck

Another awesome dish. The crisp of the skin is perfect. Dip it in the bbq & plum sauce and its total perfection. My uncle say the Roast Duck from ABC market is still better though. :p

Vegetables

Stewed Hong Kong Seasonal Vegetables with Abalone Mushrooms topped with Conpoy

This dish is the most "normal" dish to me. It taste good, but nothing fascinating. :)

Noodles

Fish Noodles with Prawns “Japanese Style

Another much raved about dish! During food tasting, the dish contains crabstick, which we all feels spoil the taste as the dish as the crabstick tasted so artificial, spoiling the natural sweetness of the dish so we request they omit crabstick and it taste awesome!

Dessert

Yam Paste with Gingko Nuts

I'm not a fan of Yam Paste so I can't comment much, but everyone seems to love this so it should be good. :)

Overall, we love the food, and they did not disappoint. All our guests are all of praises for the food. I even have some guests coming to me saying this is the first time they feel satisfied and full from a wedding banquet and the food are very delicious! :)

Kaohsiung 高雄: 宮賞藝術會舘 Kung Shang Design Inn

We were so busy with work, wedding and house reno that we did not have time to plan for our honeymoon. not wanting to join any tour group (think: wasting time on touristy shops pushing you to buy local delicacies, not being able to go wherever we want, however we want), we decide to go to a place we're most familiar with: Taiwan since we are sure we'll love our time there.

It was so last minute. flights booked a few days before we flew off so that few days was a mad rush to book for accommodation and many places are full house since it's the peak year-end season!

Air tickets were really expensive during the holiday season, especially when booked last minute. Even budget airlines are super ex! In the end, I booked one-way to Kaohsiung by Cathay Pacific. It stopped over at BBK (stupid me was unware of this, thank god it's a short one and not transit), transit at Hong Kong, then a 1 hour flight to Kaohsiung. It was quite a deal since I paid only about S$400+/pax, Much cheaper than Jetstar during the same time.

Coming back, I booked Jetstar from Taipei to Singapore. OMG. this is the wierd one. The cost of flight if I booked via Taipei (after conversion), is around 300+. If I booked via Jetstar Singapore, same flight is 400+. this I do not understand.

Anyway, once flight is settled, it's time to source for accommodation. I'm very used to doing research before making a decision. and with Google being my best friend, I google for everything. This is my attempt to avoid being caught in the situation of booking/buying something that is well-known for it's flaws etc. so I strongly encourage everyone who's planning for their trips and booking their own accomodation, to take the time to do some research. Yes, it may be time consuming. Comb through tripadvisor for fellow travellers' reviews. You'll get to know if the place is near the malls/mrt/food centers or have bad security, is near to some stinky drain, is hard to find, very far from XXX, very dirty room etc. Use your own judgement when going through the reviews. Some reviews sounds like the owner owe them money like that and is out to get back at the owners, some give very valuable feedback. so based on your requirements and budget, make your choice wisely. In my personal experience, Agoda.com offers pretty good deals and usually cheaper (even if it's by a few dollars) as compared to booking.com etc.

For kaohsiung, I wanted to book a 民宿at the famous 85大楼but all the ones that I googled and found to have okay reviews are fully booked! In the end, I found this hotel on trip advisor that has good reviews with decent prices: 宮賞藝術會舘 Kung Shang Design Inn

Very arty-farty name, that even the cab driver that we took from the airport didn't know that this is a hotel. it's located on this dark little road, and it's under renovation when we arrived. since the name is so un-hotelish, even the cab driver was unsure if we arrived at the right place since there's like no proper reception lobby or anything. when we alight, and tried to walk to the door, this guy came up to us and asked if we are staying in the hotel, that's when we know we found the right place. we were too tired to think straight and went straight for the lift, only to realise we didn't know which floor is the lobby! went to level 2 and it's dark and creepy. so we went back to where we came from, found that guy, and learnt that's the lobby! eh-okay. registration is swift, and we were asked to choose our breakfast from Macdonalds. 

Finally, we went to the room. What greets us is a pleasant surprise. The room is pretty big with a nice little living room. what we booked is the business suites. they also have concept themed rooms like cars, majong etc (go check out in their website. very cool!)

The room is pretty clean and cozy, and even provides l'occitane bath supplies! There's also a small little balcony (but very dirty and cannot lock). Overall, this is a nice place to stay in. It's about 15 min cab ride from Kaohsiung Airport and costs around NT 335. It's also about a 8-10 minutes walk to Formosa Boulevard Station (美丽岛站）exit 8, which will easily get you around the city. quite a convenient location.

nice little living hall

bedroom area

l'occitane bath supplies

'

rain shower

sink and bathtub

view from the room

breakfast

room cards

2 of their concept rooms. very cool right?

宮賞藝術會舘 Kung Shang Design Inn

高雄市新興區林森一路237號 

No.237 Linsen First Road, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Around 8 min walk to Formosa Boulevard Station Exit 8

ref: http://www.dihotel.com.tw/, tripadvisor reviews