These are my friends Mike and Nancy Ota who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Sunday at Sam Woos restaurant in Irvine. I was delighted to attend along with at least a hundred other guests. But I am not very good at parties, I never know what to say to anyone! So, I went around taking pictures. Mike and Nancy were so busy being host and hostess that I'm sure they missed seeing most of the images that I captured. Not the greatest pictures because it was so crowded and there were lots of mirrors and shiny surfaces that fed the flash back to me. When the food service began I was at a table with five quilting ladies and their husbands, so I was able to find a few topics of conversation that I could participate in.
The food was abundant and delicious. Here the waitress is boning a steamed rock cod that was wonderfully succulent.
Here is that guy all de-boned - I passed on the eye and the tail. At the top of the picture is a platter of spicy salty shrimp - everyone was eating the entire shrimp, including head and tail, but I don't care for the texture of the shells in my mouth, so I carefully peeled mine - perfect. On the left is what remains of two platters scraped together - barbequed pork and roast duck.
I thought this dish was the best - Scallops with vegetables. And the scallops were cooked perfectly. How do they do that? They cook so quickly that I dare not glance away when they are in the pan and here the restaurant is serving them to a hundred people or more. Yummy.
This is something I have never eaten before - snow pea leaves, sort of a cross between spinach and bok choy. To the left is beef with broccoli and at the top of the picture is the scallops with vegetables (carrots, pea pods, baby corn-on-the-cob and, I think, water chestnuts).
There were fourteen courses followed by wedges of oranges that were about the sweetest, juiciest I have ever eaten. I tried to pace myself, since we each had a menu card to warn of what was to come, but I had to quit eating before the shrimp in lobster sauce was served. Guess I'll have to go back to Sam Woo's sometime to try that dish.
Everyone received a little red box containing one homemade mochi - I brought mine home to enjoy when I wasn't so full. I do love mochi in all its forms. And I had a great time!