Banquet at the National Palace Museum

Every APAO Congress has a Presidential Dinner one evening, which is for important guests by invitation only. This year, the dinner was held at the Silks Palace at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. All the food served represented items in the museum's collection.

Cold veggie appetizers, including cooked, sweetened tomatoes. Yuck!

All guests had the option of the regular or vegetarian meal. I chose the latter, as Chinese-style banquets often feature a lot of weird seafood (abalone) and fatty meat (duck or roasted pork) that I don't like. 

Bok choi with mushroom sauce.

I knew from the start that the food wasn't going to be that good, though it wasn't terrible either. Chinese banquet food is just not the best of Chinese food. Plus, with so many small courses, I never feel completely satisfied, even if I am full.

Soup with mushroom, taro and potato.

Potato topped with bitter melon, which was indeed very bitter!

Steamed turnip topped with sliced beancurd.

Spring rolls in a beancurd 'box.'

Steamed glutinous rice in a lotus leaf.

Chinese dessert is almost always disappointing. It is never sweet enough because it is made from strange things like red or green bean paste, mochi or gelatin. The individual desserts must have taken a lot of effort to sculpt and they were presented beautifully, but an ugly chocolate brownie would have tasted so much better!

Dessert Part 1: Various items made out of red bean, green bean, mochi, etc.

Dessert Part 2: Fruit in an ice sculpture.