Delicious 66

Two nights before the Lunar New Year, I and eleven other food-loving friends met up at Amazing 66 for an early celebration. This wasn't my first time here, as it was for a number of those in attendance, but I was happy to have the opportunity to try other dishes I hadn't gotten to last time. Everything was pretty delicious overall, so here I'll just go through some highlights.

The above is one of two dishes that I had to order a day in advance. A whole chicken, innards and bones removed, stuffed with sticky rice and then deep fried. It was essentially a giant chicken-shaped mass of rice encased in crispy skin. Soooo over the top.

"Salad prawns with walnut" is definitely the oddest dish ever, but it's always had a special place in my heart. Fried shrimp! Candied walnuts! Melon cubes! Broccoli! Cherry tomatoes! Sweet mayo! It doesn't get much trashier, but I'm not complaining. This version was especially well executed, with giant, practically greaseless fried shrimp that were still crispy under a glaze of sweet mayonnaise.

Half order of the "roast chicken with preserved vegetables." The chicken was juicy and tender, and the saucy, salty-sweet veg on top went really well with it (the magical preserved veg was tasty on a bowl of rice as well).

I originally ordered the full size, but the waiter had looked at me disbelievingly: "You already have the sticky rice chicken—you want TWO whole chickens?"

So I gave in and settled on the half.

"Mixed fried seafood." This was fresh-tasting and well fried. Someone in the kitchen is doing a great job at the fry station.

The "beef short rib in pumpkin" is a showstopper, as the waiter brings the steaming pumpkin over to the table whole, and then proceeds to rapidly slice it open, revealing its meaty innards. This is the other dish I had to order in advance, though I think that might not be necessary anymore. At my previous meal at Amazing 66, I thought this dish had came out a bit cold, but this time there was no such problem. MH did complain that the meat wasn't as tender though. Ah well!

We also ordered e-fu noodles with mushrooms, sauteed pea shoots, an oyster and ginger/scallion casserole, pan-fried noodles with seafood, and a whole steamed flounder. And at the end they brought out orange wedges and bowls of hot red-bean-and-tapioca dessert soup, which made for a perfectly sweet ending.

I think we all ate until capacity that night, and to my awe we ended up with only a few leftovers to pack up. But I'll be back again: there have been murmurs of Peking duck for the future!