Li Bai, Sheraton Singapore

This place was pretty good. Located at the Sheraton Singapore (6839-5623) is basically a Cantonese place, meaning you can get a full Chinese multi-course banquet here suitable for weddings. And, in accordance with that, you can start with the usual cold appetizer plate with jellyfish and the like (the suckling pig skin on this plate was so crispy and tasty that I knew that we were off to a good start). A "thick soup of abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw and dried scallop" was impressively nearly as tasty as the more traditional shark's fin soup, so PETA folks can rest easy. Abalone is also a specialty here, although I was decently impressed with the accompanying sea cucumber, which is normally not a fave of mine, but this one was fairly delicate and almost mushroom-like in taste to me.

Other dishes, ranging from various seafood in "X.O. Sauce" (note that it doesn't mean there is XO brandy in there...it's just that XO brandy is so prestigious in Hong Kong that "XO" is associated with being of high quality) to a pan-fried Canadian cod that was filleted whole (surprising for a Cantonese restaurant) did the job too, even if they are nothing that I'll crave.

And of course, such banquets close with roast duck (gotta love the skin), although I was a bit bummed with the strange "Japanese style" noodles (they sprinkled shredded seaweed on it...hmmm...), and the glutinous rice balls, of which the black-sesame-filled rice balls themselves were good, but the almond soup (or "paste" as they called it) was disappointingly bland. (I wanted to add some sugar...and this is from a guy who doesn't like sweets!) Anyway, I can imagine that this place's catering for a big event would still fare decently well, so that's one more to note in the annals of hotel catering.