Feasting at Asian Legend

Wendy and Raymond invited us to be among their guests at Asian Legend, and what a feast!   We ate for hours, talking about blue water sailing adventures and enjoying leisurely conversation.

The restaurant is nicely decorated and kindly lit, so it adds to dining pleasure. Bonus - for a meager corkage fee of $15 you can bring several bottles of your own wine.

Our hosts selected a menu with some of my old favourites, but also introduced some new.  What a combination of tastes, colours, and textures. 

Steamed Soup Filled Dumplings with Pork were wrapped in delicate pouches that exploded with flavour on the first bite.  They seemed like mini-magic tricks... how would you wrap soup in a dumpling?  By creating it with gelatin that turns to tasty broth when steamed.  Absolutely delicious!

Easily the best hot and sour soup and Moo Shoo Pork I've had in a long time.  Lots of fresh ingredients.  And now I know why I can never quite replicate those sauteed green beans at home.  Wendy explained they are actually flash deep-fried.

Finally got to taste Peking Duck after hearing about it all these years.  The duck was unbelievably tasty, the skin barbecued to a savoury crisp with underlying slivers of juicy meat.  Add hoison, lettuce, cucumber and wrap it up in crepes.   By special request, the rest of the duck was prepared for lettuce wraps.

Dessert was banana and apple deep-fried, and then brought to the table and dunked into cold ice-water to crystallize the honey it had been drenched with... absolutely decadent.  The counterpoint was a simple dough with red bean paste, mostly savoury and a great contrast to the fruit.

Take-out available!

I'm saving this list for when I go back for more later:

First
> Steamed Soup Filled Dumplings with Pork
> Jellyfish Salad
> Drunken Chicken

Second
> Hot and Sour Soup with Shredded Chicken

Third
> Peking Duck
> Duck and Tofu in Lettuce Wraps

Fourth
> Sauteed Green Beans with Dried Shrimp
> Kung Pau Shrimp
> Sauteed Beef with Satay Sauce on Sizzling Hot Plate

Fifth
> Moo Shoo Pork
> Spare Ribs Wuxi Style
> Sauteed Green Beans with Dried Shrimp

Dessert
> Fried Dough Ball with Red Bean Paste
> Crispy Deep Fried Banana with Honey
> Crispy Deep Fried Apple with Honey