If theres one rule about a traditional Chinese wedding banquet its that it has to be... well, it has to be traditional.
So when Lisa Ng, the catering sales manager of the , wanted the upscale downtown hotel to appeal to brides and grooms on their wedding day, she knew that this was not the time to be talking about cultural fusion.
Ive been to a lot of weddings and we always go to the same Chinese restaurants, she said at the launch of the Four Seasons new Chinese kitchen on Feb. 29. As a Canadian-born Chinese, I wanted to be able to go to a nice hotel so I asked myself, How do I bring this to a mainstream culture?
Having been to all those weddings, she knew what was to be expected at the banquet. Chinese weddings are all about pleasing the parents. They want the food to be traditional, authentic and hot.
And so she turned to her colleagues at Four Seasons Hotels in China. What did they do and how did they do it? What foods did they cook, what protocols did they follow?
While there were some variations between hotels, it was the similarities she noted.
To cook traditional Chinese foods you need traditional Chinese cooking instruments, such as massive woks and steamers. The Four Seasons ordered a custom-made kitchen from China.
But rather than train its team of chefs, led by Ned Bell, to master traditional Chinese dishes, the Four Seasons turned to some of the best Chinese chefs in Vancouver. Whenever theres a Chinese banquet at the Four Seasons, the chefs from the will be taking over the Chinese kitchen.
The Four Seasons has its first wedding booked and has also hosted its first Chinese banquet for a corporate bank event. It was very well-received, Ng says with a note of pride and accomplishment in her voice. There were 300 people and Id say 70 per cent of them were Asian. All the plates were cleared, which was a good sign.
