My company had our Christmas Dinner at Penang Bistro this year. We booked a table for 8 people more than a week prior to the event. It was a busy time of the year plus it was on a Friday evening. We only managed to get a small round table meant for 6 and seating was tight.

The bistro is decorated from wall to wall with paintings, old photos, food photos and batik.

Their cutlery has the retro cock painting which was very popular long time ago.

Prawn crackers is served as appetizer.

While waiting for our food to arrive, some of us has some white wine brought by our boss. I did not try but those who had it claimed it was a good white wine.

Here are the dishes that we had. The above is Sambal Clam as a starter.

Penang Shrimp Roll.

Vegetable Spring Roll for our vegetarian colleague.

Sambal Bee Hoon, my boss favourite.

Beef Rendang, the sauce is great with steamed rice. A little accident happened in the middle of our dining as someone knocked down his wine glass as the table is too small with all the dishes and the broken glass fell into the above half eaten dish. The restaurant is courteous enough to replace the dish.

Assam Fish; the fish is fried to crispy on the outside and the tanginess is quite appetizing and great with steamed rice.

Sambal Jumbo Prawn.

Sambal Fried Wing Beans. A number of my colleagues have not tried wing bean before and they quite like it.

A vegetable curry served in claypot for my vegetarian colleague.

The highlight of the dinner is the above Chicken dish. The roasted chicken was roasted whole, with head and tail standing up.

The standing roasted chicken is presented at the table with a song. Click on the video for the song. That song can be heard several times during our meal as the chicken was brought to a number of tables. The tune somehow stuck to some of our heads.

After the song played for a few minutes, the server took the chicken back to the kitchen. Then the first course of the chicken dish was served. It was chicken slices served on a lettuce with some chili and a brownish sauce with crushed peanuts. We were asked if we have peanut allergy prior the above being prepared.

One of my colleague was curious to what happen to the rest of the chicken after the chicken wrap was served. Then, later the rest of the chicken was cut up and served, with the chicken head too.

A complementary dessert is served at the end of our meal. It was “kueh talam” (coconut tray cake) made with rice flour and coconut milk.

After the dinner, we played a game of Kris Kringle Gift exchange. Each one of us brought a gift of minimum $25 value. The wrapped gifts were placed on the table. Each of us picked a number. The person with the lowest number will start first. He/She will pick her gift from the pool. He/she will have to open the gift for everyone to see. Then the next person will have a choice to steal the gift from those open gifts or pick one un-open gift from the pool. A gift can only be stolen once. The person whose gift is stolen will have a chance to steal from another of pick a new gift from the pool. If the first person’s gift is not stolen from him/her, he/she will have a chance to steal from another person as the first person did not have the chance to steal. It was a fun game. Thank you boss for a wonderful Christmas dinner.

The post Christmas Dinner at Penang Bistro on Fraser St., Vancouver appeared first on chowtimes.com.