Fine dining

We recently had the occasion to indulge in some fine dining experience, courtesy of an event organised by HSBC Global Private Banking at the Orinea Restaurant in Sunrise Gurney. It was a gathering of around 50 people. Apart from us, I believe most of the guests were clients of this private bank from Singapore. 

Naturally, the dinner was preceded by a mandatory talk—a forum discussion, actually—where a few lawyers and financial services professionals were invited to speak on succession and legacy planning. I was hoping to pick up something new, but unfortunately, the panel covered only the basics, leaving little to discover.

Now, about the fine dining. The cuisine was unmistakably French. Each course was exquisitely crafted and beautifully presented, but the portions were incredibly tiny. We left feeling as though we could have gone for a late-night supper, though at our age, we thought better of it. 

Alongside the meal, we were served an impressive selection of whiskys—four varieties in total, all excellent. Perhaps the only real takeaway from the evening was learning how to truly appreciate whisky: swirling the liquid in the glass, inhaling the vapours through the mouth and sipping the whisky slowly, rather than gulping it down. Although, we did notice a few people doing just that, throwing back their heads to down all that fine stuff in a jiffy! Poor sods, I thought, completely missing the point of the evening.

Note: I was checking up on this Riverstown Invergordon 30-year-old single grain Scotch Whisky online and saw this description of its aroma and taste:

Aroma: Spicy and rich with notes of vanilla, caramel, honey, hay, and notes of tobacco and oak.

Taste: Lots of spices; Pepper, ginger, allspice, cinnamon and sweet vanilla. You can also feel nuts, marzipan and sweet notes of oak.

Finish: Long and spicy with aftertaste of burnt sugar and nut notes.

I suppose there’s a lot of eloquence to describe the whisky when a bottle costs around RM1,100. Incidentally, the retailer mentioned it was the very last bottle of his stock—one that we had knocked back. Should we feel privileged or not?