Weddingbee

After our centerpiece mockup at Commerce Flowers, Mr. Jasmine and I rounded out our exhausting day with our tasting at the InterContinental Hotel. This was probably the appointment I was most nervous about because I had no idea what to expect. We never tried the food before we booked the venue and I was worried that we wouldn’t like it. Fortunately, the food was out of this world and the tasting went better than we could have imagined.

When initially thinking about the kind of food I wanted for the wedding, I gravitated towards an Indian buffet which is standard South Asian wedding fare. It definitely has its advantages– who doesn’t love comforting Indian food? But I decided I wanted a menu that was different and unique, but still paid homage to our culture and background. My coordinator Angel (whose name truly befits her) came up with some really amazing Indian-American fusion menu ideas and presented them to our chef. We were able to work with the chef to create a contemporary, delicious menu that honors our background and still introduces our guests to something new.

Our first course will be a salad. We had two options to choose from:

We decided on the wedge with the edible(!) orchid– it had the most delicious creamy peppercorn dressing and it was everyone’s favorite.

Then our next course will be an intermezzo of mango sorbet. There are no words for how delicious it was and we all ate it all very quickly, before I could snap a photo!

Then we have a duet main course of fish and chicken. The chicken we chose is chicken breast rubbed with Indian tandoori spices, accompanied by malaysian rice and a carrot coulis. I’m really sad we don’t have a photo of it because it looked SO good. The fish is a caribbean-spiced sea bass with a pineapple-cucumber relish, served atop a bed of sautéed onions and peppers + banana leaf garnish, then finished with a citrus cream sauce.

Finally, we had three delicious desserts to choose from: an amaretto tiramisu served in a martini glass, a decadent hazelnut “crunchy” cake with raspberry sauce and fresh berries, and individual banana cream pies with macadamia nuts and toasted coconut.

We ended up going with the individual banana cream pies which were so deliciously creamy and delicious. Everyone couldn’t believe how dreamy they were!

And of course, we’ll have wedding cake which I’ll save for another post.

I’m so excited to have a menu that is a twist on standard Indian cuisine. So don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to menu planning. Even if the venue gives you a pre-set menu (like ours did), you may be surprised at how willing they are to come up with something custom just for you. I think it’s a special treat for most chefs and it’s a great way to really personalize the event.

Are any of you serving a meal representative of your culture or background?

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