Okay, here's my first shot at it from my notes. This is in sort of semi-polished form. I'd appreciate your comments and corrections, and later today I'll pull this together (assuming your permission) with other info the rest of you have posted and file the finished product with the editors at the end of the day.
Secret to a great Chinese banquet: "Cook for me, chef!"
(Intro to be written, but it will be a kind of "how to do it" guide based on our experience with asking a fine Chinese restaurant to provide us an authentic banquet, leaving all decisions in the hands of the chef ...)
When we arrived at Red Pepper, we found three large round tables for 10 set up for our party, each graced with a spectacular centerpiece fashioned from food: On each table, two graceful cranes had been carved from what appeared to be daikon radish; they perched on rocky mountains composed of peeled yams, with sprigs of vegetation that appeared to be rosemary at first but actually proved to be taxus yew branches, perhaps from the shrubbery out front.
Each food sculpture was placed on a lazy susan turntable containing four appetizer courses: Long strips of cool cucumber contrasting with a gentle chile-pepper flavor; pork stomach (don't knock it if you haven't tried it), flavorful if rather chewy strips of pork infused with subtle spicy heat; Red Pepper's signature "Unique Chicken Smell," a succulent dish of hot and spicy chicken strips in a complex hot dauce; and spicy beef, tender strips of beef tossed in a spicy sauce with an orangey touch of citrus flavor.
Then came a soup course, beef, egg and mushroom soup, a Sichuan gourmet variation on egg drop soup: A shallow bowl contained a clear, intense broth filled with shreds of tender beef, dark earthy shiitake mushrooms and chopped cilantro, turned heavenly with floating clouds of feather-light scrambled egg.
Stir-fried lobster, the centerpiece of the meal arrived early, for enjoyment before the diners were sated. Appealing to the eye, cooked lobster had been cut into pieces small enough to handle with chopsticks, "velveted" with cornstarch and stir-fried, served in a rich gingery sauce. The flavors were great, but most of us Westerners, although relatively handy with chopsticks, found it difficult to separate lobster meat from shell. I for one gave up the fight and used my fingers to pick up and chew.
Paradise beef (the hostess called it something like "Yum Pia" - must look that up - was bite-size beef dice in an appetizing sweet-hot sauce.
One of the more unusual dishes, chicken with sweet potatoes, consisted of bite-size chunks of poultry with bites of tender sweet potato, cooked in an extremely hot-and-spicy (but delicious) sauce touched with flavors of star anise and a very odd brown pod that the assembled foodies spent a long time trying to identify and that Gary Fox later tracked down online: Black cardamom.
Fried rice and white rice were delivered at this point ... oddly, I hadn't missed them with the earlier dishes, which tasted so good that I hadn't really felt any need to mix them with rice.
Jumbo shrimp, perfectly stir-fried with crisp squares of red and green bell pepper, strips of onion and licorice-scented Asian basil made a splendidly simple dish.
Sweet and sour fish may sound like something from a Chinese buffet or shopsticks house, but this was no Americanized sweet-and-sour dish: Two large, whole fish had been slashed in a waffle pattern, then crisply breaded and deep-fried light golden brown; they swam on a platter atop an intriguing, yummy sauce that resembled maple syrup, although I speculated it might have been a mix of molasses and rice vinegar.
Next followed two dishes that are among my favorites on Red Pepper's regular "authentic" menu:
Baby bok choy, small Chinese cabbages cut in quarters, had been steamed just to crisp-tenderness and infused with the gentle flavors of ginger and garlic and the more assertive flavor of tiny dried shrimp.
Ginger lamb featured bite-size pieces of boneless, tender lamb, stir-fried with squares of red and green bell peppers and a lot of fresh ginger. A LOT. Fine with me ... this dish is one of my favorites.
The next dish, scallops and "fish stomach," proved one of the most challenging thanks to the presence of fish maw, an offbeat ingredient that rarely shows up on the menus given Westerners in Chinese restaurants. The stomach lining (or, sometimes, air bladder) from a large fish, it's cut in strips and dried for service. Chewy and distinctly fishy, it made me think of fish-flavored pork rinds, but reveler Tom Person nailed it with the hilarious description "Chitlin of the sea." I threatened to steal his line, but fairness requires that I give him full credit. The scallops were pure white and tender, but it was the fish maw that got the attention.
Wrapping up the savory dishes was yet another luxurious delight, tea-smoked duck, the Western Chinese equivalent of Peking duck. Whole ducks had been roasted, then smoked over tea leaves to add a subtle flavor, hacked into smaller squares and served with shredded scallions and sweet hoisin sauce.
We wouldn't have had room for decadent desserts, but large platters of artfully carved bites of oranges, apples and bananas made a perfect light ending to the most memorable Chinese meal of my life.
With tax, alcoholic beverages (beer or wine) and a generous tip added to the $30 banquet price, the toll for the evening came to $45 a person. Try to get yourself a banquet of similar proportions and style for double that price in a Western restaurant: I think you'd be hard-pressed to do it.
And yes, authentic or no, they did bring around platters of cello-wrapped fortune cookies at the end. Hey, fortune cookies are fun!
