TKC Principal's Dinner

Wednesday, 18th April 2007, marked another significant event in the diary of my life. It marked the night of TKC Principal's Dinner where a total of 25 students from all 3 TKC colleges (Basser, Goldstein and Philip Baxter) were invited to dine with the college principal, Dr Ian Walker. But what makes the event more significant is the guest of honour and this year, it was the Governor of NSW herself, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO! The event was held at the Bromham Room and you can imagine how everyone got silenced when Her Excellency stepped into the room. She took the time to have a chat with everyone but it was really amazing when she got to me and my bunch of friends - we chatted for more than 30 minutes and Dr Ian Walker himself had to "pull" her away from us so that the dinner could start! It wasn't surprising as Madam Governor was a medical graduate herself and once lived in residential colleges as well so she could easily relate to us. I guess I need not tell you about the great pre-drinks (I had my champagnes as usual) and finger food (thanks to Teh-Fa, our Korean-born Chinese chef, one of them was prawn dim sum! Awesome!) we had before the dinner so once again, here are some shots:

The dinner... Entree 1: Coriander and chilli king prawn with grilled vegetables and cottage cheese. Entree 2: Five spice duck breast in apple and potato rosti with wilted spinach. Main course 1: Char-grilled Moroccan chicken breast and semi-dried tomato cous cous with mango salsa. Main course 2: Oven baked Alaskan salmon with apple and parsnip puree served with roasted pumpkin and salsa verde. Dessert: Chocolate lattice filled with hazelnut mousse next to lemon sorbet with sugar pastry cornet and mixed berry compote. After dinner: Selection of fine gourmet chocolates. I suppose I need not reiterate the fine Brown Brothers wines that freely filled our glasses as we dined... :)

The program for the night (it's printed on shiny metallic blue paper!) together with the menu - thanks Mark and Teh-Fa, our 2 great chefs who cooked up a storm for us!

A seating card specially designed with my name on it... Whee...

Madam Governor giving her speech - a total inspiration!

Trent (from Goldstein) and me at the dinner

Sitting at the Master's Chair - it's actually meant only for the Principal to sit on but I was cheeky enough to check it out anyway... The image's a little blur, otherwise, you should be able to see UNSW's crest as well as the 3 TKC colleges' crests carved on the wooden top of the chair...

Ok, that's it from me for now... Ta! ^_^