For Matt’s birthday, we had a big dinner at The Stoep Restaurant on Lower Cheung Sha Beach on Lantau Island.  Lower Cheung Sha Beach is one of the nicest beaches in Hong Kong, with a long stretch of clean white sand, and it is usually much less crowded than other beaches.  My friend Mel took me to the Stoep for lunch one day and I was smitten…the owner is South African and the food served is "South African and Meditteranean Cuisine".  It was delicious, especially the mixed grilled meat platter.  Another high light was the homemade bread that they serve with a selection of dips.  It was so yummy!  I talked to the owner and she said it would be no problem to have a large party at the restaurant.

To start the meal off, we had sangria on the beach.  It was good but not the best in Hong Kong.  The best is at the Black Sheep Restaurant in Shek O.  We had big platters of home made bread with several dips: hummus, pesto, olive tapenade, a spicy bell pepper dip and tsatsiki sauce.  Then we had huge Greak salads (my favorite!) with loads of feta cheese, tomatoes and olives. 

As a surprise for Matt, I decided to have a whole lamb on rotisserie as the highlight of the meal.  He loves lamb, I think because of all of his years doing 4-H!  Lamb is sort of rare in Hong Kong so I thought it would be a nice birthday treat.  You can see from the picture abouve that the lamb was huge!  We had 23 people eating with us though and we made quick work of it!  The meat was very tender and succulent.  Perfect, even for me and I am not the hugest fan of lamb.  The waitress packed up the leftover lamb for me, but when I got home and unwrapped it, there was nothing but bones and weird, knobby joint pieces!  I was so proud of myself though, cause I used the bones to make a lamb soup with eggplant and green beans and tomatoes.  I served it with couscous and thick-crusted bread rolls and it was pretty good, if I do say so myself! 

Aside from the lamb, there were piles of barbecued chicken and some grilled vegetables.  Another interesting dish was a rice pilaf-type thing with rice, eggplant and tomato.  It was spiced with nutmeg and was very interesting and yummy.  I would like to learn to make that at home because it seemed simple yet exciting. 

I think Matt’s birthday dinner was a success…everyne seemed to have a good time.  The food was good, but I have to say that the food I ate for lunch there was better…is it because when you feed large groups of people the food quality goes down because certain things are made ahead of time?  I am not sure.  Or maybe because I ordered certain things I like at lunch, like clams and linguisa and sausage, that don’t usually appeal to large groups so were left off the dinner menu?  Maybe.  The setting was amazing though, over looking the beach, and the atmosphere was very "un-Hong Kong" so I will definitely go back again.  It is a short journey to get there from Hong Kong but it feels like you are in a vacation destination.