Chinese Restaurant Weddings?

[foodboy]

Does anyone know of a place in central jersey that does weddings for 150+ people, but serves Chinese food?

[Rachel Perlow]

Since the site was down for a while today & work was slow, as usual, I had time to do a pretty extensive web search for you. I couldn't find any NJ banquet hall that specifically offers Chinese cuisine. Below are a bunch of links that may help you. Good luck to you in planning the wedding!

Below you will find a list of restaurants where you may be able to host the wedding. Other than at an actual restaurant, to summarize, I think you have three choices:

  1) Relocate: there must be a Chinese banquet facility in NYC's Chinatown.

  2) Find a hotel that has a Chinese restaurant within it and see if they offer Chinese catering (for example, when searching The Asia Society's website I found the Sung Dynasty restaurant, inside the Radisson Hotel on Lexington in NYC, perhaps that hotel & restaurant is a possibility?)

  3) Choose a facility where you are required to bring in your own caterer. There are a lot of these types of places in NJ. Some of the most beautiful locations do not provide catering, like mansions or museums, parks, or your own tented backyard (if available). Then talk to your favorite Chinese restaurant owner to see if they offer catering or can make any recommendations to you. Maybe Harry Chu (of Noodle Chu in Parsippany) or Cecil (of China 46) could help you.

From NJ Bride Online, here are some locations that allow you to bring in the caterer of your choice:

- Gateways Mansion at Morristown Unitarian Fellowship

- Greenfield Hall, Haddonfield

- Hageman Farm, Somerset

- Hunterdon Historical Museum, Clinton

- The John Rosencrantz House at the Hermitage, Ho-Ho-Kus

- Meadowlands Environment Center, Lyndhurst

- Morris Museum, Morristown

- Mountain Lakes House

- The Newark Museum

- Tuckerton Seaport

- Van Wyckle House, Somerset

From various sources (including yp.yahoo and Catering Web, here are some restaurants that came up when searching for Chinese Caterers, perhaps they offer off-site catering or have the capacity to have the wedding at the restaurant:

- Chinese Gourmet Caterers, 411 Piermont Rd, Closter, NJ, (201) 750-2769, I assume this is part of Peking Duck House* restaurant, since it shows up as the same location

- Ollie's Catering, 2957 Broadway (116th St.) NY 10027, 212 932-3001

- Ivangie Tea House, 201-251-8686, 54 Chestnut St., Ridgewood

- Look See, 201-327-1515, 295 N. Franklin Tpke., Ramsey

- Lotus Cafe, 201-488-7070, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack

- Panda Forest, 201-262-0400, 440 Forest Ave., Paramus

- Sally Ling's,* 201-346-1282, Palisade Park Plaza, Fort Lee

- New Hong Kong Chinese Rstrnt, 732-271-8808, 1982 Washington Valley Rd, Martinsville

- Peking Pavilion, 732-308-9700, 110 Hwy. 33 West, Manalapan

- Elena Wu, 856-596-5599, Rte. 70 Mall, Marlton

- Joe's Peking Duck House, 856-985-1551, Marlton Crossing Shopping Ctr., Marlton

- Hillary's,* 973-379-3393, 201 Morris Ave., Springfield

- North Sea Village,* 973-992-7056, Livingston Ctr., Livingston

- Shanghai Jazz,* 973-822-2899, 24 Main St., Madison

- Taro, 973-509-2266, 32 Church Street, Montclair

Here are some additional links. Some are wedding planning sites, there are also some resumes or articles about individuals who I thought you may be able to contact or hire for additional help:

http://www.karenleecooking.com/catering.htm

http://www.theknot.com/ch_arti....hannel=

http://www.woodstockmoveablefeast.com/aboutus2.html

http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/article...1/28/885261.xml

http://www.searchnyc.com/catering.html

http://www.pamperedhost.com/svccater.html

http://www.superpages.com/supertopics/even...ng_3.html#cater

http://chinesefood.about.com/library....e=true&

http://www.usabride.com/frugal/a_catering_gen.html

http://www.njdiningguide.com/lees.html

http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/ernest.html

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/1203/2spotlight.shtml - maybe this person would know of a chinese caterer

Also, look at the Chinese Wedding items available at http://www.kwbooks.com/

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* Places I've been to. I wouldn't list them if they weren't good. As for the other places, you'll have to visit or see if anyone else here comments on them.

[jhlurie]

Haven't you been to Ollie's in New York, Rachel?  That's the place up the street from Sardi's (also, as I recall there is another opposite Columbia University, and at least one other location downtown somewhere).

While they are far from the BEST on this list (I'd consider Sally Ling's, if a place like China 46 couldn't do it), they probably have the best established catering business being a chain.

Panda Forest, in Paramus, by the way is only so-so.  Competent on a number of dishes but with very little originality.

Look See is a place in Ramsey (not far from Kinchley's Pizza, actually) that does a good popular Buffet.  Very good for a buffet (and a buffet is certainly more like what you'd have for a wedding), and worth eating if you are in the area, but I'm not sure they are "wedding quality", any more than Panda Forest is.

[Rachel Perlow]

I went to one Ollie's once, about 6 years ago, thought it was just OK, but since they had a separate catering listing I thought I'd include it. I wouldn't think a Chinese wedding banquet would be a buffet. I thought items are served family style, but at the tables.

Well, at least there's a list for foodboy to start doing his research. No getting out of visiting lots of different locations when planning a wedding!

[jhlurie]

On the "Buffet" issue:  it really depends on whether the Chinese catering is for the informal part where everybody gathers and eats appetizers before dinner, or for the dinner itself.  I've actually been to many functions where the pre-dinner portion was Chinese food, buffet-style, and the main dinner something else. Of course in all of those cases it was non-Chinese attempting Chinese food.  Theoretically--if you were a really rich S.O.B.--you could use two seperate caterers.

[foodboy]

Thank you, both! I didn't expect such an extensive response, but the more info, the better!

[Bux]

Many of the larger and usually fancier Chinatown restaurants are used by the Chinese community for wedding banguets. As often as not, the entire restaurant may be closed for the event. That's probably not much help to you.

[PaulaJ]

Rachel,

Considering the resources you were able to locate in a

slow period,wow!...You'd knock the socks off in the

world of event planning!

 We did attend a chinese banquet wedding reception...

in a private party room of a NY chinatown restaurant....

name of restaurant escapes me as it was 10 yrs ago.

Very interesting experience. Elegant, formal multi-course

meal w. some identifable [to us, that is] items ..

e.g. Peking Duck, shark fin soup...and some items new to us.

Great fun