Are hotel set menus expensive? Tainan Crystal Hotel’s Spring Festival banquet offers 16 dishes for NT$16,800.

▲The stacked dish “Pork Knuckle with Shark’s Fin,” commonly seen in A-She cuisine, also made a comeback in this Year of the Dog Spring Festival banquet. (Photo/Tainan Crystal Hotel, the same below)

Travel Center / Comprehensive Report

A recent “public banquet” sparked quite a discussion, but some netizens surprisingly found the ice pops to be the best part of a set menu costing NT$13,000 per table. However, hotels actually offer great value options too. For example, Tainan Crystal Hotel launched the “A-She Banquet” on the third day of the Lunar New Year, featuring 16 main dishes and a total of 27 delicacies, serving 10 guests per table at NT$16,800 plus 10% service charge. Due to overwhelming response and sold-out bookings, Tainan Crystal Hotel added an encore session on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, with available slots still open for reservation.

In the old days, only chefs with exceptional skills could join the private kitchens of noble families. A-She cuisine had to be both exclusive, tailored for the luxury-loving elite, and timeless, worthy of being passed down through generations. Its refinement wasn’t limited to culinary techniques but also shone through in diverse flavors and deep cultural significance.


▲The playful dish “Vinegar Shrimp” features ham tied around the shrimp’s back like a little bundle, with a tangy flavor created using ketchup—a rather unique dish among the gentle and refined Taiwanese cuisine.

The 16-dish Year of the Dog Spring Festival banquet kicks off with the “Nine-Course Cold Platter,” which includes pig liver rolls, A-She sausages, eight-treasure meatballs, phoenix leg under moonlight, dried bamboo shoots in big wrap, crispy fried pork ribs, meatballs, sauce duck with shredded vegetables, and cuttlefish roe... Among the classic main dishes, the “Pork Knuckle with Shark’s Fin” stands out with its tender meat and sweet, savory broth, offering a rich texture and appealing presentation. The traditional dish “Chrysanthemum Scallop Soup” is made by layering thin egg crepes at the bottom, topping them with scallops, bamboo shoots, and shrimp, then steaming. When served, the ingredients are flipped upside down into a bowl, and the egg crepe is gently cut in a rice-character pattern to resemble a blooming chrysanthemum. Hot broth is then poured in, causing the ingredients to rise gently as if flowers blossoming in the bowl.


▲One highlight of the Nine-Course Cold Platter is the “Phoenix Leg Under Moonlight,” featuring boneless chicken thigh wrapped in salted egg yolk.

The Year of the Dog Spring Festival banquet includes 16 dishes, starting with four appetizing preserved fruit courses, followed by the pun-named “Inviting Officials to Watch the Show,” the nine-course cold platter, stuffed chicken, vinegar shrimp, rice cake rolls with money meat, chrysanthemum scallop soup, carp leaping over the dragon gate, three-fried combo, white jade phoenix eye, Lu Ban duck, literary and martial bridge, pork knuckle with shark’s fin, salted egg four-treasure soup, golden and silver date balls, and ending with a nostalgic steamed pudding.


▲Six sweet and savory rice cake rolls paired with A-She family’s signature money meat.