Photo: Royal Norwegian Embassy
The Seafood Gala Dinner was, as usual, held at the Grand Ballroom at Mandarin Hotel. This year the Master of Ceremony, Mrs. Bridget Pereira from the Embassy, had the pleasure of welcoming a record attendance of 690 guests.
The gala dinner started off with a surprising visit by an old Viking king from Norway. After a convincing performance in controlling lightning and thunder, he gave a lecture in the true history of the Vikings. Malaysia’s minister of tourism, YB Dato Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen, was the guest of honour for the night and was crowned with a Viking helmet.
The gala dinner featured the best of seafood flown in from Norway prepared by Frank Naesheim and his team of chefs. The grand ballroom was filled up with all kinds of Norwegian seafood, surrounded with beautiful sculptures carved out in ice. The banquet was presented in Western, Malay, Chinese, Indian and Japanese styles. Frank explained that the philosophy behind the preparation was to keep the authenticity of the food by using clean, natural and simple flavours.
Malaysia Norway Business Council (MNBC) also presented the MNBC Innovation Award. The chairman of MNBC, Øyvind Bjorkhaug, had the pleasance of announcing that this year’s winner was Wilhelmsen Maritime Services The guest of honour handed the price over to CEO Dag Schjerven.
Later in the evening the Malaysian band Alleycats entered the stage, where they presented some legendary songs much to the delight of the audience. The Master of Ceremony also performed a song together with the band.
The price for the event also included a small allocation for charity with a ticket for a charity draw, where the lucky winner was awarded a ticket to Norway by SAS.
The Embassy would like thank everyone who participated at this evening for making this such a nice event!
