These Pacific empress menus were used on the Empress of Japan in 1934 and 1935. First is one featuring an illustration of the port of Montreal. The tourist-class lunch menu lists 31 items, plus cheese, biscuits, and coffee.
Click image to view and download a 991-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.
A hungry diner could make this a ten-course menu: hors d’oeuvres; soup; fish; noodles; entrée (spaghetti, curried vegetables, sausage, corned beef dumplings); Welsh rarebit; a main course (lobster salad, sausage, raised pie, ox tongue, capon, or head cheese) served with potatoes and vegetables; followed by a salad; sweet dessert; biscuits and cheese; and coffee. Yee-Foo Mein, the noodles with pork and vegetables, and curried vegetables are only Asian dishes on the menu, and since one of the entrées was spaghetti many people would skip the noodles.
Click image to view and download a 980-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.
This is also a tourist-class lunch menu from a different 1934 voyage of the Empress of Japan. Like the previous one, it listed a curry dish and a Chinese dish, Yuk Si Fan, which the menu describes as fried pork with mushrooms and rice. It also offered Malacca pudding for dessert, and since Malacca is a part of Malaysia, this must have an Asian influence. Otherwise the menu is pretty ordinary for Canadian or British fare.
Click image to view and download a 3.9-MB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.
Finally, this 1935 dinner menu commemorates 25 years under the reign of King George V. Although his grandmother was queen for 63 years, his father was king for only 9 years, so 25 was considered a fair term. However, he had been ailing for the previous decade and would die barely eight months after this menu was used in May 1935.
This is definitely a first-class menu. It offered six different hors d’oeuvres, including Beluga caviar. Then came turtle soup followed by a banana parfait. The fish course was a choice of halibut, sole, or lobster Thermidor. The entrée was lamb, ham, or grouse, followed by a Champagne sorbet to clear the palette. The main course was beef or roast turkey, the latter served with a walnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, and Saratoga (potato) chips. Either main course came with potatoes and a vegetable plus artichokes with Hollandaise sauce. Then came a salad and one of several desserts, followed by a second dessert or Mignardise.