Presidents enjoy a spirited parting dinner

Ma Ying-jeou sat to the right of Xi Jinping, with Wang Huning , the Communist Party’s chief adviser, on Ma’s right.

In the roughly hour-long dinner in the State Room of Singapore’s Shangri-La Hotel, the two leaders and 12 officials from both sides sat down to a shared round table.

Seven dishes were served, starting with two appetisers: suckling pig with gold leaf and sliced abalone with cucumber. The five main dishes that followed included Hunan-style stir-fried lobster with garlic, coral grouper wrapped in bamboo leaves with sticky rice and X.O. sauce, Hangzhou-style braised Dongpo pork, stir-fried asparagus with lily bulbs, and Sichuan dandan noodles.

The meal finished with dessert – fresh fruit and glutinous rice dumplings in osmanthus syrup and hasma, a traditional Chinese ingredient made from the fallopian tubes of frogs. In Chinese culinary culture, rice dumplings symbolise unity and happiness.

With two different types liquor brought from Taiwan, Ma seemed in good spirits as he left the hotel, Taiwan’s TVBS reported.

He greeted hotel guests on his way out and told reporters that “the atmosphere was really good” and that he was happy.

Taiwanese media reported earlier on Saturday that Ma took two bottles of 1990 Quemoy sorghum liquor kept by National Security Council Secretary-General Kao Hua-chu and eight ceramic jars of Matsu liquor to the dinner.

The Central News Agency quoted Chen as saying that Kao bought the two bottles while he was military chief of the Quemoy garrison in 1990.