Birthday dinners

Today in Hong Kong it is my boyfriend's mom's 80th birthday. (We think. The Chinese have a funny way of counting age. First of all, one is 1 year old already when born. Then, after a certain age, they add ANOTHER year. So she keeps saying she is 81, but Sister-in-Law is pretty sure she is 80).

All is settled and we are going to a special place to have roast suckling pig and the special abalone that his brother had bought a long time ago for this special occasion. The restaurant is a non-descript Chinese restaurant with not too clean tablecloths and terrible décor. But evidently the food is great. The pig IS great and I eat more than my share. The other filler dishes are good, but the abalone is the thing we are supposed to ooh and ahh over.

I personally don't get it. We each get one dried abalone the size of 2 matchbox cars which cost about half of the cost of the whole dinner. It is drenched in a sort of sweet/fishy non-descript brown sauce and has little flavor of its own.
A little fishy. Texture of chewable rubber.
All in all not bad, but not worth the hype and the price (in my foreigner's opinion). As a way to find common ground I tell them that my uncle free dives for abalone and then pounds it, dredges it with flour, and fries it with lemon and butter. So delicious. Sister-in-law wrinkles her nose and exclaims, “What a waste! You don't get the aroma and the texture.”
Isn't that the point? I guess each to his own and there is no accounting for cultural tastes!