Fathers' Day at Savory Restaurant

Of all the restaurants here in San Pablo City, Savory Resturant is my dad's favorite. I think it may even be his favorite restaurant of all time, I suspect for sentimental reasons. He loved eating at this joint back when he was still working in Escolta, Manila, where there was this Savory Restaurant just across from his office. Dad would always wax sentimental about "Miki Bihon Binondo", but he could explain just how different it was from the regular Miki Bihon.

So come Fathers' Day, it was only natural that he'd pick this place to have lunch. SM San Pablo has a branch of it, a rather frustratingly small one, but at least there is one. I say frustratingly small because it is small, almost like just a hole in the wall.

And yesterday during Fathers' Day, the place was already packed as early as 11am with a long waiting list. Hey Savory, time to expand, I think. Take a chunk of McDonald's next door, which is a little too large. They already have several branches in San Pablo already. FOUR branches? They have too much space!

Anyway, we got seats soon enough and we ordered the following:

Dad of course had his favorite Miki Bihon Binondo. The rest were:
1/2 Fried Chicken
Lo Han Chay (Kind of a mixed vegetable stir fry thing)
Shrimp Relleno Roll
Nido Soup

I actually wanted to order their "Kaylan with Garlic" but it was unavailable.

The interesting thing is, this is the first tme I'm eating Nido Soup, also called "Bird's Nest" soup in a restaurant. I've eaten plenty of this through instant packs here at home. But I've never had one made from scratch. The interesting thing is, the main ingredient of this soup is this solid membrane like substance, which turns out to be bird saliva. wtf. For real? Yes, apparently, for real. It tastes interesting, like biting into really soft edible plastic. I know that sounds horrible, but it actually isn't. It's actually very nice.

This ingredient was also prominent in the Lo Han Chay, which as I said was kind of a vegetable stir fry. It included mushrooms, bamboo, mung beans sprouts, young corn, tofu, cabbage, etc. Very nice. Like Chop Suey without the meat, but with more variety of veggies. As usual, it's that sauce that puts it together, a taste that I get only at Chinese restaurants. I can't put my finger on what it is.

Fried Chicken at Savory is always nice. I don't know how they fry their chicken, but the difference with their is that the flesh is amazingly soft, almost like it was slow roasted. The gravy is also unique, but this time I think I know what they put in it, which must have been star anise. It's not too overpowering, but it does give that unique Chinese taste and aroma.

Their Miki Bihon Binondo I found too oily, which is a problem I have with a lot of their dishes. At other times I ordered fried fresh lumpia, and kikiam, and they too were kind of oily. I know they were fried in oil, but still, when I would do it at home, they're never that oily. Perhaps they don't drain the oil in paper towels before serving? I don't know.

The Shrimp Relleno Roll was also nice. My mom liked it a lot. Ilyn didn't so much. I thought it was just OK.

I didn't order it this time, but at other times I've been ordering their Chicken Mami quite a bit, and I like it. It comes with plenty of chicken and the soup tastes really nice. Ever since Chowking stopped serving Chicken Mami. I found I'm eating more at Savory just for Chicken Mami. Sorry Chowking. You may have Ser Chief, but if you don't have Chicken Mami, I'm out of there.

Roast Peking Duck at Wai-Ying, Binondo

I lived in San Miguel, Manila for15 years, and lived an additional year in P. Noval, near UST. Both places are in striking distance to Chinatown in Binondo and for the life of me, I don't understand why I never went there to eat in all that time.

I guess I never really became a "foodie" until around 10 or so years ago. Before that, I just pretty much ate wherever was convenient. Nowadays, I've become more discriminating. I no longer just want to "eat", but I want to "taste". And knowing there's so much to taste out there just drives me out of my mind, because one can really only eat so much.

Now that I live in San Pablo City, some 85 kilometers away from Manila do I suddenly get the urge to go Binondo food hopping. I've heard for many years how nice the food was there but I really didn't pay it any mind. Now I'm making up for lost time.

One of the first places I wanted to visit was Wai Ying Restaurant along Benavides St. It's the kind of place where their chickens and ducks and other food items are out on display on their front windows. It's almost like a hole in the wall. Frontage is very narrow, but the restaurant goes pretty deep, and it has a second floor.

At 11am the ground floor was already full so we went up and we were lucky to find available seats. I hear this place fills up pretty quickly. I ordered the Peking Duck Rice and Hakaw. Ilyn ordered the steamed bokchoy.

And man, this duck is the softest and tastiest roast duck I've ever had. It was maddening. I've had plenty of duck in other places, but this is probably the first time I'm tasting duck at its best. Both the hakaw and bokchoy were also pretty good, but I was just so bowled over by the duck it was pretty hard to get over.

I have no complaints at all about the food, but if there is one bad thing I didn't like was that their service started to suffer during their peak hours. At 11am it was still OK, but when we were trying to get our bill at around 12 or so, the servers seem let go of the ball a little bit. They tend to forget things. It's harder to catch their attention. It's clear to me that they can solve their problems if they had a bit more manpower. The bill took 15-20 minutes to get to us after we asked for it. And we had to remind them several times. It was a needle in an otherwise very pleasant experience.

I would recommend that you go because the food is just terrific, but visit during off peak hours to prevent any hassle.