David's Tea House, San Pablo CIty

My mom has been bugging me about eating at this new restaurant that was under construction for the past few weeks at Puregold, San Pablo City. It came to the point that she was bugging me almost everyday why the place wasn't open yet and of course I had no answer.

Personally, I'm always on the lookout for a new place to eat here in the city, and when I saw that David's Tea House was the name of the restaurant, I immediately looked it up online. It's one of many branches of a Chinese themed restaurant, and their menu looked really promising. To be quite honest, I was very excited. We do have a few Chinese themed restaurants in town, but David's Tea House looks like it's the most hardcore of the bunch. Hardcore meaning their menu is very deep with a lot of exotic and authentic Chinese dishes.

When I learned it had finally opened yesterday, I immediately set a date with the family to have lunch the following day, today.

I was so excited that I probably ordered more than we could possibly eat, but I wanted to try a lot of things and of course, we could have leftovers bagged for dinner. Some of the things had aside from the Seaweed and Century Egg pictured above were:

Hot and Sour Soup

One Half Fried Chicken

One Half Yang Chow Fried Rice and Beef with Ampalaya

Dimsum Platter

Hakaw

Shanghai Spring Rolls

Steamed Lapu-Lapu

WHEW! That was a lot huh? But I tasted them all, and all of them were pretty good.

I do have to give special mention to the Seaweed and Century Egg, which was just fantastic. I've never had seaweed before, at least not like this one. I was half expecting the green rubbery stems with tiny little balls, so this was some other kind of seaweed. It was served cold, which was a surprise. But as I said, it tasted quite extraordinary. Everyone on the table liked it.

Also, the the Century Egg was thankfully free of the ammonia smell that usually accompanies this type of egg. And that's how I like it. As dishes go, I give this 5 stars. I don't give this often, so that's probably saying something.

As for the rest, as I mentioned, they were perfectly good. I liked everything, specially the Hakaw and other items on the Dimsum Platter. The Hot and Sour soup was subtlety sour and not overpowering.

Their house tea (which is a complimentary item) was very nice. I was surprised it was Jasmine Tea. Normally, I hate Jasmine Tea because it smells like a Filipino wake. You know that smell. Similar to Sampaguita. That smell creeps me out now and depresses me. I don't want to be drinking anything that smells like that as well. But this Jasmine tea was nothing like that. When told it was Jasmine, I did start to notice subtle hints of it, but it wasn't enough to bother me.

I've really got nothing to complain about. The wait staff was very very attentive. They were very nice and even helped my mom and dad place food on their plates. The food arrived in a timely manner and we didn't have to wait for too long.

The only thing that disappointed me was that they didn't have any duck dishes. In fairness, it's not on their menu. It's not even on the menu on their website. But they do have a photo of it at that same website so it only made me wonder. I asked why they didn't have it, and they said that not enough people order the duck and the stocks just go to waste. Oh well.

Nevertheless, we had a great time. The food was great, and now my mom can stop bugging me.

Yep! Looks like we're a pretty happy bunch, specially my mom.

We definitely plan on coming back, specially me and Ilyn, to try their other dishes.

Two New San Pablo Restaurants

A new restaurant is always cause for celebration in San Pablo City, well, as far as I'm concerned. I still remember when Pizza Hut opened in San Pablo some ten years ago. People went nuts. The crowd on that first day was insane. Pizza Hut ran out of pizza sometime after lunchtime. And it was crazy crowded for the rest of that week. It's almost always like that when a new place opens. Specially a popular one.

Me, I'm always just looking for a new place to eat. We have tons of restaurants here in San Pablo, but pretty soon, I get used to the food and I start looking for something else.

Two new restaurants have opened/just about to open that I found.

One is YATSKY, which is located where the old Circle Cafe used to be, in that food center near SPC Medical. It's a Tapas Bar of some sort... well, basically a bar. Bars are really not my thing so I really haven't tried it out. Maybe one of these days. From the outside, it looks kind of dark inside. Perfect for drinking, I guess.

Another one is DAVID'S TEA HOUSE, which I'm very excited about. It's not a local restaurant. It's Manila based restaurant and looking at their website, my mind (or rather my stomach) is just blown. Finally, a pretty decent Chinese restaurant. Yeah, I know we have Hap Chan and Shanghai Palace, but I haven't been happy with Hap Chan's duck both times I ordered it. And well, readers of this blog would know I have a thing against Shanghai Palace. It's a shame, as their food is pretty good, although their menu is not enough for me to consider it a really authentic Chinese restaurant. No duck, for instance. And their white chicken is not up to scratch.

David's Tea House is located at the local Puregold, near Sambat. I don't know when they will open, but you can be sure I'll try it out within a week of its opening. And you can read all about what I think here.

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.

Hainanese Chicken at Hainanese Delights

I'm a big fan of Hainanese Chicken, ever since I tasted the real deal at a hawker's center in Sinagpore. (Read  that blog entry here.)

Ever since then, I've been on the lookout for a local version here in the Philippines that would be as good. I've tried several dishes from many other restaurants, including a couple of high end Chinese/Singapore style places, but their chicken always come up lacking.

So far the best local Hainanese Chicken I've tasted I found in Hainanese Delights, which is surprisingly kind of a fast food type place that's slowly spreading across malls in Metro Manila. The two branches I visited was in Robinson's Galleria in Ortigas, and the one in SM Megamall Building A.

Of all the Hainanese chicken I've tasted so far, theirs is the best one I've tasted. The chicken is soft and perfectly seasoned. Their spice combo of ginger, hot sauce and soy sauce is unlimited. (In other restaruants they either had limited amounts of it or didn't have them all together). Not only did they serve the chicken with that special Hainan rice (Rice cooked in chicken stock), it was also unlimited. Other restaurants just serve plain rice which is like WTF. You don't serve Hainanese chicken without serving Hainan rice. That's just wrong. (I'm talking to you, Sentosa, Shangrila Mall.)

Highly recommended, if you want to get an idea of authentic Hainanese Chicken from Singapore!

Check out their website here:
http://www.hainanesedelights.ph/

Mother's Day Celebration at Shanghai Palace, Alaminos

Because my wife Ilyn and I really enjoyed the food at Shanghai Palace (San Benito, Alaminos, Laguna), we decided to bring my mom and dad there for lunch on Mother's Day. (See my first review of Shanghai Palace here.)

What Ilyn really loved about her first stay was the Mango Sago dessert. She just absolutely freaked out over it. I really don't recall too many times she similarly freaked out over any kind of food, so she was really eager to come back. She told me that she didn't care what I ordered, as long as she got her Mango Sago.

I wish I could say this second go round at Shanghai Palace was a great one. Unfortunately, it wasn't. If fact, it was kind of bad. It wasn't an absolute disaster by any means as there are plenty of good things to say about it, but there are also some really bad ones.

Anyway, we arrived at the place at 11:45 in the morning. The place was about half full. That was quite a surprise at the time because every time we passed by this place it never really seemed to have that many people. But very soon the place will be filled to capacity, leaving other people standing around waiting to get seats.

I suppose I shouldn't really be that surprised since it is, after all, Mother's Day, and other people were celebrating Mother's Day as well. My mom and my aunt met a lot of people they knew over there so that was great.

I got kind of worried because the first time we were there, it took 30 minutes for our food to arrive, and that was when there was hardly any people there. This time it was full. I wondered how long we were going to wait. I didn't have to wonder too long because the surprise of the day is, all our orders came in within 15 minutes. Which was definitely a surprise. And a very welcome one.

I ordered the Hakaw because I really liked that the first time. This time I added Lumpiang Shanghai, Chop Suey, Miki Bihon and Shrimp Brocolli. The lumpia was really nice, although they forgot to give us the sweet and sour dipping sauce. It took two follow-ups and 10 minutes for them to bring it. By that time we already ate half of it. I had asked for chopsticks, and it never came. Never bothered to follow up because it's becoming obvious to me that the wait staff was starting to get overwhelmed by the amount of people who arrived. I'm told later that they only had 5 people on the wait staff and that made it kind of difficult for them to handle so many people.

After the main meal, we ordered our dessert. I ordered two Mango Sago for me and Ilyn. My mom wanted the Lychee with the Almond Jelly but the almond jelly wasn't available. It wasn't available the first time we were there either. I wonder why. So my mom and aunt ordered simply the Lychee. My dad ordered Buchi.

We had been waiting for some 30 minutes when a waiter came to our table, noticing that we were no longer eating. I thought he was going to tell us of the status of our dessert, but instead, he asked if we wanted our bill. What the hell? Immediately, I felt really hot in the face. Meaning I got really mad. I mean, it was already obvious to me that our desert was now taking much much longer to arrive than our main meal, and I was already starting to get restless. And now THIS?

They were actually trying to hurry us up and go?  Because that certainly how it felt. Our dessert hasn't even arrived yet! They were probably getting really harassed because there were a lot of people arriving and there were no longer any seats. They were probably eager to get people going once they were done.

But guess what? We weren't done. And we weren't going to BE done until they bring us our dessert.

Later, this same waiter came back and said that our order wasn't rung up on the kitchen and was ready to take our order again. What The Hell. Thankfully, the original waitress who took our order passed by and she confirmed that our order was indeed rung up in the kitchen. So ok, we waited some more.

My dad's Buchi was the first to arrive, followed some 10 minutes later by mom and aunt's Lychee. By this time it was already 45 minutes since we first ordered dessert. Surprisingly, they gave my mom an extra Mais Con Yelo, as a kind of a Mother's Day thing, which was nice. We follow-up our Mango Sago. Nothing yet.

It was getting close to an hour and our Mango Sago hasn't arrived yet. Ilyn was getting visibly upset. By upset I mean she was no longer smiling and she's being very quiet. And that is very unusual for her. That means she was very mad.

Close to an hour and more than five followups, Ilyn has had enough. She went to the counter and said that if the Mango Sago still wasn't ready after almost an hour, then they just better cancel it. Apparently, after ALMOST AN HOUR the Mango Sago was unbelievably STILL NOT READY. So they agreed to cancel it. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

I really can't even begin to describe how frustrating that is, and how upsetting it was to Ilyn, who went to Shanghai Palace specifically so she can have that Mango Sago again. That's the only thing she went there for, guys. THAT is the only thing. And for some strange reason you just won't give it to her. That's just screwed up. Really screwed up.

They were sorry, but I'm sorry Shanghai Palace, apologies aren't really enough. Words aren't going to be enough. You owe my wife MORE than that. You really have to make it up to my wife. How? Well, it's really going to have to be up to you, isn't it?  Because until you do something, WE ARE NOT COMING BACK, and we will share this story with ALL our friends. Which is too bad because we do enjoy your food. But based on how many people were eating there today, I'm sure you won't miss us anyway, so we're not really expecting any response. After all, sino ba kami?

In any case, if you want get in touch my wife, you can contact her through her twitter: https://twitter.com/ilynflorese

You know, Shanghai Palace, you really ruined Mother's Day for us. We tried not to show how frustrated we were to my Mom and Dad, who were perfectly happy to eat there, but we're transparent people and they could tell how upset we were. So Mother's Day was tainted for them as well.

Shanghai Palace, San Benito, Alaminos

This is a restaurant that suddenly popped up on the Alaminos side of the boundary with San Pablo City, next to Honda San Pablo. It always looked nice from the outside every time I pass by and because this is me and I'm always first in line to try anything new, the other day I decided to pay the place a visit.

There aren't that many places in San Pablo that offers really good Chinese food. Used to be South Plaza was the best, but that place unfortunately went belly up, which is a shame. Hap Chan at Ultimart is just OK, but there have been  a couple of occasions when I've been unhappy with the food there. Then there's Chowking, but ever since they phased out Chicken Mami, which is kind of ridiculous, I've been visiting there less.

So yeah, I was pretty excited to try this new Chinese restaurant out. It's not strictly in San Pablo, but it's close enough.

Browsing the menu I was kind of disappointed that I didn't find any duck. Or anything that jumped out at me as something other than the usual fare. They didn't have congee, which kind of as ridiculous as Chowking not having Chicken Mami.  What kind of Chinese restaurant does not have congee?  The only thing that's a bit different was the "White Chicken". White chicken usually means Hainanese Chicken, so I ordered that, hoping that my guess was right.

Looking over the dimsum menu I saw that they had "Shrimp Dumplings" which the waitress said was actually Hakaw. Hakaw fan that I am, I ordered that.

The other people with me ordered Fried Chicken, and Beef with Ampalaya. We ordered Yang Chow Fried Rice and my wife had bottomless ice tea for drinks.

It took around 30 minutes for our orders to start arriving and first up was the Hakaw. I asked for chopsticks and immediately dug in, dipping it in soy sauce with chili garlic.

Easily, this is one of the best Hakaw I've tasted. It far surpasses any that I ate before. The skin is incredibly soft and the insides very tasty. I loved it. I'm so glad I sent for 2 orders of it. My wife isn't a fan of hakaw, but she really liked this as well.

I didn't get the chance to taste the Fried Chicken, but the kids that were with us really liked it. I did get the chance to taste the Beef with Amapalaya and THAT was really nice. I was saving my appetite for the White Chicken though.

The weird thing about ordering White Chicken is that you can order only 1/4 chicken servings. If you wish to order 1/2 chicken, they will give you two 1/4 chicken serving plates. I suppose if you wish to order a whole chicken, they'll give you 4 plates. I think it would be nice if they could adapt and have half chicken and whole chicken servings in just one plate.

But anyway, the White Chicken came in a bed of cucumber, red bell pepper and cabbage salad, which is really nice. It came with ginger sauce, which is pretty standard for this kind of dish.

Although I really liked it, it didn't rock my tastebuds as I hoped it would. I mean, come on, I've tasted White Chicken/Hainanese Chicken from lots of different places, and I've had some that were just absolutely fantastic. My standards in this area are bound to be high. Although it was good, really good in fact, I guess I just have to say I've tasted better. For one thing it seemed rather bony. Compare that with the Hainanese Chicken I had here, and you'll see what I mean.

My wife was bowled over by the bottom less ice tea though, as one serving came in glass and a pitcher, which is a lot.

For desert, my wife just loved the Mango Sago. I wasn't able to take a picture of it or even taste it, but I promise you. My wife normally doesn't rave about food unless it was just absolutely bloody fantastic. In fact, she wants to come back if only to have this desert again.

As for me, yeah, I'd love to come back as well. The fantastic Hakaw really sold me. I now want to try other things on their menu. In fact, we're already planning it. I'm already thinking of trying out their noodle dishes to see how they handle mami.


Shanghai Palace as an official Facebook Page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shanghai-Palace-Restaurant/371874976255936

Adobong Puti (White Adobo)

"Adobong Puti" or White Adobo is basically the standard adobo without the soy sauce. However, the original form of this dish as cooked by natives of this country before the Spanish came did not include soy sauce. Natives mostly just stewed their meat in vinegar. Whatever the name of that dish is now lost to time, unfortunately, and when it was adapted later on with the addition of soy sauce, it came to be known as "Adobo".

I don't have access to what the original recipe was, so this is just pretty much a guess. I had some chicken that was meant for Tinola, but I finagled a few pieces to cook for this dish. That's probably why the amount of chicken I use is kind of inexact. But just add ingredients proportionally, and you'll do fine.

3/4 kilo chicken (I used legs and thigh)
8 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped (you can use less if you like)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon salt (or add to taste)
(It is possible to use patis or fish sauce instead of salt, but I chickened out from using it)
1 tsp whole peppercorns (I normally don't like using whole peppercorns because it's nasty if you bite into it, but I used here just because)
1 tsp sugar
2/3 cup vinegar (preferably native coconut vinegar)
Handful of siling labuyo leaves. (This is optional. I just tried it out because well, I wanted to. Turned out OK though.

Put all of that in a stewing pot and add enough water to cover the chicken pieces completely. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low. Do not stir this. Just let it stew by itself. Let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour until the chicken is tender and almost falling off the bone.

Serve on a plate and top with toasted garlic (optional). Of course, serve with rice.

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.

Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice

I spent a weekend in Singapore early this September, and the one thing I really looked forward to was trying out the FOOD! But of course. One of the things on my checklist was to visit a local hawker's center where all the locals eat, and try their famous Hainanese Chicken Rice. I'm told this is practically Singapore's national dish, the same way Adobo is the Philippine's unofficial National dish.

I found the Hawker's center after walking for 30 minutes around Chinatown. The entire second floor of this building was a huge food center. It looks very much like our fast food places locally.

It was hard to choose which stall to buy my chicken from because the food on display on each and every one of these places looked delicious. I settled on this place that a huge sign that said "Super Mummy Hainanese Chicken Rice."

I don't know what "Super Mummy" is supposed to mean, but I just went with it. I ordered the Hainanese Chicken Rice with Vegetables for $4SGD.

I gotta say the thing was pretty good! I have already tried variations of this dish locally at various Chinese restaurants and one I did myself, but the one sold here was just terrific. The meat was extraordinarily soft and tasty. And the vegetables... I'm not a BIG vegetable eater, but these vegetables, whatever they were (probably bokchoy), tasted so nice.

One strange thing I noticed, a notable difference compared to local fast food joints, is that you can't buy drinks at the places you buy food. Drinks are sold separately at stalls specifically set aside to sell only drinks. This is something I noticed not only at hawker's centers like this, but also at the big malls.

More Singapore food posts to follow!

Kinulob na Manok V.2 Chinese Style

Ok! It's time again to do another version of my Kinulob na Manok! This time... Chinese Style!

Ok, I'm only SAYING it's Chinese style. I don't know if the Chinese do Kinulob na Manok, at all, actually. The reason I'm calling it that is I'm adding ingredients that would play up some Chinese flavor to a dish I've done previously.

That means adding more Hoisin Sauce, and adding Chinese Sausage and Star Anise, and removing other ingredients like ketchup, and pineapple juice.

The ingredients I've used are as follows:

1 whole chicken
120 grams bacon
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 star anise
4 bay leaves
1 chicken cube
3 cups chicken stock
1 Chinese sausage, chopped
1 big white onion chopped
1/4 kilo chicken gizzard (optional)
1/4 kilo chicken livers/hearts (optional)

As with the previous dish, put all of these ingredients in a deep casserole. Me, I put them in an aluminum pot from an old rice cooker. It comes with a lid so it's pretty handy!

Bring that to a boil on high heat, and once it's boiling, turn down the heat to medium, and boil for the next hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours.

I used low sodium soy sauce, decreased the amount of bacon and removed the need for the flavor mix because the additional hoisin sauce would bring in  a lot of additional sodium already. I only used one Chinese sausage this time because well, I only had 1 available. I would have used two if I had it.

The gizzards and livers are optional, although I think once the liver softens and bits of it disintegrate into the sauce, I think it would make for a much flavorful dish.

As always, I love boiling my food for a long time because it makes the flavor fuller and richer. I've learned that boiling chicken for a long time really makes any dish you make taste better. If you boil too long the chicken would start to fall apart, so you need to be careful.

After two hours, take the chicken out of the stew and set aside. Let the sauce continue to boil for 10-15 or more minutes, depending on how much liquid is still left.

At this point, my chicken is close to falling apart, but that makes it easier to cut into. And yeah! This one came out pretty nice as well.

My History with Ling Nam

Ling Nam is a Chinese restaurant that has been operating in the Philippines since 1950. It's first branch is still operating and is still located at T. Alonzo Street in Binondo, Manila.

In the mid 90s, I was part of an Architectural firm that was responsible for designing and constructing several branches of Ling Nam across Metro Manila.  The branches I had a hand in are all closed now, but they were located at People's Park (now Trinoma), Divisoria, and Recto.

The branch in Recto (near National Book Store) I had a big hand in because I was the main designer. I also had the demented idea of putting a tromp l' oeil on the curving ceiling of the restaurant, depicting the bright blue sky with clouds. Since none of the painters could do it, I had no choice but to do it myself. So there I was for a couple of days in painter's gear, painting the ceiling.  It turned out pretty nice, I thought.

I feel kind of sad that the Recto branch was eventually closed. I had planned on taking photos of it, but I never had the chance.

I'm glad to see that Ling Nam is still going strong today. The branch I visited earlier today is next to Tiendecitas in Pasig. When I saw it, I knew I had to eat there!

I had Chicken Noodle, Hakaw and Ilyn had Sweet and Sour Fish and Garlic Spinach. Now Ilyn is pretty picky when it comes to Chinese restaurants, but she seemed to really like the food at Ling Nam.

As for me, I thought the noodle tasted as nice as I remember it back in the mid 90s. It's not earth shatteringly awesome, but it tastes better than a lot of chicken noodles I've eaten at similar restaurants. The Hakaw, which is I believe steamed shrimp dumpling, was also pretty nice, although the other covering seemed a little to chewy. The inside tasted pretty good though.

Like Ilyn, I too like it better than say,  Chow King or Hap Chan. Don't worry, I won't leave it at that.  I think they both deserve their proper reviews in this blog one of these days.


As for Ling Nam, I wouldn't mind coming back, although whatever branches are available aren't easily accessible to me.