Shoot First Eat Later

Lunch at Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant

Chuk Yuen is, imho, the best place to eat dim sum in Hong Kong, well in Tsim Sha Tsui anyway. First they have an English menu for you to place a tick mark on what you want to order. Trust me this is not common practice. A lot of restaurants have only Chinese menus. Dim sum isn’t pushed around for you to point at anymore. The classier restaurants now just give you a piece of paper with all their selections and you just check what items you want.

From Peking Rd. when you see Fortress and the giant Adidas store go in that street which is Hankow Road.

When you see this sign go in and go down the escalator.

The place is always packed for lunch and dinner so come early or make a reservation.

When you sit down they offer you a choice of FREE orange juice or sugar cane juice. After lunch they also give you free fruit. I forgot to take a pic of that.

We didn’t order the usual hakaw, siomai, etc. instead we tried out these unique dishes they had. They were all sooooo good. Try these when you go to Chuk Yuen. Everything was wiped out.

pan fried turnip cake w/ x.o. sauce HK$16

bean curd sheet roll in fish soup HK$16

steamed stuffed mushroom w/ mashed shrimp HK$19

baked shredded turnip pastry HK$16

fried stuffed glutinous rice HK$22

steamed shark’s fin dumpling in soup HK$22

total bill

Another Chuk Yuen lunch

Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant
Basement, Hong Kong Pacific centre
28 Hankow Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
telephone 2722 0633

Dinner at Hang Heung

Hang Heung’s Kitchen is one of our favorite restaurants in Hong Kong. It’s located at the 3rd flr. of New World Center, a mall on Salisbury rd. in Tsim Sha Tsui. Popular tourist attraction, Avenue of the Stars is located here.

restaurants in the mall

nice rosewood furniture

roasted meats are their specialty

The food in this place is very good and the prices are very reasonable. They have special menu items each season. They also have combo meals wherein you choose one congee and one noodle dish for only HK$45.

barbecue pork w/ braised veggies plus the congee below HK$45

fish congee

Hang Heung’s Kitchen (closed)
18-24 Salisbury Road
Shop 303, 3/F New World Centre
Tsim Sha Tsui
telephone: 2366-8628

Lunch at Bistro On The Mile

Bistro on the Mile is the newly renovated coffee shop of Holiday Inn Golden Mile on Nathan Road. I was surprised how nice the place looked and how much food they had. I thought the buffets in Manila were a lot but this takes the cake. What was impressive with this buffet was they had so many varieties but only small quantities of each dish are put out. I guess this is how they ensure freshness. The buffet costs HK$198 for adults and 50% off for seniors. That’s a great deal for the oldies.

I basically skipped the whole appetizer area except for some salad. It was too overwhelming for me. Wait til you see the dessert section.

Hot dishes galore! (comments in parenthesis)

stewed ox tail (so-so)

pan fried chicken w/ potatoes & pistachio cream sauce

pan fried sole fillet w/ zucchini & tomato salsa (good)

boiled pork w/ lime, garlic & chili sauce

pad thai (yuck)

boiled egg w/ tamarind sauce

Indian chutney and pickles

fish tikka

paneer in curry sauce (yum!)

saffron rice

black chicken & pork soup w/ Chinese herbs

cook to order mushroom & choi sum (yum)

beef w/ choi sum

eggplant & bell pepper stuffed w/ minced fish

braised vegetables w/ glass noodles

soy chicken & roast duck (yummo!)

sashimi & abalone slices (yummy)

As if the food in the buffet wasn’t enough, they still have 4 dishes that you can order. We tried 3 of them and they are the best food in the restaurant. Much better than anything in the buffet.

braised pork belly

roast scallops w/ teriyaki sauce

shrimp patties

Dessert Heaven

brownie cheesecake, NY cheesecake, peanut cheesecake (all good!)

2 refrigerated displays of mini dessert

Below are pics of what’s inside the refrigerated display. Just click on the pic if you want to see a bigger image and drool.

any space for fruit?

help yourself to the tea and coffee bar

Bistro On The Mile
Holiday Inn Golden Mile
50 Nathan Rd.
Tsim Sha Tsui

Hong Kong
telephone: (852) 2369-3111

Dinner at Hang Fa Lau Dessert

We just arrived in Hong Kong for the Holy Week holidays. Over the next few days I’ll be posting the restaurants where we usually eat at. From the really cheap to the average. Nothing over the top like my trip last February. I hope it will you some ideas next time you go to Hong Kong. All of these restaurants are in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.

Coming from Nathan road walk to Peking road and Lock Road is the first street on your right. It’s right behind iSquare.

This is a small hole in the wall with small orders and a fabulous range of hot and cold Chinese desserts.

There is limited space so you might have to share a table or wait for a few minutes.

This is a special dish only on the Chinese menu. Adding peaches to fried rice is quite unusual. I don’t get what it adds to the dish. It wasn’t offensive though. This is very, very good. For HK$45 the fried rice comes with a choice of dessert. We chose the hot sesame soup.

pork and peaches fried rice

hot sesame soup

The sweet and sour pork ribs is the house specialty. It comes with a choice of vegetable rice, plain rice, 18 grain rice or noodle soup. It’s a small dish but it’s enough for a bowl of rice or noodles because the sauce is so good. The pork is so soft and tasty. The sauce is soy sauce based with black vinegar.

sweet & sour meat chop w/ noodle soup HK$33

total bill of HK$79 for 3

Hang Fa Lau Dessert (closed)
9A Lock Road
Tsim Sha Tsui

PAL food MNL to HKG

Happy Easter to all!

Philippine Airlines or PAL gets a lot of criticism for their flights being always delayed, to the chairs not reclining, tv not working and a so on. But I still take it because it has direct flights to California and all my mileage is with PAL. Luckily, I haven’t had any really bad experiences so I continue to support PAL.

Below are pictures of the lounge. It may not be the swankiest lounge or have the best food but they do have something no other lounge in the world has. Read on.

I took the 3 pm flight so the food in the lounge was mostly light snacks.

corned beef sandwiches, hamburger, bacon croissant

mixed salad and a pasta dish that didn’t get refilled

mango crepes

my fave – kopi buns from Kopi Roti

the most awful dimsum

PAL is the only lounge that offers Arroz Caldo or chicken congee. This is the best! They also offer this as snacks on long haul flights. So I don’t really care if the dimsum is bad or the food selection is few. As long as they have hot arroz caldo I’m a happy puppy.

cream of pumpkin soup and arroz caldo

toppings for the arroz caldo

(click on pic)

I just load up on all the toppings except for the chives.

all mixed up

Since my long haul flight last year and several short trips to Hong Kong I’ve noticed the food on the plane has really improved. They partnered with local chefs and restaurants to come up with really good food and dessert.

late lunch menu

The chicken was tasty and tender. The garlic rice was a bit dry. The top vinaigrette must be for the smoked fish and prawns but I used it as a dip for the chicken. I also used the darker colored sauce called sinamak which is a spicy vinegar. I couldn’t decide which was better so I alternated. All the fruits were miraculously sweet.

chicken inasal Bacolod by Chef Fernando Aracama

I heard Cathay Pacific only serves sandwiches on flight from Manila and Hong Kong. Aww that’s so sad.

For the HKG-MNL meal, click here

Dinner at Je Suis Gourmand

Je Suis Gourmand is one of our favorite French restaurants in Manila. As you can see from the pictures below the place is very simple, homey and not pretentious. They’ve changed their menu over the years. I still miss their caesar salad and hamburger which is one of the best I’d ever had. I guess when a lot of guests started ordering the burger for dinner it became a concern. Who would think of a French restaurant specializing in burgers. Sacre Bleu!

It was bff roch’s birthday and her sweet hubby decided to treat all of us to dinner the night before they were going to Bicol and I to Hong Kong. They wanted to try Azuthai after reading my blog and how I raved about it. But they were closed on Monday, which was a holiday. So we went to our old standby, Je Suis Gourmand.

Guess who else was there?

positively imeldific!

This is the main if not the only reason we keep going back to Gourmand. This item is not even on the menu. But since Deb introduced it to me I got hooked. Their seared foie gras is definitely sinful and to die for. An order has 4 generous slices of thick foie gras. For a main course this is perfect. But since we wanted to eat something else we decided to split 2 orders into 4 appetizers. The first bite into the foie gras will make you close your eyes and groan. It’s that good. So if you have a hankering for foie gras don’t forget Gourmand is the only place to go to!

1/2 order pan seared foie gras w/ reduced honey balsamic sauce P880/order

I’m trying to eat healthy so I ordered the bouillabaise. But I really had my eye on the 3 cheese lasagna with assorted mushroom. Hmm doesn’t that sound divine? The bouillabaise wasn’t very good. The fish was dry but not tough, the 3 huge clams were as tough as my havaianas, the mussels were good, the broth was ok but not a tomato based broth that I expected. And I think a whole potato was in there. I gave all 3 of my companions a bowl of fish, potato wedge and broth to try and still had sooo many potato wedges left in my bowl. I finished it while imagining that each bite was lasagna.

bouillabaise P560

Gourmand-cream of tomato & shitake mushroom soup

War (R’s hubby) had the tomato shitake mushroom soup P200. He said it was too sour.

Roch & Chris split this order of fish. So the picture below is only half and order. They said the fish was just ok. I tried the risotto and it was yum-o!

roasted Chilean sea bass w/ saffron risotto
served w/ bone marrow and red wine butter sauce P880

War had this flank steak. I tried it and it was dry and overcooked. But the potatoes were out of this world. Imagine mashed potatoes rolled into balls then fried. Carb and fat heaven.

The cassis sorbet was very good. It was tart and sweet and had whole fruit in it.

cassis sorbet P150

charlotte cake P150

When our usual ‘suki’ waiter found out it was Roch’s birthday he gave us this cheesecake and the waiters sang happy birthday. This cheesecake tasted so much better than the charlotte cake.

Hmm most of the food we ate wasn’t up to par yet we still keep going back to Je Suis Gourmand. It’s only for the foie gras folks. It’s worth it. Next time we’ll just get an order of foie gras each and sorbet and call it a meal.

appetizer, salad, soup & pasta

main course & cold platterdessert

Je Suis Gourmand (now called Champetre) g/f Net1 Center Bldg.
Fort Bonifacio, Taguig
telephone: 815-8801-02

Food Finds at Makro

Warning before your read on: to the squeamish there a lot of strange animal parts featured below. If you’re Asian continue reading. This is a break from all the mouth watering food from the previous posts.

I shop at Makro for my store‘s weekly food requirements. I buy everything there from beef, pork, fish and vegetables. They have excellent deals for wholesale quantities. The place is clean, air conditioned, free membership and accepts any credit card for my purchases. So why do I need to go to a wet market? Makro is a wholesale club just like Costco or Sam’s Club. But I’m pretty sure you won’t find these meat cuts at Costco.

I wasn’t really planning on taking any pictures in Makro until I saw this pig head while looking for pork belly. After years of shopping in Makro this is the first time I saw a whole pork head being sold. I later learned that Koreans are the ones who buy this. I’m glad I had my camera with me. I then looked around for more unique frozen stuff. (now if somebody calls me pig headed i have the visuals for it)

(click on pic to meet porky in full size)

pork ears

pork trotters

In Asian cultures an animal is not wasted. All parts of a pig, cow, chicken or fish are used and eaten. As with the pictures below of parts of a cow or ox I will start with the top of the head.

ox face

ox tongue

ox tripe

beef bone

ox feet

This one kinda freaked me out. I have no idea what people do with this. I don’t think I want to try it.

day old chicks

This isn’t strange at all. Makro has a long freezer selling all kinds of frozen balls. I bought a pack of each for use in my pancit canton, a noodle dish. These are also very good just fried and eaten with sweet chili sauce.

assorted balls

Makro Cubao
Edsa corner Main Avenue, Quezon City
telephone: 911-8113, 911-4842

Classic Savory Chicken

Established in 1950 in Escolta, this Chinese restaurant started out as a panciteria. They developed new products to add on to their menu. And it was their special recipe of fried chicken that became famous to the Chinese community in the Philippines. Now, after over fifty years, the third generation of the Ting family presents a new image and renames the restaurant as Classic Savory.

Their latest branch is in Greenhills Theatre Mall where Dulcinea used to be. First Dulcinea in Robinson’s Galleria disappears now the Greenhills branch too. I wonder why? Anyway back to Savory. I remember when I was a kid eating Savory chicken was a treat because you’d have to go all the way downtown to buy it. Now I’m glad they are bringing Savory to the malls.

Savory’s fried chicken is different from the regular breaded fried chicken of Jollibee or KFC. Their chicken is marinated in a secret sauce and spices and then fried. As a result the skin is soft and juicy. I was a bit disappointed with the chicken I bought. When you take a bite with the skin on it’s good and flavorful but when you eat just the meat it’s tasteless. It’s like the marinade didn’t reach in to the meat. It was moist and juicy though. And their famous gravy tasted more like the fastfood chicken gravy. It didn’t taste like the original gravy.

greenhills theatre mall by night

Of all the restaurants in Manila and Hong Kong that I’ve taken pictures of this is the first restaurant that told me that it was forbidden to take pictures. I was glad that I was done taking pictures by the they told me about their policy.

a picture of the original savory in Escolta

This picture is blurry because I just took the picture from a passing waiter who had a shaky grip on the tray.

combo A P275

I would skip the fried rice. It wasn’t bad but any fried rice you make at home would probably taste better.

savory fried rice P180

(click on the pics to the menu in full size )

Classic Savory
Level 2 Greenhills Theatre Mall
Greenhills Shopping Center
San Juan, Metro Manila
telephone: 584-2736

Shawarma

In the 90s Manila was swept by the shawarma craze. Virtually every street corner had a shawarma stand. They all offered the same chips of grilled beef, chopped tomatoes, onions and cabbage and the ubiquitous garlic sauce on a heated flat bread. As with all the food fads in Manila, it’s usually the first or the best that is left standing.
I remember Food Channel as a small kiosk on the ground floor Virra Mall in Greenhills selling all sorts of snacks and drinks. Shawarma became their bestseller. Now Food Channel sells only shawarma and is located all over town. When I’m really hungry in the afternoon after a day of shopping for my store I go for shawarma. I justify it by thinking it’s grilled beef a good source of protein on thin flat bread (not too much carbs). I always buy the all beef for P95. The beef is a hit or miss. Sometimes you get all soft, flavorful charred beef sometimes a few tough pieces of ligaments get in the way. Overall it’s a good meal. Their garlic sauce is so thick, garlicky and so yummy. I don’t know if cheese is standard for shawarmas in the middle east but here they offer cheese for an additional P5.

I recently discovered Fireshack Shawarma in the food court of Robinson’s galleria. It’s a good alternative when Food Channel is not around. Their all beef shawarma costs only P60 but has less filling but is just right for me.

This is chicken shawarma from Heat restaurant’s Sunday buffet. They have this gorgeous display but they dole out tiny rolls of ready made shawarma with a tiny piece of chicken. I asked for a wrapper and made my own. It was so so delicious.

tomatoes, onions, cucumber and garlic hummus sauce

my overstuffed shawarma

Dinner at Lorenzo’s Way

Thanks to the Sy family for treating me to Sunday dinner at the LJC group’s newest restaurant located at Greenbelt 5. This restaurant is a tribute to Larry Cruz, the founder of the LJC group who passed away last year.Since we were all fans of Abe and Fely J we wanted to try what Lorenzo’s Way had to offer. And we were not disappointed. The restaurant lived up to what you’d expect from the LJC group. The food was good, everything was spiced perfectly. We kept commenting on how every dish tasted mellow. There wasn’t any- too hot, too salty, too sour. Everything was just right. And we have to commend the staff. Service was excellent!

We ordered 3 appetizers. Thankfully they were all small in size. Squid tactics is an LJC favorite from the old Ang Hang restaurant and is available in most of their new restaurants. The squid was so tender and coated with a very light batter and served with a sweet chili sauce.

squid tactics P225

Binacalao uses local dried salted fish slow cooked with tomatoes, chickpeas, potatoes and olives. It came with bread but I ate it with the Paella. It was a perfect match. This would make a good pasta sauce too.

binacalao P225

This is a yummy dip. It was served with toasted strips of french bread. There wasn’t enough bread though. We asked for some but they forgot to bring it. But that was ok because by then the main course dishes started to arrive.

Lorenzo's Way- cheesy spinach & banana blossom dip

baked cheezy spinach & banana blossom dip P225

The costillas de tenera guisada or braised beef short ribs is slow cooked in red wine to give it a rich tasting gravy. This would go great with plain white rice.

costillas de ternera guisada P595

We were shocked when we saw this picture of the bangus (milkfish). We didn’t know there were huge chunks of butter on it. Because by the time we ate the bangus all the butter had melted. The bangus just tasted like plain fried bangus. It was nice and crisp though. But I didn’t taste the butter. I think they should change the fried glass noodles to sauteed ones instead. It was very oily and didn’t suit the dish at all. This dish is a mish mash of 3 ingredients that didn’t blend well. The kangkong lacked shrimp paste. This is the only dish I wouldn’t order again.

bangus belly with kang kong blachan P350

Now this is a paella! It has plenty of rice in a big pan with the right amount of meat and seafood. Unlike the other paella I had recently. There was plenty of socarrat (burnt rice) on the bottom of the pan. I scraped it so hard the pan almost flew out of my hands. Good thing there was an attentive waiter standing beside me ready to catch it. This paella served 3 adults and 2 young boys well. You must order this!

paella valenciana P495

We were worried that the paella wouldn’t be enough so we ordered this bamboo rice, a specialty of Abe restaurant. This is fried rice with bamboo shoots, wood ear, shrimp, chicken and mushroom and served on split bamboo. It reminded me of Chinese kiampung. It was good too. But I was already stuffed from the paella. Zander loved it and he usually is picky about the kind of rice he eats. Zander is 4 years old. Zak loved everything from beginning to end. He’s a gourmand in the making.