I grew up eating Kowloon House's Jumbo Pao since forever and to this day I still love it. Why, you ask?
First, there's the fluffy white bun, the texture of which I can't really describe but it's something I associate with my old siopao eating days.
Then there's the tasty bola-bola filling, the saltiness of which is complemented by the slight sweetness of the bun.
It contains two of my favorite Chinese treats, salted duck egg, and asado (roasted porkloin). There's also a big juicy Chinese sausage (the real one, not the artificial tasting stuff in the grocery).
And lastly, it's the only siopao that I eat as is. No asado sauce required, thank you.
Kowloon's Jumbo Pao is hands down, my favorite siopao. Ever.
But wait, in my (sometimes unfortunate) experience, not all Kowloon branches are created equal, let's just say, some have better siopao than others. I suggest getting your siopao fix at their West Avenue and Diliman (near Philippine Heart Center) branches.
Mamu's go to food has and will always be Chinese. When I suggested we try Go Fan at SM City Fairview, she eagerly agreed.
Go Fan Roasts and Dimsum is a Hong Kong style resto where ordering is somewhat interactive. In fact, part of their menu is a how to order instructions. But we didn't get to try this. We ordered set meals instead.
Mamu tried the Fried Dumpling and Yang Chow value meal. The dimsum is meaty but the sauce, more like colored cornstarch slurry, is really bland. Good thing they have different sauces on the table so I opted to use the hoisin. I like their Yang Chow which has this smoky flavor from the asado bits, but then again you can never go wrong with Yang Chow. At 70 pesos, I guess we really don't have anything to complain about.
FYI, the Yang Chow is really heavy and siksik.
The Dimsum Sampler is really a good value at 299 pesos. It contains 3 pieces each of their most popular dumplings. There's Siopao, Shrimp, Hakaw, Spinach and Hot and Sour.
My favorite is the Spinach Dumpling, the one with the green filling in the middle. It was herby and garlicky complemented by a DIY dipping sauce of calamansi, soy sauce, vinegar and chili oil. Winner!
They use real roe in their Shrimp Dumpling
The Dimsum Sampler comes with a free pitcher of ice tea
We're definitely go back to Go Fan. I'm dying to find out how to use their interactive menu.
The first time I saw Chicken Mami House at Trinoma I thought it was kind of weird to see it along the rows of fastfoods you can takeout and eat inside the cinema. Mami after all is not considered "movie food". But it is always fully packed, mostly with Chinoys enjoying siopao and mami.
One day I spied a vacant table and decided to give it a try. My sister and I ordered Chicken Mami, Asado siopao and Kikiam on the recommendation of the waitress, apparently this is one of their specialties aside from mami. I had a Ratatouille moment when I bit into the siopao. It was like the siopao of my childhood. The asado was meaty, sweetish, slightly salty with a hint of soy sauce and saucy with bits of fat like the siopao of old. Even my sister had the same reaction. We joked that it tasted like the “urban legend” siopao that was made of wandering cats.
Then came the piping hot Chicken Mami. The soup was good, nothing great though and the noodles were a bit overcooked. But it went well with the siopao which we consider the star of the show.
The kikiam is a surprise discovery. It was nothing like the kikiam of today where there’s hardly a trace of meat. The skin is crispy with a meaty center and flecks of fat here and there. It tasted strongly of ngoyong (Chinese five spice powder) and is reminiscent of the kikiam that Mamu used to make. We enjoyed this so much that we decided to order another one to take home to Mamu.Maybe she'll be inspired to cook her kikiam again.
Entering Ma Mon Luk takes you back to the old world. The place was dingy with no aircon, just big old ceiling fans, bowls and saucers in uhmm…less than perfect condition, marble tables that are chipped and not really that clean and attendants who hardly pay attention to you. I guess this is how things are in an old Chinese panciteria.
Even their pay phone is vintage.
But of course, Mamu and I are not her for the ambience and the service. We were there for Ma Mon Luk’s siopao and mami.
This is a first time of sorts for me, I don’t remember having a Ma Mon Luk experience, but according to Mamu she used to bring home their siopao as pasalubong for us.
After the waiter finally paid attention to us we both ordered the Original Mami and Jumbo Siopao. I looked around the place and found the tables full of customers, mostly families with bowls of mami and siopao.
While the siopao did not disappoint, although Mamu kept on saying “iba na, iba na” between bites. It was served hot, the bun was not super white but good nonetheless. I really like the meat filling, it was not fatty or saucy, you can actually taste the meat, bola-bola and salted eggs.
The mami isn’t really the best I’ve had. It was very simple, served in a very ordinary looking bowl, the broth was clear, the chicken white, the pork looked like pork and everything is topped with spring onions. I prefer my mami spicy with lots of fried garlic.
For a dish that has a lot of history to it, the mami is tasty but very simple. I guess this was how people enjoyed this dish when Ma Mon Luk was still peddling it around the streets of Manila.
We ordered two pieces of Jumbo Siopao for takeout. Lo and behold, when the siopao arrived it was in a brown supot, panciteria style, no clear tape, only the supot folded haphazardly to form some kind of handle. The kind of packaging that makes you want to say "Mga anak, may uwi akong siopao para sa inyo."
I spent two very busy days at Greenhills for an event. Luckily, the event venue (I’m not sure if it's something I can mention yet) is located near one of the Promenade’s Food Court. As soon as I found an excuse to go out for awhile, I scanned the foodcourt. Three stalls caught my eye, Gonuts Donuts, So Zhou and Hizon’s.
Though I have very strong feelings (an understatement) for Kristy Kremes, Gonuts Doughnuts’ Pastillas Filled will always have a soft spot in my heart (or taste buds). I love Pastillas anytime and anywhere, I can finish a whole box of these sweets in one sitting. I love it even better inside a donut! All that rich, milky sweetness coating your mouth is to die for. I was too focused on the doughnut that I forgot to take pictures.
I’ve been hearing a lot about Su Zhou’s dumplings, particularly their Special Xiao Long Pao, a dumpling with a soup inside it (more like dumpling juice actually), so for a quick lunch I went there to try this. There was nothing quick about the lunch, as the cashier-slash-waitress explained, there’s a 10-15 minute waiting period because they steam the dumplings only after an order has been made. Finally my Xiao Long Pao (four pieces) arrived served on a bamboo steamer, each piece looks like a little siopao, slightly bigger than your average dumpling. Being the little eager beaver that I am, I bit into one of the dumpling. It was scalding hot! For a bonus, my pants caught the soup. Then I remembered reading somewhere that the proper way to eat these dumplings was to put in a spoon, puncture the wrapper first then allow the soup to flow to the spoon, sip the soup first then proceed to eat the dumplings. Once my tongue recovered, I followed the proper protocol and enjoyed my Xiao Long Pao. It was all I heard about and more! The wrapper is very soft (although I expected it to be more translucent) , the soup tasty, but oily, I still have the stains to prove it, and the dumplings moist and tender. But again, due to time constraints, I did not take a picture.
I also bought Su Zhou’s Jumbo Siopao called Ah Pao to take home to Mamu. We had that for breakfast (brunch for me). The mutant looking siopao was filled with all sorts of Chinese delights you can think of, bola-bola, salted duck egg, chorizo, mushroom, chicken (I think), pork plus a lot more. Too bad Su Zhou is only located in Greenhills.
I was spying what looks like a very luscious caramel cake from Hizon’s but when I went there the cake was gone. I just bought a Cream Roll, which looks like a pianono filled with yema, and a Queso de Bola Ensaymada for Mamu because it’s one of her favorites
As of this entry, the Ensyamada is atill in the refrigerator. I have no idea what Mamu is saving it for. But like she always says "You can never go wrong with anything from Hizon's."
One of my most vivid childhood memories is going to Sta. Cruz Church for mass every Sunday, lunch at Savory near the church (I think), then Fort Santiago in the afternoon.
Somewhere along the way, this ritual stopped and it has been more than ten years since my last Savory experience. Truth be told, I forgot how the food tastes like.
While doing our usual grocery at SM City, Mamu saw a Savory in front of SM Hypermart, she told me “Let’s have lunch here.”
As soon as we sat down I saw a black and white photograph of an old Savory hanging in the wall.I think this was their first branch. I stared at it long enough to realize that this is exactly how the Savory where we used to go looked like. I asked Mamu, “Dyan ba tao kumakain dati?” She smiled and said “You still remember?”
After taking our order, the waitress came back and put a glass of hot water with spoons and fork at the side of our table. The nonchalant way she did it was very old school panciteria.
We ordered Savory Chicken, Yang Chow Rice and Crispy Shrimp Puff, their version of Camaron Rebosado.
The rice and chicken arrived first. The chicken, supposedly their specialty looked a little simple, too simple in fact that I wondered why Mamu, who isn't so fond of chicken insisted that we have this.
It was way after lunch and I was famished by this time so I gobbled up a few spoons full of rice first. I took a piece of chicken and as soon as I bite into it I was transported back to my childhood days. It tasted so familiar, from the crispy skin to the tender meat and that particular taste that only Savory Chicken has. Memories of our Sunday lunch came flooding in. I told Mamu between mouthfuls, "I remember this chicken and it still tastes great!"
Then the shrimp arrived. It was a letdown and quite different from what Mamu and I expected. Mamu said there was too much batter that she hardly tasted the shrimp. Dipped in the sweet and sour sauce it tasted better and goes well with the fried rice. I enjoyed it better at home, when the puff isn't as crispy and a little limp (yeah, it was too much food for two people that we had to bring our tira home).
All in all it was a good lunch that sent me spinning down memory lane. I would definitely come back for the chicken. I’m not sure though if they use MSG but both Mamu and I were down with migraine that night.
I was stuck at home when tropical storm “Isang” raged on yesterday.I was practically online the whole day and I noticed so was everyone else.Well truth be told, I started hanging online late in the afternoon, I was asleep before that, perfect bed weather and all.Even our dogs have the same idea.
Then one of my friends updated his Facebook status with something about Kowloon siopao and mami.Gloomy weather, rainy afternoon, cold weather, warm siopao, hot and spicy mami.What could be better than that? Since Kowloon doesn’t deliver and I don’t have any plans to brave the storm, I figured the next best thing would be Chowking. It's no Kowloon (especially in the siopao department), but they deliver in any weather.
I called up their delivery number placed my order for two Spicy Beef Wanton Noodles (one for me and one for Mamu), two large siopaos and one large Nai Cha.Surprisingly our food didn’t take forever to arrive, complete with exact change and all the condiments I requested.Plus, Mamu was given her senior citizen discount (I was told that they honor this even for deliveries).
It may be raining cats and dogs outside but today is good day.
