It's a WednesDATE at Pearl River Cafe

May 7, 2014

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. Nothing special happened for the last month. I could only tell you of my commuting rants or more stories about my adorable niece, but that would only be repetitive. This month (and for the coming months), I'll be on a tight budget that's why I haven't been travelling to any summer destination. And what else, aside from travelling, do I love? You guessed it right --- food! And yes, this entry involves a 250-peso voucher for 500Php worth of dimsum, noodles, and congee offered by the deal site CashCashPinoy. 

The Place

Not in the original position

Pearl River Cafe is located at 4th floor Trinoma, right beside Cyma. The place was well-lit and it was not stuffy. I liked the sofa - it had the right height and firmness. The tables were positioned to maximize the small space. The restaurant could easily sit 30 people without crowding. The initial table set-up won't have any spoons/forks so you might as well request them if you're not so good using the chopsticks. Sadly, they don't have a tissue dispenser.

The Service

They have a few employees, but each is attentive and polite. 1 waitress, 1 waiter, the manager and I don't know how many cooks. The only drawback is that they have such soft voice. They also clean the table after every diner - though I wondered why ours was a bit sticky. 

The Food

I was shocked when I saw the price of 1 order of their dimsum. It's equivalent to almost 4 orders of the cheaper dimsum made by small-time commercial vendors. But I think that's how businesses are nowadays.

These were the food items we ordered that were covered by the voucher:

Stewed Beef Shank Noodle Soup (199php)

This was served in a half-filled big bowl with a small dipper. There were, I think, 4(or 5?) generous chunks of tender beef. Eating this alone would leave you full in no time. The taste was average but the sweetness of the broth overpowered the flavor of the beef. Why was it sweet? I had no idea.

Steamed  Crab Roe and Shrimp Siomai (99php)

The dimsum that we ordered was served in a larger-than-typical bamboo steamer (probably because they won't fit in the smaller steamer). A piece of siomai was made of pure meat and shrimp. It went great with soy sauce and calamansi. What got me disappointed was the chili sauce that you usually find in most Chinese restaurants. Theirs was not chili enough. An ordinary hot sauce was hotter than that chili sauce. There were 2 chili sauce containers on our table. The first one had almost a tablespoon left when we arrived. The second was three-fourths filled. When we were done. The second was also left with almost a tablespoon.

Steamed Shrimp Dumplings (99php)

Typical steamed shrimp dumplings that I love. Simple and light.

The last one was Steamed Pork Spareribs with Taosi (129php). I was too focused on finishing the food in front of me that I totally forgot to take a picture of it. The taste was average and there were more bones than there were meat. I think it should also be priced at 99php.

In total, the dimsum and noodles we ordered amounted to 526php, which was 26php more than the 500 voucher limit. I knew I should've bought another voucher so I could've ordered other dumplings.

Other orders:

Fried Golden Rice Yeungzhou Style (199php)

Steamed buns with Custard Paste
and Salted Egg (65)

The rice can be shared by 2 not-so-hungry individuals. If we didn't order a bowl of noodles, I could've easily devoured this. So for me, a bowl of this rice worth 199php is expensive. Some restaurants could even offer unlimited yangchow rice for a much lower price. The serving dish used was not even deep. If it was in the same bowl as that of the noodles, the price would've been justified. What I liked about this was - it wasn't as dry as compared to others and you could easily identify the other ingredients tossed with the rice. And it wasn't too salty.

Halfway through the steamed bun

Lastly, the cute steamed buns. It was only cute. The bun was soft and light. But the filling...err...was there a filling? I was expecting a generous filling of custard paste and with bits of salted egg yolk but I was dumbfounded by the liquefied salted egg with an unpleasant taste and a very thin (close to nothing) spread of custard that I couldn't even get a hint of.

Aside from the unfortunate dessert steamed bun, overall, it was an unexceptional dining experience but I did have a satisfied tummy.

Xiao Long Bao @ Shi Lin

I've been craving for Xiao Long Bao for the longest time. Only a few Chinese restaurants offer this type of dumpling and these are usually expensive. So when CashCashPinoy(a group buying site) offered 250 php for  500 php worth of Dimsum and Noodle products from Shi Lin, I instantly bought 2 vouchers.

What is Xiao Long Bao? It's a kind of dimsum with soup inside. I don't know how they make these but they definitely are yummy.

Grabbed this Xiao Long Bao photo from my sister

February 23, 2013

Together with SS, I went to Shi Lin at the Podium. They have a limited number of branches and I'm glad that one of them is accessible. *Sorry this post won't have any pictures since I forgot to bring a camera :(

Inside Shi Lin

Shi Lin has that typical Chinese restaurant ambiance. Now I won't get all descriptive about the place, let's get on with the food.

Since my voucher is good for 500php worth of products, we limited our orders to 1 order of their 10-pcs Xiao Long Bao(248php) and an order each of the Noodles with Shrimp and Pork Wantons(188php). Yes, we ordered in excess of the 500 but it was at a minimum. Going back, when the noodle orders came, we were quite shocked. Side note: SS and I are not noodle people...we're more of the rice type

So imagine our reaction to the huge bowls served in front of us. Each bowl is good for 2 people to share. We didn't know that, so we had no choice but to finish it all up (we're not the wasting type too). The taste of the noodle broth was simple you could ask the attendants for chili sauce to add that needed kick. The chili also tasted great with the wantons. I'm guessing that the noodles were freshly made because it was white in color, not the typical yellow noodles served in other restos. Then, our xiao long bao order came. It tasted good w/ or w/out the soy sauce. Finally, my cravings have been satisfied. Overall, it was a good lunch.