By Sylvia Reynoso Gala |
Liven up the Chinese New Year with these wonderful finds from some of Manila’s finest restaurants. Gong Xi Fa Chai!
Cantonese cuisine at Red Lantern
Take Solaire Hotel and Casino’s Red Lantern restaurant. Their hugely popular dim sum buffet, for instance, trots out the dumpling flavors we know by heart—from glutinous chicken feet to pork buns to versions of hakaw. Still, Red Lantern takes something as basic as a shrimp and cuttlefish ball, and then coats them with crunchy almond slivers. Or the sweet deep-fried katafi roll with a filling of warm avocado paste, a hands-down favorite among diners.
But as Red Lantern is a Cantonese restaurant helmed by 33-year-old Chef Lo Ka Cheung Sam, a former Executive Chef of Conrad Centennial Singapore and former Chinese Executive Chef of Old Hong Kong Kitchen in Singapore, there’s plenty of the braising and stewing and sweetish underpinning the Southern China cuisine is known for.
Even our vegetarian friends, oft-neglected by restaurants, have their place in Red Lantern. There’s a separate page listing vegetarian offerings, with intriguing selections like poached Tienjin cabbage with goji berries in a rich broth.
It’s their haute selections, however, that truly make Red Lantern stand out. What could be more tender than braised Wagyu cheek meat enhanced by a stuffing of pears marinated in red wine? Or elevating the classic lion head meatball and cabbage soup by using double boiled Kurobata pork for the meatballs. Then, there’s the bar chow favorite re-imagined Red Lantern style: a saucy pan-fried braised minced beef stuffed in finger chili. For purists, Red Lantern serves traditional Peking duck, roasted suckling pig, and Buddha Jumps over the Wall, a hearty soup of pork, chicken, dried scallop, abalone and fish maw.
Red Lantern is located at Solaire Resort and Casino, Aseana Ave. Parañaque City. Call (02) 888 8888 for reservations
Hot and spicy at Sichuan Modern Restaurant
The name says it all, a 144-seat restaurant where the cool, slick interiors consisting of taupe and fawn, seem purposely chosen to cool you down before you partake of the fiery offerings.
Sichuan is a province in southwest China, known for its dishes’ pungency, heat and unusual combination of flavors. It’s said that a Sichuan dish is distinctive not for a single flavor but by a mash up of the salty, sweet, spicy, sour and creamy.
Classic Sichuan dishes we love include mapo tofu, kungpao chicken and Sichuan hot pot. And the new Sichuan Modern Restaurant in BGC offers just the kind of spice we Pinoys love. When it comes to taste and presentation, the restaurant’s Pork Slices in Chili Sauce is hard to beat. Strips of pork tenders, alternated with thinly sliced cucumbers, are hung on a kind of tabletop trestle fitted with a slatted wooden tray on which a saucer of chili lies in wait. Like the tzatziki or yogurt and cucumber side served with fiery Indian dishes, the cucumber helps calm down singed taste buds.
Also in the Sichuan menu are Spicy Beef Kenchi, Steamed Chicken with Chili Oil, Deep Fried Oyster with Spicy Salt and Braised Garoupa with Green Peppercorns, among a long list of others. Seasonal dishes include the Chili Frog and Fried Bullfrog with Cucumber and Pickled Pepper.
Sichuan Modern Restaurant is located at The Fort Strip, 5th Ave. corner 28th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
