HONG TAI YANG RESTAURANT – first and last visit: April 30, 2007

For the 3rd consecutive week, my Monday Talk Holes Club will try yet another hotpot/shabu-shabu restaurant. Cheaper daw than King One, per our Chairman, CJ Tan. He was in China and couldn’t join us, so, off we went to Macapagal Avenue, again at the Mall of Hobbies.

Hong Tai Yang (which means Red Sun – rather Japanese in imagery for a Chinese restaurant) is set to the very back of the Mall. You can’t miss it: there are many signs that will lead you towards the right direction.

It boasts of all-you-can-eat hotpot food “WITH 100 FRESH INGREDIENTS!!!” for a mere P395. No free drinks, but it does have a free halo-halo/fruit platter/ice cream station which King One does not have. This is a huge place, accommodating up 10 150 diners at any given time. The décor is tacky and perfunctory: marble slabs looking like so many tombs in rows, with holes in the middle to accommodate gas-operated hot pot stations. The nice thing about Hong Tai though is that each diner gets to have his own hotpot (again, no Sichuan broth!) and unlike King One, also has an additional flat grill plate. There are indeed 100 ingredients to choose from: meats (not of the best quality though), fish, shellfish, shrimp, crab (there is also a chafing dish of stewed crab), dimsum (made mostly of flour and lard), veggies (no golden mushroom), eggs, variety meats, corn and bottomless rice. Drinks are not complimentary. The array is visually impressive but that’s just about it.

The 100 selections An 8-person table has 8 pots and 2 grills

Sadly, for all its variety and seemingly reasonable price, Hong Tai did not impress us. Goria Maris is expensive but you feel sulit. Lau Chan, on the other side of the scale, is cheap but good. King One is a really good bargain offering true bang for the buck. Hong Tai was just, well, cheap. Some of the shrimp had an off odor, as did the crab. The meat, despite being paper thin, was tough because it had no marbling. The “butter” that was given to us for the grill was actually just colored vegetable shortening. And not a good one at that. The staff was eager to please though, and the bathrooms clean, and parking free, but none in my group saw himself going back there or recommending the place to friends and family. One even made the dire prediction that the red sun would cease to be in 6 months. Sayang. It’s the first restaurant pa naman that I’m blogging about na may pictures.

HONG TAI YANG RESTAURANT – first and last visit: April 30, 2007

For the 3rd consecutive week, my Monday Talk Holes Club will try yet another hotpot/shabu-shabu restaurant. Cheaper daw than King One, per our Chairman, CJ Tan. He was in China and couldn’t join us, so, off we went to Macapagal Avenue, again at the Mall of Hobbies.

Hong Tai Yang (which means Red Sun – rather Japanese in imagery for a Chinese restaurant) is set to the very back of the Mall. You can’t miss it: there are many signs that will lead you towards the right direction.

It boasts of all-you-can-eat hotpot food “WITH 100 FRESH INGREDIENTS!!!” for a mere P395. No free drinks, but it does have a free halo-halo/fruit platter/ice cream station which King One does not have. This is a huge place, accommodating up 10 150 diners at any given time. The décor is tacky and perfunctory: marble slabs looking like so many tombs in rows, with holes in the middle to accommodate gas-operated hot pot stations. The nice thing about Hong Tai though is that each diner gets to have his own hotpot (again, no Sichuan broth!) and unlike King One, also has an additional flat grill plate. There are indeed 100 ingredients to choose from: meats (not of the best quality though), fish, shellfish, shrimp, crab (there is also a chafing dish of stewed crab), dimsum (made mostly of flour and lard), veggies (no golden mushroom), eggs, variety meats, corn and bottomless rice. Drinks are not complimentary. The array is visually impressive but that’s just about it.

Sadly, for all its variety and seemingly reasonable price, Hong Tai did not impress us. Goria Maris is expensive but you feel sulit. Lau Chan, on the other side of the scale, is cheap but good. King One is a really good bargain offering true bang for the buck. Hong Tai was just, well, cheap. Some of the shrimp had an off odor, as did the crab. The meat, despite being paper thin, was tough because it had no marbling. The “butter” that was given to us for the grill was actually just colored vegetable shortening. And not a good one at that. The staff was eager to please though, and the bathrooms clean, and parking free, but none in my group saw himself going back there or recommending the place to friends and family. One even made the dire prediction that the red sun would cease to be in 6 months. Sayang. It’s the first restaurant pa naman that I’m blogging about na may pictures.

GLORIA MARIS HOTPOT RESTAURANT – first visit: late 2005, latest visit April 23, 2007

Ahem. I’ll make yabang here. The first time I tried the Gloria Maris Hotpot Restaurant was with Mother Lily, the matriarch of the Philippine movie industry. We were in discussion of the script for WHITE LADY (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0757953/) and she decided to meet at the newly-opened restaurant, instead of in her house. My writing partner remarked that Mother must like us because she never conducts showbiz meetings in restaurants, always in her residence. This was over and above the fact that our first meeting with her was at the Shang Palace, where she fed us plate upon plate of the house specialties. Which she did again at Gloria Maris.

Gloria Maris Seafood Restaurant is among the best Chinese restaurants in town, simply on the strength of its excellent service, outstanding food quality and – all things considered – reasonable prices. Also, to celebrate in Gloria Maris bears with it the patina of “being-in-ness.” It is highly popular among Fil-Chi as the preferred venue for engagement parties, birthdays, anniversaries, baptisms and other small family celebrations. The Greenhills restaurant has 3 sections: the seafood restaurant which has a main dining hall, private function rooms and a huge ballroom on the second level, the eatery section where one can partake of fantastic Chinese dishes at really reasonable prices (their jumbo siopao, which can feed 2 hungry cargadores and is my all-time favorite comfot food, is priced at less than P80). Their noodle dishes are especially good, as are their cold cuts. The third section of course is their hotpot restaurant, which I believe is the first in Manila to serve the humble fare in a Modern Asian setting and using only non-heating microwave (?) cooking plates.

One can choose between sets or individual plates of uncooked ingredients and the usual choices of broth (sadly, no Sichuan). If you are only 2, then individual plates is the way to go. The smallest set is good for 4 (as far as the menu is concerned), but can actually feed about 6 men and is priced at a reasonable P1,200 for 5 sticks of fresh shrimp, some fish, squid, assorted seafood balls and a variety of vegetables (winter mushrooms!). There is also a meat plate with fatty beef, pork and chicken. The service is efficient and friendly (a waiter will come over to peel the shrimp for you) and the acoustics are good – even with so many people around, it’s never too noisy. If you have room for a sweet, order the fresh taho, served in a wooden tub with an accompaniment of syrup and sago. If you’re on a budget, skip ordering drinks. I think this is a rule of thumb in places where the food is cheap: the restaurant marks up their drinks (cf. Mandarin’s Paseo Uno, where a can of Coke will set you back P220, inclusive of taxes and service charge vs. it’s buffet price of P1,400).

Gloria Maris Hotpot is worth repeated visits. I have been there several times since Mother Lily’s treat, and have brought a balikbayan friend who raved over the food, and was there again last week. There is something truly convivial about gathering around a table with good friends and cooking your own food, making your own sauce and chomping the night away.

KING ONE – first visit: April 16, 2007

My friend Candy Dizon YM’ed me one day: “I’m an addict.” Knowing how kikay she is, I knew it wasn’t an addiction to regulated substances that she was referring to. True enough, she gave me the link to her blog, http://www.adventuresofcandy.blogspot.com. You should check it out: it’s breezy, funny and, yes, kikay. She’s been very prolific and in a week’s time, came out with blogs and content that rivaled mine – which is about a century old already. It’s because of Candy that I have been motivated to push myself into writing 6 blogs a day – as has she.

So Candy, thanks, and here goes:

My Monday Talk Holes Club has been on a mission to sample all the shabu-shabu/cook-your-own restos in town. And why not? One of group’s favorite places is LAU CHAN (on M.H. del Pilar off cor. Malvar – same block as the Pan Pacific Hotel). The food is cheap (count on spending about P300/person), the selection diverse and the service friendly (we once got away with free fruit platters when we (mis)represented one of our buddies as Col. Kamantigue. Little did they know that the only drilling this colonel does is drilling cavities. He is after all, a dentist). However, LAU CHAN is strictly for those who fancy holes-in-the-wall because the place is drab, harshly-lit, very noisy and always packed with happy Chinese diners. I emphasize Chinese because you know what they say about Chinese restaurants: if it is packed with Pinoys, then the food is no good (cf. Chow King).

Having tried Lau Chan, we ventured to the unusually-named Mall of Hobbies on Macapagal Avenue, fronting the PNB Building. The Mall in itself is interesting. It is taking up on Tiendesitas’ lead by putting up a section for pets (I got my nephew’s shih tzu a nice “Burberry” collar and leash for only P150), with a lot of shops catering to multi-level marketing, a spa, and a Census sub-office. Also located in the same complex is a branch of the popular Julia Vargas ihaw-inom place, Jay-J’s. The Mall of Hobbies is truly worth a visit – and perhaps a re-naming. But I’m going off course.

Upon entering the mall (open parking is free and abundant), we immediately sae several large and bright sign announcing: “KING ONE!!!! Eat-All-You-Can!!! Drink-All-You-Can!!! Only P399++” Well. How could we resist! It’s located near the Census office and has very few seats and no reservations. The place is nicely decorated and features a bar in the middle where all the ingredients for the shabu-shabu are prepared in the open and placed on platters on a conveyor, much like how most cheap and on-the-quick Japanese restaurants serve their food. We were 6 that evening and were told by the friendly staff that besides the shabu-shabu, a group of 4 is given a free ala carte item. Wow! Truly a bargain! In fact, we were given a dish of King Dao Pork (good) and squid teriyaki (too much batter but hey! Why should I begrudge this freebie?). The drinks are Quickly style: brain-freeze fruit-flavored slurpees with sago in the bottom, served bottomless style. Iced tea is also complimetary, but sodas and all other beverages are not. The selection of meats, seafood and vegetables is excellent, fresh and varied. We had fatty beef, lamb (both sliced very very thin), sweetish suahe (small shrimp), crab’s claws, an assortment of mushroom (including my favorite winter mushrrom), leafy vegetables, broccoli, caulflower, ad infinitum. Sauces were also plentiful, with sate being the favorite. What sets King One apart from the other hotpot/shabu-shabu restaurants is that it has the usual chicken, seafood, vegetarian and sate stocks to choose from PLUS, the Sichuan broth. Very aromatic, very savory and just spicy enough for the more adventurous diner. Moreover, the cooking plate is the microwave (?) type that won’t burn fingers – a very important factor for family diners.

What King One is missing are private dining rooms or alcoves for big groups and families that want some privacy for their celebration. A minor quibble, but hopefully will be addressed when King One branches out to a bigger outlet.

On top of it all, King One has clean bathrooms. And oh, did I mention that the service is very efficient and friendly?

FOOD TRIVIA (from wikipedia.com):

Shabu-shabu is prepared by submerging a very thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in a pot of boiling water or dashi (broth) made with kombu (kelp) and swishing it back and forth several times. (The familiar swishing sound is where the dish gets its name. Shabu-shabu roughly translates to "swish-swish".) Cooked meat and vegetables are usually dipped in ponzu or "goma" (sesame seed) sauce before eating with a bowl of steamed white rice.

Once the meat and vegetables have been eaten, leftover water from the pot is customarily combined with the remaining rice, and the resulting soup is usually eaten last.

The dish is supposed to have originated in the 13th century as a way for Genghis Khan to efficiently feed his soldiers. Mongol troops gathered around a large pot and cooked together. Thinly sliced meat was used for its short cooking time, which allowed the Mongolian army to conserve its limited supply of fuel.