Tim Ho Wan

Tim Ho Wan, a renowned restaurant in both Hong Kong and Singapore has finally landed in Manila. I never got to try it out while in Hong Kong last May because there just wasn't enough time, but Kim had and said it's one of the best food experiences she had while on internship over there.

Even though it has been around in HK for a while now, people still line up for it constantly and you can just imagine the same thing for the Manila franchise. Yes, a queue builds up and sometimes get three rows deep but if you arrive early enough or late enough to avoid peak dining hours, it is relatively easy to get a seat. We did just that and had early lunch at 11 AM. Although there was already a sizeable crowd dining inside, we were still seated right away.

The interiors are nothing special, but they are clean and well lit. It seems that a lot of these new hip Chinese restaurants are using dimsum baskets as lighting ornament. It's not the first time we have seen that, but still a fun sight to look at.

It is worth noting that despite diners constantly arriving and multiplying as the peak lunch hour was nearing, the service was really fast and efficient. They'd give you paper to fill out your order in, just make sure you look at where you are putting a check mark on as we made a mistake in ours. LOL. Anyway, the food is always made after you order so one can imagine that serving time would take a while, but our food didn't really take more than 5 minutes to get served.

Tim Ho Wan has a pretty compact menu, so if you are in a good sized group you can probably order everything off the menu and share. And the other great thing about its menu is that nothing is prized over 200php! Pretty affordable especially for a place like this.

On to our orders. Tim Ho Wan has what it calls the Big 4 Heavenly Kings, which are sort of their best and recommended dishes. We ordered a couple of those and some other items in the menu.

Baked Bun with BBQ Pork (3 pcs). 145php.

If you've seen blog posts or even just IG posts about Tim Ho Wan then I'm sure you've seen the popular Baked Buns. These kind of remind me of asado siopao except that they are baked instead of steamed and that the pork inside is sweetly flavored. We liked it and it was great to eat while still hot. The sweetness can be toned down a bit though.

Steamed Egg Cake. 85php.

 

The Steamed Egg Cake on the other hand was nothing special. It had a spongy texture and slightly sweet taste that sort of resembled the puto that is hawked on the streets. Not the round sticky ones, but the triangular ones that are mostly dry.

Prawn Dumpling. 160php.

In most local restaurants, we know this as Hakaw. But in THW calls it the Prawn Dumpling, and it makes me wonder why they didn't take the Hong Kong name for it which is Hargaw. That aside, this has got to be most plump and shrimp filled Hakaw we've had.. ever! And we loved that the wrapper didn't break easily as is the case for most other times we've had hakaw.

Pork Dumpling with Shrimp. 150php.

Siomai, what more can I say? It tasted good and had a good sized shrimp in the middle of the pork, but it wasn't really that special. This was the deal breaker for Kim since she loved the original version in HK and described it as the best siomai she had ever had.

Spring Roll with Egg White. 120php.

I was totally surprised when I took a bite out of this. I was sort of expecting something in between Max's Fried Lumpiang Sariwa and Dimsum Break's Spring Rolls. This was so far off those two. I'm not saying it tasted bad, just that it wasn't the taste I was expecting. To be honest, it really didn't taste like anything. The egg white was too weird in texture which does not go well with the deep fried dumpling.

Chicken, Sausage and Mushroom. 170php.

So we got confused during marking our orders on the order slip they provided that we ordered the wrong thing! We wanted to order the Rice with Beef and Fried Egg, but ended up checking the box for Chicken, Sausage and Mushroom. Good thing, it tasted good or else we would have really been disappointed. It was mostly chicken though, with a couple slices of sausage and one mushroom.

Overall, it was a great dining experience. The service was great, and so was the food.. well, mostly. But I think we just needed to order something else aside from the Siomai and Spring Roll, since those were just a little too bland or normal tasting for us. We'd probably try to eat here again, as the menu is really affordable and each order is good to share for 2 or more people.

Tim Ho Wan

Ground Floor, Fashion Hall

SM Megamall, Ortigas

Mandaluyong City

Dimsum Break

January 19, 2013. Saturday.

We both love Chinese food. To a certain extent, we consider it on par with our love for the local cuisine. Of course, mainstay on top of our food priority list is American -- steak, burgers, pizza. But Chinese food has always been a staple on our dates, and probably in almost every Filipino household. It has been around for so long that it has been sort of established as part of our local food culture.

I have been reading about Dimsum Break since late last year when it opened its first and only (so far) Manila branch. People, particularly Manila based Cebuanos, were raving about it. I was surprised at how a small Chinese brand with no national notoriety evoke such strong emotions from (the stomachs of) people. We just had to go and find out!

We arrived in SM North Edsa early for dinner, but we still went on to walk towards Dimsum Break in Annex for a very early dinner. Dimsum Break's interiors is nothing to be amazed at, well except for the dimsum steamer baskets used as ceiling lamps. Other than that it is just a very simple place with white tables and chairs spread throughout the dining area.

This is not a fancy Chinese restaurant, so you have to line up and order from the counter. Despite this system, they don't have a the usual signage where you can look at the menu and their respective prices. But no worries, everything you need to see is right in front of you just like a good old school cafeteria. And they have leaflets too, where the menu is. So if you see something from the leaflet but it's not in the display in front of you, you can just go ask the staff for that item and they'll make one for you.

Ordering in Dimsum Break is so easy. You line up and just select your food from the display cases in front of you. It also helps that they grouped the food together. You'll first see the Steamed Dimsum section, where all selections are 65php. Then the Fried Dimsum section, again all are at 65php. Then there's the rice pots, all at 68php. And finally the desserts where most items are at 55php. The other items you see in their leaflet/menu, you just have to tell the cashier when you pay then they'll deliver it to your table. We ordered the following:

From the Steamed Dimsum, we got the Shaomai and the Hakao.

Shaomai. 65php.

Hakao. 65php.

We played safe and ordered some sure fire dimsum. They spell their Siomai as Shaomai, but despite the slight name change, they serve really good siomai. It's packed and flavorful, and not too small nor big.

The same goes for their Hakao, it's really packed! With each and every bite you get a taste of the shrimp inside and not just the wrapper. We played safe since it was our first time to eat here, but next time we will try some of their more creative dimsum like the quail egg topped Shaomai and the bacon wrapped Shaomai.

From the Fried Dimsum, we ordered the Sweet and Sour Pork, Stuffed Shrimps, and the Spring Rolls.

Sweet and Sour Pork. 65php.

The Sweet and Sour Pork was really great. Instead of the usual dish in which the pork is cooked until tender with the sweet and sour sauce, this one had the pork fried to a perfect crisp then glazed with the sauce after.

Stuffed Shrimps. 65php.

The Stuffed Shrimp was okay.. when dipped in the sweet and sour sauce. I really couldn't taste the shrimp in it, and its inside was really mushy.

Spring Rolls. 65php.

The Spring Rolls on the other hand were perfectly crispy and really went well with the sweet and sour sauce. I think Dimsum Break uses just one sweet and sour sauce for all their dishes that require it. I might be wrong though, and I am certainly not complaining.

We also both got a bowl of Steamed Fried Rice each.

Steamed Fried Rice. 68php.

After just one spoonful of the Steamed Fried Rice, I finally understood what the fuss is about. It's just normal steamed white rice, but it is topped with very, very tender pork and some small pieces of shrimp that is then finished off with a thick sweet (but not too sweet) sauce. You can just order this and ignore everything else. That's how good it is! I can't even think of another Chinese dish served locally in any other restaurant that can compare to this! And Kim might disagree, but I think this is really perfect with all the dimsum (steamed or fried) they serve.

For dessert, we ordered the Coconut Cream and the Buko Pandan.
 

Coconut Cream. 55php.

The Coconut Cream is supposed to be their signature dessert dish, but I wasn't totally blown away by it. It was okay, and I liked the texture of it and that it wasn't overly sweet but it was really nothing different from a maja blanca without the corn.

 

Buko Pandan. 55php.

Same with the Coconut Cream, the Buko Pandan was just okay. Except for the fact that this was surprisingly topped with corn flakes, there really was nothing special about it.

I can't explain how much I really enjoyed our meal in Dimsum Break. I loved it so much that I'm saying that it is better than any other high priced Chinese restaurants we go to. The serving sizes are just right for the prices, you can enjoy and share more variety without paying more. The service is fast, the price is very affordable, and the food is really great! You can bring your whole family here and not break the bank. We will surely be back here again very, very soon!

Dimsum Break
3/F SM North Edsa Annex

https://www.facebook.com/DimsumBreak?fref=ts

Flavours of China

September 23, 2012

After a long day of shopping in SM North Edsa, we just wanted a quick dinner since we were already tired and wanted to just relax at home. We decided we would go for Chinese because for some reason Chinese food always seems like comfort food to us. Since we were already in The Block, we settled for Flavours of China.

For starters, we ordered Sharksfin Dumpling.

Sharksfin Dumpling. 90php.

We were both surprised at how yellow it was when served. We joked that it might have Hepa. It tasted okay, but for 90php I can name more than a handful of restaurants that serve better dimsum. 

I got Siomai Noodle Soup.

Siomai Noodle Soup. 130php.

Just like the sharksfin, this one tasted okay but not exceptional. But since I was hungry and wanted hot soup to warm my tummy, I had to make do with this. There was something weird as to how the dumpling in the soup tasted. It had this sort of after taste that I really can't pinpoint.

We also got Lechon Macau to share.

Lechon Macau. 240php.

We thought that maybe the Lechon Macau would be their saving grace. But no, it was just like the first two dishes served, mediocre. It was crispy and cooked well, but most of the cuts were too fatty. After just a few pieces of this, Kim put down here utensils and stopped eating. Umay agad. For me it was okay that it was fatty since I love fatty foods but it was how oily it was that ruined it for me.

Aside from the food, the place also gets a thumbs down from us. Tables and chairs were really cramped against each other. And service was very slow. I understand that there are a lot of customers during Sunday dinner time, but they should really be prepared to cover all tables. It wasn't the wait staff's fault though since they seemed courteous enough.

To sum it all up, this was a pretty substandard Chinese dining experience for us. The prevalent theme for the night was we could have gotten better value for our money at some other place for each of the dish we ordered.

Flavours of China

2/F SM Cityh North EDSA, The Block

North Ave., Quezon City

(02) 442-0030

https://www.facebook.com/flavoursofchinaph