Hap Chan Chinese Food

The restaurant is called Hap Chan. After attending mass, we went here for lunch. A few minutes after our arrival there was a power power outage. We were already sitting comfortably when the waitress approached and told us that their machine used to cook food was not available since it runs on electricity, so we decided to wait 5 minutes and see if everything will return back to normal. In Chinese restaurants they serve tea before a meal so we sipped on some light tea. We already finished the whole teapot and still, lights were off so we told the waitress that we'll just look for another place and thanked her for the free tea. Of course it was just a joke ^^. Moments later, power went back so we went ahead and placed our orders..

The drinks came up first we had lemonade, soya milk, iced tea and four seasons. Their lemonade lacks zest but I liked their iced tea. Here in the Philippines, iced tea is like the fast food drink of almost all chains. Their version was very unique, I am a tea enthusiast and I can really say that their iced tea is brewed from real tea leaves not from powder and I like it.

The drinks were followed by these:

From the top, starting from the left picture - breaded shrimp, sweet and sour fish fried rice, pork steak, tofu with sesame seeds and garlic broccoli. The breaded shrimp was different but delicious, breading had no bread crumbs and the shrimp is steamed, not fried! I don't know how they did it but it was really good! The pork sweet and sour fish and pork steak were also a taste of heaven, what I like about most about Asian food is the fact that nothing goes to waste. Even the littlest vegetable garnish to the scoops of "food sauce", everything is edible! Their fried rice was yummy, I definitely tasted butter and egg in it. There were bits of carrots, peas, corn and bits of meat in it. The steamed tofu is a winner, it's almost hard to scoop it out for it was softened to perfection! I also enjoyed the garlic broccoli. I love the taste of garlic and I never imagined it would go well with broccoli! They were all so good that I had seconds, here is what my plate looked like including the "aftermath". Haha.

For dessert we had - Buchi!

Buchi is a local term which is an equivalent for Japan's mochi or rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. It is covered with sesame seeds and has a bean paste filling, this one had sweet yam paste. It's the best buchi I had so far! We liked it so much that we ordered another bunch for take out - which I end up eating most of them, haha.

Shawarma Trippin'

One good thing about being Asian is that I have a wide selection of food. Asia probably has the most diverse food due to various cultural influences among other continents. It's really fun to try out a new dish everyday! Like when we went to this restaurant. Sorry, but I don't have the photo of the resto, I also failed to get the name. Talk about being a responsible food blogger. I'll keep that in mind next time. Anyway, this restaurant in Malate, Manila offers Arabian food. I personally love Arabian food mainly because most of the meat recipes are grilled to perfection, elliminating some of the fats and they use olive oil which is good for the body. The na'an or flat bread is to die for! An order gives you a stack and it comes with a lot of dipping sauces, mostly made out of bean paste and olive oil, and in one dip I think I tasted parsley and sour cream.

After a few minutes, the kebab platter came. Mmmm... chicken and beef kebab with roasted tomatoes, onions and lettuce. There were pickled vegetables as well.

It was heaven I tell you. The meat is super tender, it will literally melt in your mouth! The chicken is nicely done, so soft and flavourful. I just can't stop filling my mouth with these kebabs. I also realized how tasty onions and tomatoes are when roasted really good and since I had a few more na'an bread I came up with the idea of making my own shawarma. Ok, for the first try:

Sorry for the flashy part, I am using an old digital camera and navigating the settings was a headache. Anyway, I took some beef kebab and sliced it into small parts, laid it in the middle of the bread, topped with roasted tomatoes and lettuce on the left side and arranged the layered onions on the right side and oh, I forgot to mention that I smothered the bread with some of the dips. After gulping the whole thing down I reached for another bread and made a second one.

And again I apologize for the flash fail. Phew, I need a new camera. In my second serving I place a long beef kebab in the center, this time the na'an bread was smothered with some sour cream dressing. Placed the veggies at the side and in one minute, I finished the whole thing. I was so stuffed that I could barely breathe out my stomach. After a while the eggplant rice came and a bunch of chicken and beef shawarma... ooohhhh... I could die now. I'm in Paradise! I've never enjoyed eggplant and rice this much and the shawarma was so delicious.