Mall walking is an agreeable pastime during the rainy season because the exercise is a surefire way to ward off the rainy-day doldrums without getting soaked. For this purpose, the SM Mall of Asia is unbeatable with its kilometers of covered walking space. The only drawback to mall walking as a form of exercise is the temptation from the various food concessionaires at the mall. When you are tired and sweaty and dying for a snack or meal, the siren’s call of fattening foods becomes increasingly difficult to resist. You may realize, too late, that all the exercise and walking are for naught as you reel from an overdose of fried fatty food coupled with a sugar-saturated beverage.
Fortunately, at the SM Mall of Asia, you have the option of walking to Healthy Shabu Shabu where the food is – you guessed it – healthier than most.
Healthy Shabu Shabu serves the freshest food cooked Japanese style, where raw meat, seafood, and vegetables are cooked in a pot of hot broth by each diner and served with various sauces. When the boiling broth has become rich with the flavors of the various ingredients, noodles are added and served as a soup.
The restaurant is owned by Candy Hwang, a Korean national who counts shabu shabu cooking as one of her favorite methods of preparing food. "I am very thankful that I have a mother who served us healthy and good food," says Candy who shuns the use of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and is very particular about the freshness and excellent quality of the food served in her restaurants. "My philosophy is that I won’t serve anything that I cannot eat." Apart from being a franchisee of the more popular Mini Shabu-Shabu, Candy is set to open the Chosun Korean Café and Restaurant which has a "whole-day dining" concept. She describes Healthy Shabu Shabu, which opened on May 21 this year, as an "expansion concept" of Mini Shabu-Shabu. Expectedly, there is a wider choice of ingredients and the restaurant continues to gain a loyal following.
Candy Hwang considers the Philippines as a second home. She counts green mango with bagoong, sisig, shrimp sinigang, pinakbet and kare-kare among her favorite Filipino dishes. "Every country’s food is a reflection of its culture," she muses. "You can see the character of a country through it."
Why invest in the Philippines? "The Philippines has become a big part of my life. I studied here and lived here for 15 years," says the "restaupreneur" who holds a BS degree in management from the University of the East and graduated from the Masters in Entrepreneurship program of the Asian Institute of Management in July, 2005. "I am part of this place. I feel that if I cannot succeed here, it will be difficult to succeed elsewhere," shares the pleasant and confident woman who is married to a Chinese-Filipino. Indeed, like the shabu shabu broth, our culture, is perked up by the various influences that enrich it.
Candy Hwang, too, has imbibed some of the best traits of the Filipinos as well. As she solicitously added the carefully chosen ingredients to the pot of vigorously boiling broth, she was the embodiment of Filipino hospitality at its very best.