A Peony thing happened on my way to lunch

MANILA, Philippines – The trouble with eat-all-you-can buffets is, well, you’re forced to eat all you can (often more than you can) if only to get back every precious centavo that you blew on this gastronomic indulgence. Wanna get your money’s worth — and more?

A Peony thing happened on our way to this eat-all-you-can lunch recently. Concocting epicurean visions of Chinese food and burping all the way to the Peony Garden of the Manila Pavilion, we were delighted to find out that its eat-all-you-can lunch promo would have us eating all we could till we said die — or diet! — because the food offerings were just so many and so yummy!

Take this (we did!): 14 kinds of dimsum, four kinds of soup, 10 main courses, seven rice and noodle dishes, and three desserts, with bottomless iced tea. All that for only P700 — net/person!

“Despite the recession, we want to create something affordable,” says Ho Kok Fai, Manila Pavilion director of food and beverage with a hearty smile.

Surely, Peony Garden’s eat-all-you-can lunch promo appeals to both the heartstrings and the purse strings. So toothsome is the dimsum menu. Hold your breath — but not your appetite — now: pork dumplings with black mushroom, steamed asado bun, porridge with pork and century egg, deep-fried salad prawns, glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf, steamed chicken feet with black beans, deep-fried sesame balls, deep-fried taro puffs, pan-fried radish cake, deep-fried sesame prawn rolls, steamed spareribs with plum sauce, steamed scallop dumplings, steamed fried fish balls, and steamed crystal prawn dumplings.

You can opt to have just the dimsum a la carte for only P150-P250 per order, but why settle for one when you can have it all (like we did)?

Care for some soup first before you plunge into the main course(s)? You can have vermicelli wanton with Chinese cabbage or the good old reliable hot and sour soup or asparagus with minced corn in thick soup or seafood bean curd soup. Of course, if you’ve got such a soup-er appetite, you can have all four!

Did we say bean curd? Yes, bean curd — a low-calorie food of Chinese origin with little fat and tons of iron — is a well-loved ingredient in Chinese cooking.

You’ll love the bean curd even more at Peony Garden.

“Our bean curd is homemade,” Ho Kok Fai assures us. “It’s a signature dish at Peony Garden.”

He hastens to add, “We focus on flavors and quality of ingredients. Our seafood is delivered fresh daily. We don’t use MSG (monosodium glutamate) for cooking. You know there’s MSG in your food if your tongue suddenly feels dry.”

Now, are you ready for the main course or courses?

We had everything on the main course menu delivered piping hot and fresh to our table of three people with thrice as much appetite. Eat your hearts out (while we eat to our hearts’ content)! First on the list is the soya chicken that’s soaked in soya and then baked. Another chicken dish that won’t cost you an arm and a leg is the deep-fried boneless chicken legs with Thai chili sauce — it’s a sure winner, you don’t need a Thai breaker.

You wanna rib? Then rib it up with Peony Garden’s deep-fried spareribs with homemade honey sauce and deep-fried spareribs with salt and pepper. You can have your spareribs according to your desired degree of spiciness — anywhere from pleasantly mild to fiery hot you’ll probably need to call the fire department to douse your tongue.

An a la carte order of spareribs made of imported beef from Australia costs P500. No need to do the math as you can clearly see how much savings you’re making if you order the buffet with the spareribs and a lot more for only P700.

For something lean but mean, try the fish dishes — deep-fried fish fillet with sweet and sour sauce and steamed fish fillet (sea bass) with black beans sauce and just the right spicy bite to it.

A pork dish worth pigging out on is the braised eggplant with minced pork.

But don’t forget to eat your vegetables, like your mother used to nag you. Have some of the tried-and-tested stir-fried seasonal vegetables with minced garlic.

Want more of that bean curd with that down-home goodness? Have some Ma Pho bean curd with minced pork and the stir-fried bean curd done country-style.

While in Chinese banquets the rice is served last, you can order your rice — and noodles — along with the dishes on the buffet at Peony Garden. All rice, please! There’s the fried rice with salted fish or the familiar yang chow fried rice, garlic fried rice or steamed rice (if you want it plain and simple).

Peony has got oodles of noodle dishes, too, like its shredded pork with Szechuan vegetables in rice vermicelli soup, braised efu noodles with mixed meat or stir-fried egg noodles with soy oyster sauce. They’re much like the time-cherished pancit canton we grew up with.

To sweeten the deal, the dessert menu consists of assorted fresh fruits, black jelly with longan, and mango sago.

Now a regular lunch offer at Peony Garden, the buffet menu is changed every three months, with only the dimsum menu as staples.

To discourage wastage, leftover food will be charged accordingly.

Leftover? No way! Probably the only thing you’ll leave on your plate is the fish bone or a toothpick.

It’s a Peony tale you’d love to share again and again and again!

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Peony Garden is located at the third floor of the Manila Pavilion on UN Avenue, Manila. For reservations, call 526-1212 local 2303.