What’s new in Choi City

Patrons that frequent their favorite restaurants often ask the management what new dishes are available for their dining experience. In Chinese restaurants, the list of food items seems to be endless because the repertoire of Chinese dishes has reached about 50,000 dishes, and more dishes are being discovered every year.

Chinese chefs had 5,000 years to practice their arts with the nobility and some rich patrons often demanding something new for the pleasure of their guests. Even in times of famine, things that were considered unedible because they could be poisonous were new additions to the dining table. For example, in Cambodia, during the Khmer Rouge rule, food was in short supply and desperate people tried anything. And today, children catch giant spiders like the tarantula, drown them in water and fry them in butter and consider them a local fast food item!

Your favorite food columnist was invited to lunch with Charles Lim and the The FREEMAN’s Lifestyle Executive Editor Mayen Tan to taste some of the latest food offerings from Choi City Seafood Restaurant (South Arcade, Banilad Town Centre, Banilad, phone #239 0999).

Appetizer was the Chilled Live Sea Mantis, adapted from Japanese cuisine because in old China, nothing raw was consumed for fear of pestilence. Even water was cooked... boiled and the flat taste of boiled water has led to the culture of tea. This crustacean is in the list of my most favored sea creatures and it is usually charcoal broiled and served with a lemon butter sauce. But this time, it was probably dipped in very hot water for a few seconds and served sashimi style, complete with wasabi and premium soy sauce.

Soup was very satisfying: Whole Pumpkin Curry Seafood Soup and portions of the pumpkin are scooped out when serving. Often, the usual choice for the serving bowl is winter melon (bantiyong in Cebuano), said to be extremely nourishing.

Main courses were the following: Steamed Live Crabs with Glutinous Rice, Fried Live Lapu-Lapu with Soy Sauce, Roast pigeon and Birthday Misua. The fat juicy crabs sat on a bed of glutinous rice mixed with Chinese sausages. During the season of Lent, with abstinence, avoid the bottom which also has the delicious drippings from the crabs during the steaming process. But that is food wasted!

Live fish are usually cooked steamed and to the Cantonese, cooked al dente with some blood still remaining in the ribs of the fish. This is unfortunately unacceptable to many Cebuanos.

 Roast pigeon brings back to memory by the time when we farmed pigeons in commercial quantities. We even marketed it to Metro Manila until the demand dropped when the Filipino-Chinese no longer ventured out to parties because of the threat of kidnapping. Not many Filipinos appreciate this expensive delicacy. There was an added problem on what to do with the culled pigeons because the meat was as tough as tennis balls. It even bounced like a ball!

Birthday Misua was served to honor the birthday celebrators, Charles Lim and Mayen Tan, and our banquet table was serenaded by the service staff of Choi City Seafood Restaurant who sang birthday songs in five languages. I really do not know why the choice of noodles is misua instead of the regular pancit noodle, but misua is said to originate from Fujian province and many Filipino-Chinese families here have roots in Fujian province.

Dessert was the White Chocolate Tartlets with Mango Tidbits with the Melon Sago.