Food tasting at Tao Yuan

CEBU, Philippines - Tao Yuan Seafood Restaurant at J Center Mall (A.S. Fortuna St. Mandaue City) had its grand opening late last year. Invitations were sent to the various media outlets. But I could not make it at the time since it was my holiday break.

Last week, I joined Cookie Newman (of Sunstar), and Paul and Susan Calero to a dinner invitation from Chef Mike Guangco. The owner of Tao Yuan, Simon Wong, with Singaporean partners had a concept of combining the culinary skills of Hong Kong and Singaporean Chefs to create new dishes for the restaurant to serve to its select customers.

Tao Yuan opened in Malate, Manila in 2008 and expanded to four other areas in the Metro.

The opening of the Cebu branch is a collaboration of Simon Wong with a Cebuano Chinese businessman. The restaurant’s dining area can accommodate about 300 guests, with nine VIP rooms with sliding walls that can be opened to interconnect the rooms. Its existing arrangement with J Center Convention Hall allows the restaurant to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests or 1,800 in a cocktail setting. Restaurant specialties include shabu- shabu, dim sum and set menus.

Eight dishes were prepared for this food tasting invitation, and the menu was as follows:

1.         Drunken Suahe

2.         Scallop with Minced Vegetable Soup

3.         Steamed Lapu-Lapu with Chopped Chili

4.         Braised Stuffed Whole Dried Scallop with Ox Tongue

5.         Crab Rice

6.         Roasted Crispy Pork Belly

7.         Beef Tenderloin with Special Sauce

8.         Braised Fishmaw with Sea Cucumber

Live shrimps harvested from the sea were used, instead of the farm-raised prawn variety, since the former has better flavor. Chinese wine was used to put the prawns to sleep and Mei Kuei Lu Chiew (Rose Dew wine) was used instead or the regular cooking wine, Shaoxing Chiew. Once the alcohol is flambéed, the wine leaves a distinct flavor and after stir-frying the shrimps, the resulting dish is very tasty, with the essence highly concentrated at the shrimps head.

Your favorite food reviewer at this point was aware of the restaurant’s mission to create new dishes of Hong Kong and Singaporean origins and, with this on my mind, came the third dish, the Steamed Lapu-Lapu with Chopped Chili. Traditional methods use first-class soy sauce and ginger, but the use of chopped chili is definably Singaporean; and, to my surprise, the hotness was mild, merely enough to tickle your palate.

Braised Stuffed Whole Dried Scallop with Ox Tongue was served. The old recipes would call for the use of sliced canned abalone to complement the dish. But with abalone prices having gone exorbitant and sliced beef tongue looking like abalone (but with more flavors than abalone), ox tongue was a good alternative.

The Crab Rice followed, and the presentation was very similar to Hong Kong dishes, using varieties of Chinese sausages.

The Beef Tenderloin (with Special Sauce) was really tender and very succulent, which brought back memories to our regular family dish in my younger days, Beef Steak. Our beef steak was also tender, but only after several minutes of beatings with a meat tenderizer.

Braised Fish Maw with Sea Cucumber, a dish with an acquired taste because of the strong flavors of fish, came. It also stirred childhood memories in me, when Talisay was a place to swim and the seafloor was littered with sea cucumbers. With the exorbitant prices of sea cucumber today, it felt like I was viewing, excuse me, nuggets of gold!