The secret is out

MILLIE: I have a group of friends that I love to eat with and we call ourselves the “Why Not”gang. Why the “Why Not” gang? Because we never say no to food, and will try anything and do everything for a great meal.

Anything.

As in, go on a food trip to Singapore or Hong Kong or drive all the way to Tagaytay just to eat or hop from one restaurant to another in one night until we are completely satisfied. Burp! Believe it or not, my 87-year-old Pop joins us on some of these fabulous occasions, not just for the food, but also for the great laughs. Imagine our happy moments when we chance upon a real good and new find.

Recently, Wawi took us to a place he calls Secret Chinese Restaurant located near the Rockwell area. It is housed in a row of two-story apartments, and it doesn’t even have an exterior signage. One wonders how the place can be found and yet, to our great surprise, the restaurant was so packed, we could hardly get a table. We were lucky there was one at the far corner, but had to wait for more chairs to be brought in. By then, there was a queue outside the restaurant and more patrons were coming in, heading for the mezzanine floor. A couple patiently sat on the stairs while waiting for a table.

The interiors are bare and simple but clean; air-conditioned with a few electric fans to help cool the place. (It reminded me of a hole in the wall I tried in Shanghai at the height of the SARS scare. It was across the street from the Hilton Hotel, the local hotel staff told me about it. I was, unofficially, traveling with Ambassador Delia Domingo Albert, who was on an official visit, so I had wandered off to explore Shanghai by myself. The place offered delicious, home-cooked dishes and was so inexpensive, it left me lots of Yuan to spare for shopping!)

Anyway, back to our Secret restaurant find. The menu was a bunch of colored food prints bound together with the name of the dish printed in English and Chinese characters. It also had the number and price of the dish for easy order-taking. It seats about 40 people on the ground floor and we were told there were two more tables in the mezzanine. We noticed, though, that we were the only Pinoys around, as all the other diners were from Mainland China. We learned that the owners hail from Szechuan and Hunan provinces.

There were two young Pinay servers in casual attire and slippers efficiently and hurriedly waiting on diners.

KARLA:  It took a while for our orders to come but when they did, they were completely wiped out! The first order that came was the fried beans with chili, garlic and ginger, which everyone enjoyed, except when I bit into a chunk of ginger thinking it was garlic. Next one to arrive was the chili tofu, which was really, really good. It was the soft kind of tofu, which made the dish excellent. Lolo enjoyed it so much that we actually made an additional order after wiping out the first plate. Sadly, the second order never came so I guess we’ll just have to go back for it. Next came the gongbao chicken which reminds me of kung pao chicken. I think it’s the same but just pronounced differently depending on which region in China. The steamed fish head, which looked like the specialty of the house, was excellent and very spicy although it took a while to be prepared. The secret was that the fish head was really fresh. We even took before and after pictures of the fish head. One may help himself to endless first-class quality steamed rice portions.

The unique thing about this restaurant is that it is very simple and doesn’t aim to impress people with the ambience or plating styles, but basically aims to simply serve good and authentic home-cooked meals — and people keep coming back. So don’t be surprised if a server brings over a 1.5-liter Coke bottle without the sticker label containing chilled water instead of a waiter serving you water through a pitcher. Don’t be surprised if they say that they don’t have ice for your beverage, instead serve you a chilled can of soda with a straw. And don’t be surprised if instead of paper napkins, you’ll find a roll of toilet paper on the table. But they do have disposable chopsticks! Bottom line, it’s all about the food and authenticity.

MILLIE: My friend Luscious, who is not so fond of spicy stuff, may never go back but I would, to try other interesting dishes we did not get to try on the first visit such as hot and spicy pork, Chinese pizza, which looks like the onion cake; fried kangkong, hotpot eggplant, fried shrimp, boiled or fried steamed dumplings, pumpkin cake, to name a few.

The place is apparently doing so well, they took on the apartment next door, which is now undergoing some renovation. The meal was inexpensive compared to what we are used to. The total bill added up to P1,300 — for five of us. Mind you, our plates were wiped clean! I took a peek into the kitchen, which was clean, but not equipped with stainless-steel equipment like most restaurants. It had a long, tiled counter where all the burners were installed and looked efficient enough for the purpose.

We were told that the resto did have a name. It used to be called Top Spice but has recently been changed to Xiang Chuan Bar & Restaurant. 

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Xiang Chuan Bar & Restaurant is located at 6404 Camia St., Guadalupe Viejo, Makati (near Rockwell). For information, call or sms 0915-4252972, 0927-7876999, 0922-8698887.

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Send e-mail to milliereyes.foodforthought@gmail.com and karla@swizzlemobilebar.com. Find us on Facebook at Food for Thought by Millie & Karla Reyes.