Filipinos love Chinese food because the taste and food comes very close to Filipino cuisine like fried rice, fried noodles, roast or barbecue chicken or pork and lots of other sweet, salty and garlicky food. It's quite an effort for the residents and office workers of Makati to go all the way to Binondo (Chinatown) just to have their Chinese food. With the growing demand of Chinese food in Makati, Hong Kong Roast Food Express (HKR) opens its doors at Bagtikan St. in Makati to make Chinese food within the Makati people's reach.
One can quickly notice this as they enter HKR.
The owner, Mary Chan, have been travelling frequently back and forth from Hong Kong and China just to make sure the food she serves are of quality. Mary studied Hotel & Restaurant Management at the Dominican College and was also trained by Chef Gene Gonzales, director of Center for Asian Culinary Studies, when she was still a student.
The menu of HKR includes everything that Filipinos love in Chinese cuisine like asado, noodles, yang chow fried rice, etc.
Dine-In Menu of HKR
They also offer special promos and menu to fit the Filipino lifestyle of having afternoon snacks and of searching for something new.
HKR's Promo Menu and Special Offers
Usually, I don't like ordering drinks to lessen my sugar intake but I was interested to try their Milk Tea with Black Pearls just to know the difference of their milk tea from the other milk teas in Metro Manila. The milk tea is not quite sweet which fits my taste and the milk has a strong flavor. For the black pearls, it's quite soft and there's a chewy center. If you like very chewy pearls, these are not the chewy ones. The texture is like the pearls inside mango sago.
Milk Tea with Black Pearls
The first dish that came out is Siomai. It is still quite hot when it came out. The skin of the siomai is not soggy which is good. The meat is firm and not oily which makes it really yummy in every bite.
Siomai
The Yang Chow Fried Rice came out next. The yellow color of the rice gives a hint that it was fried with salted egg. The wonderful smell of the egg mixed with asado makes one want to attack it right away.
Yang Chow Fried Rice
Asado (also known as Chinese-style barbecue pork) is one of the best-selling dishes of HKR. The recipe for this was learned by Mary with her chef in Hong Kong and Shenzhen to make sure that they perfect the recipe. The meat of their asado is quite fat which I think is something that they should improve on. The taste is sweet, salty and smokey which is how asado really tastes. No need to put on soy sauce since it's already quite flavorful.
Asado
The Roast Chicken that came out next smells really good. I'm not sure what they have put inside their chicken but you can smell the herbs that they've used in it. The taste complements the smell and the meat is quite soft and tender which can easily separate with the bone.
Roast Chicken
Beef Hofan (flat noodles) is one of my favorite Chinese dish. Their beef hofan is not salty and a little crisp because of the bean sprouts. It's something one can eat without any dimsum or other viand and feel happy for the whole day.
Beef Hofan
The next dish is actually a very unique and HKR's special dish called Black Chicken Sesame. Black chicken is known to be used by the Chinese to make medicinal soup for those who are weak and for mothers who have just given birth. As a Chinese, it's my first time to see black chicken cooked as a viand and not as soup. The chicken is actually quite good except it has many bones and little meat.
Black Chicken Sesame
Beef Curry Noodles came out with its strong curry aroma filling the restaurant which made people from the other tables look at our side. The noodles were cooked al dente. The curry is not spicy but flavorful which fits those who dislike spicy food.
Beef Curry Noodles
For dessert, we had Coffee Jelly and French Toast.
The coffee jelly has a very strong and quite bittersweet coffee taste. The creamy top gave a smooth feeling and added sweetness to the jelly. It gave me a little bit of caffeine rush that gave me additional energy to do my other activities for the day.
Coffee Jelly
The French Toast is my favorite out of everything that I had. It's french toast with a surprise center that tasted like a fusion of custard and salted egg. When I asked Mary what's inside, she said that it's a secret so it was quite a challenge for me to guess what's inside.
French Toast
HKR is located at 7467-C Bagtikan St. San Antonio Village, Makati. It also delivers to the Makati area. For orders and seat reservations call (+632) 5537846 or (+632) 9847760. Add them on Facebook with email
hkroast@yahoo.com and Twitter with hkroast_makati.
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