Choi City’s feast for the Year of the Dragon

I HAVE always been fascinated by Chinese cuisine.

The enormous variety of Chinese dishes is overwhelming, probably much like the country itself. There are eight subdivisions of Chinese cuisine and the most popular is Cantonese, which is my favorite. Guangzhou, historically known as Canton, is the capital of Guangdong Province, renowned for its excellent cuisine. Cantonese heavily influences Hong Kong’s cuisine due to its proximity to Canton. And wherever in the world one travels to, there is always a Chinatown that offers Cantonese food.

In Cebu, fine restaurants that offer authentic Cantonese cuisine usually have imported Cantonese Chefs from Hong Kong. And the latest is Choi City Seafood Restaurant located in Banilad Town Center, the first provincial branch of the Choi chain of restaurants in Manila. The creative restaurateur behind Choi is Mr. Choi Tak Pui, a native of Hong Kong, who tirelessly brings the best of its Cantonese cuisine to his chain of Choi restaurants.

During the first anniversary celebration of Choi Seafood Restaurant, I had a taste of the Choi culinary offerings for the Year of the Dragon and the pleasure of meeting and getting to know the youthful sister-brother tandem of Jaclyn and Jay Tan. Jaclyn sits as general manager of the Cebu restaurant. Natives of Manila, they ventured into the restaurant business to give Cebuanos authentic Cantonese cuisine similar to the top Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong. Jaclyn, an economics graduate of the De La Salle University in Manila, gave up a lucrative career in banking to pursue their restaurant business. But before embarking into the business, she took up Culinary Arts and Technology, a two-year diploma course in the Center for Culinary Arts in Quezon City.

Executive Chef Siu Bing Keung who has been cooking since he was 14 years old, leads the culinary powerhouse behind the Cantonese cuisine in Choi Cebu. This seasoned chef has blazed a culinary trail of excellence in famous restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore and China and made a name for Choi Garden in Greenhills, Manila before assuming his post in Cebu. Sous chef He Jiu Jie, Dimsum chef Zhang Jun Rong and roasting chef Li Shao Hui ably assist him.

Cocktails that welcomed the guests immediately captured my discerning palate. I carefully selected a few of the items in the buffet spread, anticipating a nine-course sit down dinner. The Fried Shrimp Hakaw was exceptionally good, crunchy and moist steamed shrimp inside the fried dumpling. I picked on Fried Pumpkin, Chili Chicken with Salt and| Pepper and Taro Seafood Roll.

Dinner started with Choi’s famed Roast Layered Pork, a testament to Choi’s roasting expertise. It was tender and succulent with the skin evenly crisp. I usually squirm when I bite into pork fat but this was exquisite. The food attendant, carefully distributing the best morsels in every bowl, served Double-boiled Chicken with Shark’s Fin Soup. All the seafood dishes that followed were sumptuous— Australian Abalone with Sea Cucumber, Cold Prawn Salad, Squid Cake with Taiwan Pechay and Two-way Lapu-lapu, which was served with the fillet sautéed with broccoli and the bones deep-fried for the extra crunch. I couldn’t eat with my hands but the Crabs in Coconut Sauce were tempting. The Egg Yolk Pao with salted egg yolk filling tasted like yemas with a bit of saltiness stuffed in soft steamed dough. Mango Pomelo Sago with Ice Cream sealed a great Chinese feast. Kung Hei Fat Choi!