Brudder Jack turned 40 and to celebrate this momentous number, he treated us family to a feast fit for kings at Choi's Garden. Now, he and my sister Margie introduced Choi's to us a couple years ago at the culmination of Chinese New Year. Not being Chinese, we were unaware of the date, but noticed most of the diners were clad all in red. The great thing about eating in a place you've never eaten before is not knowing what to expect. The interiors were interesting. When you enter, you go through a walkway that made me feel like I was in the belly of a whale or some sci-fi movie. The second floor was decorated with 70s style chandeliers...it reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, for some reason...
And that fateful day, just as for Jack's birthday, we were all blown away by the quality of the food.
Choi's was started by an ex-owner of Gloria Maris and some other investors, and word on the street was that it imported its Peking duck straight from Hong Kong. Now that's a promise we wanted to see delivered. Strong words...
For Jacks big 4-oh, Margie asked her Chinese friend for recommendations, and this is what we got. We began with an assortment of appetizers. This one had, from left top: barbecued pork, tofu, roast chicken, seaweed and the last but not the least, suckling pig in the middle. It came with sauces of hoisin, spring-onion ginger and a sweet sour sauce. My favorite was the suckling pig with skin so crunchy you could cause the floor to shake by a single bite.
The next course were these deep fried crab claws in angel hair served with kani salad. The crab claws were full of meat and very succulent, but the whole thing got a little messy once I really began to eat it in earnest. The kani salad was refreshing to eat after the claw.
For long life, they ordered birthday noodles with lobster. Oh em gee.
For some reason, there was enough to go around and then some. Don't let this picture fool you, those lobsters were HUGE and the noodles never seemed to empty...so while some were working on this I opted to move on to the next dish:
This cute little present contained chopped broccoli and scallop and was just so darn cute to eat...for like 10 seconds. I don't what this alluded to when I was talking to Joe and how his eating habits of changed due to a certain er, procedure. Now, here comes the hot mess prawn salad in mayo. Oh, those prawns were so succulent, but damn, I was getting full...
As you know and have read, I am a new blogger and the reason why I haven't started earlier is because I always eat all the food before I can take a picture (but I'm getting better, I swear!). So I'm sorry but all the Peking duck was gobbled up and so was its second cousin, the fried duck bones. Alas, the huge hotpot of lapu-lapu and other ingredients I could see when I could finally peer over the edge of the bowl was not photographed either. Perhaps I was too satiated to photograph it...but all of those dishes were winners. Really.
You can imagine, after eating all this food, the words "A little grease never hurt anyone" were swirling in my distended belly and I was feeling a little overindulged. But came dessert, buchi and this simple concotion:
It was an almond flavored milk served with crushed ice, almond jelly and lychee. All of those greasy feelings: gone! How do they do that?
We family member tried to guess how much that whole meal was. Lobster, prawn, Peking duck, steamed lapu-lapu, crab claw, scallops...
Well, we were 15 people so I though it was about Php25,000.
Surprise surprise, Margie said it was only Php900 per head, making this grand meal only the bargain price of Php13,500!! Now that's what I call a sulit meal...
Choi's Garden
Anapolis Street, Greenhills
+632.727.7489
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