Cycle 5 – Item 24

29 (Wed) January 2014

Egg Fuyong with Scallops

3.0

at Mr Choi Kitchen

(Robinsons Place)

-Ermita, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines-

with LY and various Korean interns

Try Every Restaurant in Robinsons Place (8) (see also TERRP)

Back in 2011, when I first began working with WPRO, Mr Choi Kitchen was the site of my very first meal on my very first visit to Manila.  I recall thinking how awesome it would be to have such easy access to Cantonese-style roast duck, one of my all-time favorite dishes, which is virtually impossible to come by in Korea, and not that easy here either.  On that trip, I went back several times, in between and after meals, to get as much duck as I could before I left.

Egg Foo Young is a Chinese dish.  It’s an egg omelette.  Other components, such as veggies (e.g., bean sprouts) or meats/seafood (e.g., pork/shrimp), are mixed together and pan-fried, typically into a flat patty, often topped in some kind of brown sauce.  While the name is Cantonese – 芙蓉 (fu jung) = lotus flower, 蛋 (dan) = egg – the dish is generally regarded as an overseas Chinese creation, found mainly in British/American-Chinese restaurants.

One of the best items at Mr Choi Kitchen is the egg fuyong with scallops.  Not so much a patty as it is an orb.  And not so much egg as flour.  As such, the general impression is that of a ball cake containing tiny bay scallops and strips of carrot within.  But with the brown sauce, it’s kinda good.

I’m flying back to Korea tonight, just for the Lunar New Year holiday weekend, the first time going home since I’ve been here in Manila for the past 20 days – the longest that I’ve ever been away from my family.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN PHILIPPINES)