Cycle 5 – Item 68

 14 (Fri) March 2014

Stir-Fried Spinach

2.5

at Lugang Café

(Mall of Asia)

-Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines-

with ME, TL, MK, et al.

Lugang Café is a Chinese restaurant chain.  5 locations throughout Metro Manila, all in shoppings malls.  Hodgepodge menu, with items ranging in styles from Mandarin, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Cantonese.  Current ranking on TripAdvisor: 33 of 732 restaurants in Manila.

Flying back to Korea later tonight, I wanted roast duck noodle soup before getting on the plane., as per personal pre-flight protocol.

Alas, while Lugang Café offers roast duck, roast duck noodle soup didn’t appear on the menu.  With so many other options available, I didn’t bother to ask.

No matter, because I would’ve gone anyway.  The place had come recommended from TL.  When a Singaporean recommends a restaurant, when a Singaporean of Chinese descent recommends a Chinese restaurant, I’m not one to argue.

The food was okay.  The best dish of the evening was the spinach, stir-fried with garlic, perfectly cooked, perfectly balanced seasonings.  So simple, yet not easy to get it just right, as here.  My only regret is that it was spinach, which I generally find to be a rather pedestrian vegetable; I would’ve preferred gailan (“Chinese kale”) or kangkong (“water spinach”), even broccoli, but they were out of everything else.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN PHILIPPINES)