Cycle 16 – Item 148

Post 5,627

2 (Mon) June 2025

Deep-Fried Crispy Cod Fish with Supreme Fish Sauce

3.0

at Li Li

(New Coast Hotel Manila)

-Malate, Manila City, Metro Manila, Philippines-

with the Family

Triumphant Return to the Philippines: Day 4 of 5

• • Day 1 (16.145 Alex’s Fried Chicken)
  • Day 2 (16.146 Set D-2: Sizzling Burger Patties)
  • Day 3 (16.147 Pork Adobo)
  • Day 4 (16.148 Deep-Fried Crispy Cod Fish with Supreme Fish Sauce)
  • Day 5 (16.149 Chicken Adobo with Rice)

In the Philippines!  First time since we bugged out during the pandemic in 2020, exactly 5 years ago tomorrow (see 11.147 Bulgogi). The schedule is packed, including stops in BGC, Anilao, and Malate.

BREAKFAST

DIVING

As yesterday, the trio of Hahm boys went diving together.

IZ is now a certified PADI Open Water diver!

HOTEL

In the afternoon, we shuttled back to Manila and checked into the New Coast Manila Hotel – originally the Hyatt when I’d first moved to Manila in 2014 (see generally 5.331 Certified Angus Beef Rib-Eye Steak), then New World in 2015, then New Coast in 2020, soon to be LaVie – for our final night in town.

When I was living in Manila (before the Family moved to join me full-time), and they would visit me on occasion, we would walk across the street to the Hyatt/New World, or sometimes book a room there (see for example 6.360 Lobster, Maybe), and spend the day at the swimming pool, kinda like a staycation (see for example 6.044 Lobster in White Pepper Sauce).

SHOPPING

A visit to Manila wouldn’t be complete without stopping by Robinsons Place.   While living above the mall, initially in a studio from January 2014 (see generally 5.008 Chicken Pork Adobo) then a one-bedroom from February 2014 (see generally 5.054 Filipino Spaghetti) through June 2015 (see generally 6.176 Ricotta Cheese and Roasted Garlic Dear Darla Pizza), I walked through the building twice a day, every day, to to and from work.

The walkthroughs were reinforced by TERRP (see Try Every Restaurant in Robinsons Place), the very first Try Every project, in which I ate at all 85 restaurants in the mall (at the time), over the course of 239 days.

Tao Yuan, our favorite restaurant in Manila, went out of business sometime after we’d departed.   It boasts 52 posts – 36 of them in the context of TEITY (see Try Every Item at Tao Yuan) – the most of any restaurant in the history of GMTD, a record perhaps never to be beaten (our neighborhood jjajang myeon joint Shanghai has a shot with a current list of 35 (averaging 7 per year), but (hopefully) we’ll be moving out of Wirye in 2026, so probably not).   Our favorite dish of all time, hands down, unanimously, without any distant second place contender, was Tao Yuan’s lobster in white pepper sauce, a dish that I kinda invented (see 6.044 Slipper Lobster in White Pepper Sauce).

DINNER

For our final dinner in town, we went to Li Li, our second favorite restaurant in Manila – 24 posts.  In fact, we booked the hotel because of the restaurant.

Alas, the food was disappointing.  To our disappointment, the menu had been dramatically downsized to just 2 pages, and most of the dishes that we had grown to love were no longer available.  The dishes that we did order were mostly mediocre, only the fish rising to a competent 3.0.  Oh well.

A sad fall for a restaurant that was, in my experience, arguably the best Chinese establishment in Manila – Manila City, maybe not the entire Metro Manila, though I’ve never encountered any place that I would’ve ranked higher.  Over the course of just 24 visits, an astonishing 7 unique dishes were rated 4.0, and another 15 dishes at 3.5 (by comparison, Tao Yuan had 4 dishes at 4.0 and 18 dishes at 3.5 across 51 visits).

1. 6.046 Pan-Fried Egg Bean Curd, Scallop, Shrimp (4.0)
2. 6.150 Roasted Chicken Marinated in Garlic (4.0)
3. 6.211 Scallops with Broccoli (4.0)
4. 6.246 Tungpo-Style Braised Pork Belly (3.5)
5. 6.266 Spinach Soup, Scallops, Cod Fillet (3.5)
6. 6.276 Wok-Fried Diced Beef Tenderloin, Sweet Cashew Nuts, XO Chili Sauce (3.5)
7. 6.356 Steamed Egg White, Seafood, Crab Roe Sauce (4.0)
8. 7.064 Deep-Fried Golden Mushrooms, Dried Scallops (3.5)
9. 7.073 Chilled Mango Pudding (3.5)
10. 7.077 Deep-Fried Oolong Tea-Smoked Chicken (4.0)
11. 7.236 Yum Cha (3.5)
12. 7.327 Scallops with Broccoli (4.0)
13. 11.024 Yum Cha (3.5)

On the first night of our trip, our hotel was located across the street from Mitsokoshi, a Japanese mall that hosts a supermarket with Japanese products.  I’d bought a bunch of random booze, which I finished off tonight.

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