tradition Archives - Between Bites - Bites of Food, Travel and Lifestyle

October 21, 2009 by Janey

“13” for most is an unlucky number. It’s just the opposite for my mom. She claims that “13” is her luckiest number. She was born on the 13^th of October. Incidentally, this is the same birth date as her mom.

Bar One’s music lounge was where we wanted to celebrate the night –live band music and drinks in a not so crowded place. It’s been the family’s favorite hangout venue as of late. Tap Room of Manila Hotel just feels too far nowadays. Since the bar was in Crowne Plaza, mom decided to stage her birthday dinner in one of the restaurants in the hotel. The choice happened to be Xin Tian Di.

Crowne Plaza Manila is located in Ortigas Center, which is at the heart of the 2^nd business district in the Metro –next to Makati. It is quite near Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE/Tektite). The hotel offers fine hotel restaurant choices in Ortigas, from casual dining to 24-hour room service and in room mini bar. The restaurant list includes its international buffet restaurant – Seven Corners, while Chinese specialty dishes are whipped up every lunch and dinner at the famous Xin Tian Di, which also has private function rooms and meeting rooms.

There was a bit of hesitation to eat at Xin Tian Di. I’ve already eaten here on a business lunch with AFC during the Philippine Cable Convention. Although I was satisfied, I wasn’t too eager for a repeat. My gut instinct was right. Service is usually adequate here but not that night.

On the Table

Assorted Barbeque Meat PHP 860

What better way to start a Chinese meal but with “cold cuts.” Cold cuts platter included assorted barbequed pork and chicken meat, jellyfish and slices of century eggs. It was served with ginger garlic sauce.

Salted Fish Rice PHP 540

The salted fish fried rice is a typical Chinese fried rice peppered with dried salted fish and a dash of fish sauce. Xin Tian Di’s version was aromatic and appetizingly good.

Tenderloin Beef with Goose Liver PHP 1350

Tenderloin beef was cooked just right. Broccoli was crunchy and retained its vibrant green color. There was generous helping of foie gras, which was mouthwateringly excellent –rich flavor and was such an ideal partner for the tenderloin. The leftover was my lunch the next day and it was still pure goose liver bliss. Mmm-mm! Delectable!

Chicken Lemon Sauce PHP 540

Tender chicken meat glazed with a beautifully yellow lemon sauce, which my sister Joanne found a tad bit too sour. This was the least popular on the table.

Seafood Char Teow PHP 420

Xin Tian Di also has a separate menu for Malaysian/Singaporean dishes. Char Kway Teow literally translates to stir-fried rice cake strips, which is a popular flat rice noodle dish in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore –usually prepared in hawker stalls. The noodles are stir-fried with soy sauce, chili, prawns, bean sprouts, Chinese sausage/chorizo, eggs and chives.

We initially ordered Char Kway Teow that was supposedly served with chicken but 15 minutes later, the wait staff approached the table to say that our order was changed to seafood since the chicken wasn’t available. I inquired why it was changed without prior notice –to which the wait staff can’t give an answer. Instead she gave a haughty response, “I’ll shoulder the extra charge.” I explained to her properly that it’s not the extra charge that was the contention –it was that the dish wasn’t what we actually ordered and we would’ve appreciated the advice especially there’s a change in price. In the end, I still opted to pay for the dish with quite bigger hesitation now to return.

Fresh Buko PHP 270

Never had fresh coconut juice this overly expensive and there’s nothing special to it –unless it gives me superpowers to able to fly then I don’t mind adding a thousand bucks to the price tag.

Crispy Baby Squid PHP 300

The crispy savory baby squid was perfect accompaniment for any cold beer.

Xin Tian Di serves delicious Chinese fares for the usual exorbitant hotel restaurant price (our bill was nearly 5K with only 3 main dishes). With that upscale price though, satisfaction should be expected but there are hits and misses in the dishes –inconsistency that you might think twice spending money on. Particularly didn’t like the fact that they went ahead and changed the Char Kway Teow order without giving us any fair warning.

Xin Tian Di Restaurant

4^th Level Crowne Plaza Galleria Manila

Ortigas cor. Asian Development Bank Avenues

Ortigas Center, Quezon City, Manila.

(632) 623 7222

Xin Tian Di Album

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One Fun Saturday Night

September 22, 2008 by Janey

Saturday, Bubba spent most of the day attending his medical appointments –one was with his ortho doctor in Cardinal Santos and the other with his allergologist in Makati Med. I spent my afternoon cooking for the potluck dinner with the “berks.” That dinner idea started when we attended Ann and Made’s surprise birthday party for Dru and Eric last September 13. Since Bubba and I have been attending pua tiong chiu dinners lately, we suggested that we do one with friends. They were game with it so the Saturday dice-throwing get-together happened.

I cooked pasta (I’m sure Bubba is so sick of), curry rice and choco crisp. I need to extend my menu list or else I’d be cooking the same stuff over and over again. Ann cooked Buffalo wings, which were delicious and had crispy skin on it. There were a lot of food on the table –Heaven’s pork bbq with a delish sauce, lumpia shanghai, king prawns with cheese and herbs, and Razon’s halo halo.

I asked everyone on the table if they’re interested to play Laser Tag. Eric played the game at Market Market and we are planning a Laser Tag get-together this coming weekend. I cannot wait! Dinner made everyone full. While the table is still being fixed for the dice-throwing game, Eric shared their photo activity at Bohol that we tried to duplicate. It was really fun. Each couple had their idea of the “double” shot.

Around 9pm, the dice-throwing game ensued and this was where everyone was laughing hysterically. From the onset where Made had to call her mom to verify the rules of the game to Eric calling his mom to revalidate. That was so cute. Made, Buch and Marie gathered a lot of ang paos (red money envelope). Buch actually started slow with no wins but came out as the biggest winner of the night. Dru had to check the rules on pc, 2 flights of stairs up, twice. Jim got 4 (fours), which qualified him the top prize. Jim had to go up two deck of stairs to check too. We played a joke on him, faking that Buch actually got 6 (six) thus snatching the top prize from him. Everyone had to act and Buch had to roll one dice to make the sound. Jim believed it. I really doubled over laughing –my mascara making a mess on my face.

The dice-throwing game finished past 10pm. A poker game followed afterwards and boy was I happy! I haven’t played in 2 years!!! With 9 of us playing, with 4 re-buys, we finished around 2am. Eric won first place, with Dru playing the last hour on Eric’s behalf. Placed a few bad calls and folds, but I won second place by a hairline.