Yummy Adventures

December 25 marks my favorite day of the year, because not only is it the birth of our Savior, it’s also my favorite cousin’s birthday, and when my motherside relatives get together and eat Christmas dinner together! I love it when I meet my very young cousins ( I’m the oldest, sigh ) as they run around, joke around, and well, the kid in me comes out as I do the same. Hahaha!

We’d eat Chinese food every year, as it’s our default favorite food, coming from our roots, and well, Chinese food is just the best pig-out food ever. For the previous years, we’ve tried various restaurants like Emerald Seafood Restaurant, Malate Tea House, and that Chinese resto in Pan Pacific Hotel ( which I could not quite remember the name of ), and this year, we’re trying out Sanly Seafood Restaurant.

I thought Sanly was quite familiar to my ears ( or my memory ), perhaps one of the food blogs had featured about it already, and my biggest regret for the night was not bringing my DSLR camera ( ok, you’ve got me, I am absolutely a DSLR dependent, I take sucky pictures with P&S sob ), because it was a great place. Situated along Roxas Boulevard, as we entered the restaurant, the ambience was light, and classy. I immediately liked it when I first stepped in, hoping the food would be great as well! Haha!

On to the food we got!

First dish that was served was the Missua Guisado. As a pleasant substitute to the Chinese Birthday Noodles, this dish was beyond delicious, topped with sliced scrambled eggs, the ever-present colored quailed egg, and the yummy, yummy missua! I love, love missua, and whenever it’s Chinese New Year, I binge eat this. This was very flavorful, and it had lots of shrimp, and meat in it. Very very good.

The second dish that was served must be everyone’s ( and alot of people’s for that matter ) favorite : Cold & Hot Cuts. “Cold” consisted of the crunchy Jellyfish ( that I just cannot get enough of ), Gelatine Pork, that was really cold as I ate it, but it was just so flavorful, and perfect when you add a bit of red hot sauce i it! “Hot” consisted of the Sanly Fish Fillet, which I mistakenly took for Sweet and Sour Pork, and Diced Chicken, which flavor boosted of sesame oil. From the usual cold cuts serving, this was definitely more filling, and almost an generous appetizer for the main dishes that followed! Thumbs up, definitely!

Next, we had soup. This was called 3 Treasure Fish Lip’s Soup. The soup was very similar to sharksfin’s soup, but well, we were trying to figure out what the three treasures were. It had very thin strips of sea cucumber, fish, and well, mushroom? Heehee. The soup was delicious when paired with a bit of black wine vinegar and chili, and my sister commented that she tasted something watery at the end of every sip.

The next dish was the real comfort food of all. Most restaurants would scrimp whenever they’d serve shrimp ( thinking uber expensive tempura served at Japanese restaurants ) but the Shrimp with Chili Sauce served at Sanly was definitely hefty in servings. The deep-fried shrimps were absolutely fresh and “meaty”, as I definitely enjoyed eating alot of this! The chili sauce was just sweet chili sauce, so it was kid-friendly. Overall, I name this the pig-out seafood this Christmas dinner. Whoever pigs out on seafood? I’m definitely ordering this when I eat here again. The taste’s not the wow-est, but it definitely was comfort food at its best!

The next dish served looked like a pie, so I immediately asked what it was. It was Fried Taro Duck. Taro on top, with a thin layer of duck at the bottom ( as the crust, perhaps ), deep fried together. This was soft, and crunchy in one. The Taro was soft and still a bit moist, while the duck was very crunchy. Paired with hoisin sauce, it wasn’t so oily ( but it was, by a bit ), it pretty much seemed like an interesting snack as a quick recess from all the food that we ate!

Oh my. The Steamed Snapper, I declare, was the best dish of the evening. All-fresh, flavor’s just right, and the fish was just so…errr…might I say fresh again? I love eating fresh seafood, and this one just hits jackpot. Enough said. And I’m not even fond of seafood! I love this!

The Fried Stuffed Chicken was definitely yummy ( notice how I am raving about everything? I really was happy about what I ate! ). The crunchy chicken skin that was tamed down by the sauce was really something tasteworthy, while as you sink in your knife into the dish, you also get chicken meat, as well as stuffed rice in it. Stuffed, glutinous rice that was just everyone’s favorite but mine ( my sister, and my mom are huge fans of this dish ). I enjoyed the chicken more, as I was getting full, and well, I was always told to avoid rice if I wanted to eat more - such a glutton! Hahaha!

Season Vegetables With Garlic, surprisingly, also got a good nod from me, considering I’m not fond of vegetables. A mix of taiwan pechay’s stems, asparagus, cauliflower, button mushrooms, young corn, and another kind of mushroom ( the black one ) sauteed in browned ( and crunchy ) garlic, I was able to appreciate the asparagus, button mushrooms, and that other kind of mushroom. “That other kind of mushroom” was gummy, and juicy at the same time - that made the dish a clear winner to me!

“YUMMY!” was all my sisters could say when I asked them about the Fried Sesame Oil Crabs served. I’m not the biggest fan of crabs, but I eat them anyway, and the yummy thing about crabs are, well, because they’re crabs. They’re yummy because they’re crabs. Flavors do not necessarily come in the meat, as always ( and in any resto, for that matter ) , so it was really helpful that the dipping sauce - soy sauce with vinegar, with lotsa garlic, was a good add-on to this dish.

Oh, on to dessert. My favorite Almond with Fruit Cocktail ( comes a close second to Mango with Sago ) , was just as good. *winks*

To top things off, their special Hopia, was really special. Flaky, flaky goodness outside, and really soft, and hot mongo inside! This is quite perfect, in my opinion. Sweet enough to balance off all the food that we ate, but I don’t think I could quite finish a big hopia! I only managed to eat half of it.

Overall, I love Sanly Seafood Restaurant! From ambience to food, it was really good. I’d come back with my family for perhaps, lunch, in this restaurant. It’s one of those good Chinese restaurants that do not just offer good Chinese good, one thing that I might add as one of the restaurant’s qualities is their being able to offer good, Chinese comfort food, something that I’d be happy eating slowly, but enjoying every bite of it!

…and, oh hey, Happy Birthday to my handsome cousin Ken! Still a baby boy, growing up so fast!

Contact Details:
Sanly Seafood Restaurant
Boulevard Mansion 1442 Roxas Blvd., Ermita, Manila, Philippines
Telephone : (632 ) 521-0824; 524-9697

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 6:52 am and is filed under Asian, Chinese, Pigging Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.