355 – On Tasting Taiwan: Triptych 64

First of all, I’d like to start introductory entry for 2023 by wishing everyone a meaningful new year ahead! 🎆🎆🎇🎇

I haven’t posted on this blog and its related social media presences for some time, so the recaps for the previous year will come at a later date. I still have several food posts lined up until the end of February – putting the 2022 recap around March, when most accounting firms in the Philippines end their fiscal years.

Furthermore, I’m sorry if I only like most of your entries over the past months until now. I’m usually on mobile so I can only like while on my phone, and I find it easier to comment when I’m using my personal laptop, i.e. on a full QWERTY keyboard.

Greetings, well-wishes, and apologies aside – let’s proceed with today’s triptych!

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Next to that of Singapore, Taiwanese cuisine is one of the more ubiquitous Asian cuisines here in the Philippines. Milk tea joints here all stem from boba tea shops that first emerged in the island nation back in the 1980s. Xiao chi (small snacks) also trace their origins to night markets found in the country off the east coast of China.

Restaurants serving Taiwanese food have popped up here in Manila throughout the years. The items they serve definitely stand out from Southern Chinese cuisine (which Filipino-Chinese or Chinoy cuisine takes pegs from) and Northern Chinese cuisine (which experienced a boom with the influx of mainland Chinese nationals working in offshore gambling).

These pictures of my previous forays to three Taiwanese joints were a product of scouring my Instagram archives from over the years. Thankfully, I managed to find three such instances – which this entry will expound on.

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I had this Garlic Broccoli and Salted Egg Prawn from Tien Ma’s Taiwanese Cuisine, which used to have a branch at the New Frontier Theater in Cubao. That branch sadly closed, and Tien Ma’s only has two locations left in Manila. True to its word, the salted egg sauce jived well with the plump prawns. Meanwhile, the broccoli – which I ordered following my practice of always including a vegetable dish – rounded out the savory taste of the prawns.

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This Fried Rice with Chicken Chop from Shi Lin at Trinoma sufficed for a quick dinner. I featured this in a cube post from 2017, which later influenced my decision to dine here. My late dinner at the joint, incidentally, came before Shi Lin announced a last call for dishes. Shi Lin did not scrimp on the ingredients for the fried rice – which had shrimps, eggs, and celery. The flavorful chicken chop, meanwhile, was conveniently sliced into strips for easy handling and eating.

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Lastly, I had this Seafood Roll Meal from Ersao Taiwanese Restaurant at its now-defunct SM Fairview branch. Ersao used to have a lot of branches in its heyday, until the pandemic forced it to downsize. This fried treat contained a mélange of seafood – crab meat, chopped shrimps, chopped squid and surimi (mashed fish meat used for fish balls). It’s best dipped in the accompanying garlic sauce as the latter cuts through the oiliness and fishy taste.

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That’s it for this triptych; until the next post!

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