Back at Lung Hin, Marco Polo Ortigas Manila

It's been a while since our last visit to Lung Hin but I can still vividly remembered how delicious everything was and the ambiance also added to the over-all wonderful dining experience that we had. It just made perfect sense to go back to Lung Hin during our anniversary weekend stay at Marco Polo Ortigas Manila. I know it's more customary to go for a nice romantic steak dinner to celebrate an anniversary but hey, who ever said you can't have Chinese food on a dinner date too?

Our dinner began with our personal choice of soup. Spinach Seafood Soup (Php. 330) for me and Hot and Sour Seafood Soup (Php. 295) for Paul. We love starting our meal with a bowl of soup to warm our tummies and prepare it for the feast ahead. My Spinach Seafood Soup was so packed with a lot of ingredients! Minced seafood, tofu and what I suspect could be egg white. It was so filling and yummy!



Paul also enjoyed his Hot and Sour Seafood Soup and said that it's one of the best that he has tasted so far. It has a mild spicy kick which was just enough to whet his appetite further.

We remembered ordering the Pan-Fried Radish Cake with XO Sauce (Php. 220) and enjoyed this immensely on our previous visit. Somehow this one was way too mild that we could hardly detect any strong XO flavor and the presentation was done differently too. Previously, the radish cake was mixed well with the chopped veggies and XO sauce but this time it was separated thus eating the radish cake alone made it quite bland. How I wish the Chef would go back to the old style as that was really really good.

I promised myself that I will refrain from ordering anything with salted egg for the next few months as I obviously had an overload of this in the Lion City. But...but... I gave in when I saw the Stir-Fried Squid with Mashed Salted Egg and Seasoning (Php. 440) on the menu and remembered that we also had this before and it was one of the highlights of our meal. True enough, I loved this once again and there were indeed no regrets for caving in. This alone would make a good meal together with a cup of rice for a quick lunch at Lung Hin. I love how the squid was so crispy and had a good bite and the salted egg sauce just perfectly complemented it without making it an overkill.

For our next dish, it was a toss between the Stir-Fried Crystal Prawns (Php. 1,680) or the popular Three Flavored Prawns (Php. 1,680). The master order taker recommended the latter as it's one of their newest dishes and so I took his word for it. One order gives you 6 huge-sized prawns covered in three types of sauces -- salted egg, blueberry and sakura.

To be honest, I loved the blueberry covered prawns but since I had one entire dish of the Stir-Fried Squid with Salted Egg, I just felt the Salted Egg Prawns tasted exactly like it. Meanwhile, the Sakura-flavored Prawns had a very mild flavor of mango or was it yuzu and ginger. I guess the plan was to give it a very oriental, east asian flavor profile but we made the mistake of taking the salted egg first which totally masked the intended flavor for this one. I suggest you try the Sakura first followed by the Blueberry and last the Salted Egg. Among the three, the blueberry-flavored prawns was the clear winner that evening. However, I'll probably skip this fancy dish next time and go with the Stir-Fried Crystal Prawns instead.

We gotta balance everything out with a veggie dish and I'm so happy to order the Stir-Fried Seasonal Hong Kong Vegetables in Garlic (Php. 465) it's the simplest veggie dish on the menu and one that I think will go well with all the other dishes too. The veggie was so fresh and I just love how they added in a generous amount of chopped garlic on top too. Really good!

Ideally, the best rice to go with our chosen dishes is just a cup of plain white rice but I was so excited to see that they have Seafood Fookian Fried Rice (Php. 780) which is my favorite type of Chinese fried rice so I just had to order that! It's a meal on it's own so it is definitely very filling. I loved how they were so generous with the toppings as you can really get a mouthful of minced seafood and veggies in every bite. Needless to say, we were so stuffed at the end of the meal.

To go with our delicious dinner, Paul had Marco Polo Ortigas' Earl Grape Iced Tea which was served in a very nice glass vessel together with a container of syrup allowing you to adjust the sweetness based on your liking. We had this back when we dined at Cucina and I remembered how good it was. Sadly, only Paul can enjoy this one for now as I have to stay out of caffeinated drinks.

Oh what an amazing meal and Lung Hin remains to be one of the best Cantonese restaurants in the metro for us with equally good and attentive service too.

*photos by Paul Ang

Check out Lung Hin at the 44th Floor of Marco Polo Ortigas, Meralco Avenue, Ortigas Centre, Pasig City. Call them at 720-777 to make reservations.