Yang Chow Dimsum Teahouse

The ground floor of Shopwise Libis is populated by eateries — restaurants and food stalls alike. We noticed the Chinese restaurant called Yang Chow Dimsum Teahouse almost as soon as it opened, wondered if it was any good but never really made an effort to find out. Then, sometime in 2009, Speedy’s sister treated the family to lunch there. That was when we realized what we had been missing. We really should have tried Yang Chow Dimsum Teahouse much earlier because the food was good.

A year or so ago, Yang Chow Dimsum Teahouse opened a branch along Marcos Highway in Antipolo, a stone’s throw from King Bee Chinese Restaurant which used to be the only authentic Chinese restaurant in the area. We’ve been to the Yang Chow Marcos Highway branch twice. The first time, we had a four-course meal (too bad I didn’t bring a camera). Last night, we went there so I could satisfy a serious craving for noodle soup and siopao. And, yes, I had a camera to immortalize the meal.

Speedy ordered beef noodle soup; I had beef and wonton noodle soup. It was extremely good noodle soup — the noodles were firm, the golden broth was rich and tasty, the amount of meat and wontons, although not that generous, was sufficient.

The siopao was another story. It wasn’t just extremely good — it was extremely good twice, maybe even thrice, over. It certainly exceeded our expectations and our expectations, considering our previous meals at Yang Chow, were quite high.

In Chinese restaurants in the Philippines, siopao usually comes in three flavors — bola-bola (meatball filling), asado (char siu pork filling with sauce) and “special” which has meatball, char siu pork, a wedge of salted egg and, occasionally, a generous slice of Chinese sausage. We had the “special” siopao at Yang Chow.

The bun was light, airy and slightly chewy. But as good as the bun was, there wasn’t much of it because the Yang Chow siopao had more filling than bread. Goodness, such a generous amount of meat inside! And Yang Chow siopao isn’t served with that generic sweet-salty brown sauce that most Filipinos fondly refer to as siopao sauce. No, oh no. At Yang Chow, siopao comes with two sauces that should be drizzled one after the other into the siopao before every bite.

The bill was PHP400.00. The current exchange rate is PHP43.9795 for USD1.00 so PHP400.00 is equivalent to USD9.09514.