Chow Time: Saucy @ Ck

Want great tasting food?

Know what food you crave. With the food or dish properly done, your craving easily leads you to a satisfying meal. Coupled with the appropriate condiments, your chosen food provides a great tasting experience.

Is great tasting food expensive?

Not always. Just have to make your own culinary archive - a list of restaurants or food chains which best serve a certain dish or a reverse list of specialty dishes for each restaurant.  If you don't have such a list,  let us start with a very affordable and accessible food chain for this post.

Let's go to Chowking, a Philippine-based restaurant chain which combines Western fast food service style with Chinese food.  Certainly, you might have missed a good meal if you were not able to match the dish/food item-sauce combination below.

SIOPAO (Steamed Bun)   with  ASADO SAUCE and HOT SAUCE  

In the Philippines, the most popular snack of Chinese origin is the steamed bun Siopao.  Popular variants are Asado (barbecued pork-filled) Siopao and Bola-Bola (meatball with salted duck egg) Siopao. In turn, these are accompanied by two sauces - Asado Sauce and Hot Sauce.

A good tasting Siopao has a smooth texture and ,when eaten, is easily swallowed or does not make you choke ('mahirinan' in Filipino).  Of course, the Siopao filling must be tasty as well.

At Chowking, you can be adventurous in eating the Siopao.  With either the Asado Sauce or Hot Sauce, eat the Bola-Bola Siopao the traditional way - peel off the piece of paper at the bottom of the bun, make a small cut or incision in the peeled area and squirt the sauce inside the cut area.

If you love to experiment, cut the Bola-Bola Siopao into half.  For each half, take out the meatball filling. Place the Hot Sauce on the filling and  the Asado Sauce on the bun.  Now, you can both enjoy the sweetness of the Asado Sauce and the spicy sharpness of the Hot Sauce when eating your Siopao.

WANTON MAMI (Wonton Noodle Soup) with SIOPAO (Steamed Bun)

To make your steamed bun snack into a complete meal, you can pair the Siopao with noodle soup such as Wanton Mami.  Like the Siopao, there are several popular variants of Mami soups (Chicken, Beef, Wanton, etc.) which can match the steamed bun.

WANTON MAMI with CHILI SAUCE 

To spice up your noodle soup, make sure the Chili Sauce accompanies your soup (in this case Wanton). In other restaurants, Mami is accompanied by the Chili Garlic Sauce.

CHICHARAP (Crispy Prawn Chips / Kropek)  with  SPICY VINEGAR SAUCE

In the Philippines, great tasting food means having FUN.  This is the reason why Pinoys enjoy finger foods Pica-pica or Pulutan (appetizers depending on the occasion). The most simple and popular snack/finger food/appetizer is a saucer of fried salted peanuts (Isang Platitong MANI). A tastier option is crisp pork rind or pork cracklings Chicharon/Tsitsaron/Sitsaron which is served with cane vinegar and small chili pepper Siling Labuyo.

For the health conscious, prawn-flavored cracklings or Kropek is a popular appetizer.  This rectangular starch or tapioca-based appetizer which can be bought from street vendors in the Metro has been refined to a circular bite-sized Chicharap.

Chicarap or prawn chips can be eaten alone.  If you want some kicks, dip the chips into the Spicy Vinegar Sauce.  With the sauce, the chips deliciously melt in your mouth like creeping fireworks. For those with spice-sensitive tastes, make sure to have a full glass of water while dipping the chips into the sauce.  

LUMPIANG SHANGHAI (Ground Pork Spring Rolls) with SWEET AND SOUR SAUCE

Asian cuisine offer healthy options via several kinds of spring rolls. Such rolls are stuffed with bean sprout, sweet potatoes, bamboo shoots and/or turnips.  The rolls can be fresh or fried.  For the regular Juan who loves to eat meat, the rolls can also be stuffed with minced pork, chicken, beef, shrimp,  or even smoked fish flakes.

Predictably, the most popular meat-filled fried spring roll is Lumpiang Shanghai. It is made up of ground pork, minced onions, carrots and spices  with the mixture held together by a beaten egg. The mixture is placed in the spring roll wrapper and then fried.   Of course, the roll is appropriately dipped in Sweet and Sour Sauce.

YANG CHOW FRIED RICE with STEAMED SIOMAI (Dumpling) TOPPING 

Most Asian Countries and the Philippines have rice as the staple food. Thus, the region would have the most diverse rice preparation if not the best in the world - steamed, porridge, glutinous, desserts/cakes, sushi and fried. While steamed plain rice and Filipino garlic fried rice Sinangag dominate restaurants serving native Pinoy dishes, Yang Chow Fried Rice is a regular menu in authentic Chinese and Chinese-influenced restaurants.

At Chowking, fried rice including Yang Chow can be ordered with different steamed or fried toppings.  The most popular topping which can be bought on its own is steamed Pork Siomai, a traditional Chinese dumpling.

YANG CHOW FRIED RICE with TOYOMANSI AND CHILI SAUCE

With Pork Siomai toppings, the usual sauce which accompanies Yang Chow is Toyomansi or soy sauce with Calamansi (Calamondin or Philippine Lime). For Dine-in order, soy sauce and green Calamansi fruit are provided. Just have to squeeze the juice out of the fruit and place the desired amount of soy sauce Toyo to attain the desired  salty and sour taste levels.   

For take-out order, prepared sachet of  Toyomansi (soy sauce toyo with calamansi) is given. Again, if you want to spice up the dish, request for Chili Sauce. With the Toyomansi, add the desired amount of Chili Sauce.

YANG CHOW FRIED RICE with DIMSUM SAUCE

For the dumplings, a better alternative to Toyomansi is the Dimsum Sauce which has a balanced sweet, sour, salty and spicy taste levels. Dimsum Sauce has a sweetness level which is distinct from the Teriyaki sauce.

The above are just examples of appropriately matching the dishes and the sauces.  Although this post focuses on the available sauces at Chowking, the food chain also offers other affordable and good tasting dishes from soups, side dishes/appetizers, main courses, lauriat, and desserts.  The food chain has even two kinds of Halo-Halo - traditional Super Sangkap and Milky White.

Thus, it is good to know what food you crave for and how to properly eat the food.  Most important, the food must be AVAILABLE and ACCESSIBLE.  On a regular day, you would not want to go to Mt. Everest or Antarctica in order to have great tasting food.  You can just visit the nearest Chowking branch.




   Dishes/Sauces Created by
     Chowking