A Rave Review of 101 Hawker Food House

In this post, we'll start with the verdict- 101 Hawker Food House in Makati is one of the best finds in recent times. True story.

101 Hawker Food House, Hawkers for short, is a little eatery along Urban Avenue in Makati. They serve Singaporean food at very fair prices considering they're in Makati where nomz are usually priced a bit higher compared to others (save for the jollijeeps).

Just last week, I blogged about Shiok, a Singaporean restaurant in Global City. Similarly, Hawkers is also a hole-in-the-wall Singaporean restaurant that caters to the after-work crowd of Makati (Shiok is for Global City yuppies). They also have similar items on the menu, with Hawkers having a bit more dishes to choose from.

Shiok Lah!

At Bonifacio Global City's Stop Over parking lot (the one beside Shell gasoline station) is a tiny restaurant with a brightly lit sign that reads Shiok. It caught my eye one night as I walking from the car to the nearby Yogurt Nation to get some fantastic ube yogurt. 

A dinky outdoor parking lot seemed to be an unusual place for a restaurant, most specially because a few steps away is a complex of eateries of all kinds. I then resolved to eat there when I had the chance to see what they had to offer. That chance came up last week after work when I was in the area looking for somewhere to eat and remembered this little place.

Shiok, it turns out, is a Singaporean-Chinese restaurant with a menu that caters to office yuppies around the area looking to have an affordable dinner somewhere close by before heading home. Skimming through the menu, I find out that the prices aren't as cheap as I was expecting for a tiny eatery in the middle of a parking lot. No matter, I wanted to try their nomz anyway.

Modern Peking Duck of Singapore - Sinfuly Delicious

Another great find on my recent trip to Singapore, Modern Peking Duck, can be found in most food courts of the big name malls along Orchard Road. The main draw of these little stalls is obviously their Peking duck, but also on their menu is a rather sinful suckling pig.

Peking duck and suckling pig sold in a fast food stall? For most of us, Peking duck and suckling pig are usually reserved for special occasions. The last time I remember having really good suckling pig was years ago at some fancy-schmancy Chinese restaurant where we were celebrating a cousin's graduation. In Singapore, these are just food court nomz. Then again, most mall food courts in Singapore look like classy restaurants.

Modern Peking Duck's The Big Pig (SGD6)

Modern Peking Duck sells rolls of chopped Peking duck or suckling pig enveloped in a crepe-like wrapper (they look like cute mini wraps). They have an aquarium-type preparation area where you'd see the server in plastic gloves chop up the duck or the pork into small, uniform pieces and line them up on the round wrappers ready to be neatly rolled by the next server and packed in red boxes of five (their neatness excites satisfies the OC in me).

Singapore Street Treat - Selecta Ice Cream Sandwich

Even before the inception of this blog, I was already taking occasional snaps of nomz I've tried or wanted to try. It's a good thing that I kept some of them, now I can share my past food discoveries with my readers (all three of them). Some shots were from few months ago, when I was in the lovely country of Singapore for a summer trip (primarily to check out the newly opened Universal Studios ^^,). 

While walking along the famous Orchard Road, a pushcart not unlike those you can find in the streets of Manila caught my attention. My curiosity was piqued but I chose to ignore it the first time. A short distance away, there was another one. The length of Orchard road was peppered with these red trolleys! All of them bore the familiar heart logo of Selecta ice cream. I figure it was the perfect way to deal with a hot summer day (any excuse for ice cream), so I made my way to one of the carts to see what they got.

Yummy Selecta Ice Cream Sandwich (SGD1)

On the cardboard menu filled with pictures of ice cream sandwiches in different flavors, along with the typical ice cream flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and cookies & cream were a number of unusual flavors such as honeydew, durian, and jackfruit. Being my weird self, I bought a durian ice cream sandwich. The nice old man who was manning the booth took out a huge chunk of ice cream (he was wearing plastic gloves), sliced it in half, plunked the solid ice cream block in between two square wafers, and handed it to me.

Orchard Road - A Little Bit of Singapore in Manila

Last Saturday, we were at Megamall come dinner-time looking for a place to eat when we chanced upon this recently opened fast-food style eatery called Orchard Road. I had just gone to a trip to Singapore and was on a spicy oriental food hangover and this restaurant, bearing the name of Singapore's most famous main road, caught my attention in an instant. The place was packed at 7 in the evening so we decided come back when the crowd had thinned a bit.

Orchard Road in Manila

A couple hours later, we came back to find the restaurant a little less busy so we decided to order and get settled in. It was a different kind of ordering system that welcomed us at the entrance, you get a slip of paper with their menu on it and a pencil. You can go around the kitchen area, which is right at the entrance and check out how the food is being cooked and how it actually looks like compared to the ones in picture. And then you tick the checkbox on the menu items that you wish to order.

The kitchen- right dab smack in the middle of the main dining area

Their kitchen is up front and center, with glass panels that almost make it look like a large aquarium minus the water. Actually, this kind of kitchen transparency is a good idea I think, you hear many horror stories of what really happens behind kitchen doors. With this kind of setup, you and everybody else see what's going on in there. The dining area reminds me of the elegant food court at Ion Mall along the actual Orchard Road in Singapore.

Now let's get on with big scoop here- the food. Obviously, with a name like Orchard Road, they serve dishes that are bestsellers in Singapore. And there were so many tasty-looking orders to choose from, it was difficult to order just enough- we wanted to try them all.

What we ended up ordering-

Main course orders:

For the main course we had: (clockwise from top-left) Hainanese Chicken, Laksa, Chicken Satay, and Chicken Curry

• Hainanese Chicken- steamed chicken seasoned with ginger, salt and pepper. I didn't get to try this one, but my date liked this dish best compared to everything else. He says the texture of the chicken was good, firm and tender. Rating: 4.5/5
  


• Chicken Curry- this was an order good for two, it was a bowl filled with several pieces of tender chicken in rich and tasty curry sauce with just enough spice. This was my favorite. Rating: 4.5/5
  


• Laksa- spicy coconut-based noodle soup that's a popular dish in Singapore. Tasted exactly like the Laksa I had in SG, which is a good thing. Rating: 5/5
  


• Chicken Satay- 4 sticks of barbecued skewered chicken fillets; also pretty tasty and the order was bigger than what I expected. Rating: 4/5

Side orders:

Popiang and Ice Kachang

• Popiang- this was sort of like the Filipino lumpiang ubod. Chopped vegetables in a soft wrapper flavored by a sweet peanuty sauce topped with chopped nuts. Rating: 2.5/5
  


• Shrimp Dumpling- hakaw, is what they call it in Chinese restaurants. Steamed shrimp wrapped in a translucent and gooey dumpling wrapper. Pretty good. Rating: 4.5/5
  


• Ice Kachang- if we Pinoys have the halo-halo for dessert, they have this. Soft crushed ice drizzled with brightly colored syrup and syrupy corn with coconut milk (gata), gelatine (gulaman) and sugar palm (kaong) as the base. Rating: 3.5/5 (Nothing beats our halo-halo!)

Drinks:

Bandung and Milo Dinosaur

• Bandung- a prettily colored Malaysian drink made of milk and rose cordial syrup. It's an acquired taste, is what I can say. It reminded us of the Pinoy street cooler, scramble. Rating: 3/5
  


• Milo Dinosaur- this happy drink is very Filipino. Creamy iced Milo topped with more Milo powder. That just says everything. Rating: 5/5
  

We ordered a bit too much for just two people, but the food and the ambience was that good that it made us want to fatten ourselves up s'more.

Main dishes cost about Php120-Php200 per order, which I think is a pretty reasonable price range considering the serving size and food quality. The staff were also very nice and helpul throughout the entire process, our orders arrived without delay, requests were handled with smiles and prompt service, the food tasted great and the dishes were a nice change from the usual.

Overall rating: 4/5

All in all, it was a fun dining experience. Good nomz! (^_~)d

*sorry for the grainy photos, I hadn't brought a proper camera and used the cellphone's cam instead

http://i50.tinypic.com/33mua8m.jpg