This is a very late post considering this dinner happened almost a month ago during our staycation at The Bellevue Manila. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every moment of our delicious dinner at Phoenix Court, Bellevue’s classy Chinese restaurant. But I was posting about The Bellevue almost daily during the first week of January so I thought I’d shift topics first before going back.
I borrowed this photo of Phoenix Court from The Bellevue’s official site since I wasn’t able to take my own that night.
Anyhow, we started our Chinese dinner with a bang — our first dish being Roasted Peking Duck. I love love love this dish. The roasted duck is sliced in such a way that each piece consists of the crispy skin and a thin layer of meat. It’s wrapped in what seems like a flour tortilla (but it’s called something else lol, we usually just refer to it as wrapper) together with scallions and hoisin sauce.
The finished product looks like this. You take one and eat as you would a soft taco. The combination of the crispy skin and juicy meat with the sauce, scallions, and chewy wrapper create such a perfect tasting um… sandwich? I seriously LOVE this dish. It’s always a favorite of mine at Chinese lauriat dinners. I think I can have like 5 or 6 in one go, hahaha (although I never do because I need to leave some for other people and I don’t want to gain weight).
Next we had Braised Pumpkin Soup with Seafood. Wow, it contained real crab meat! I could tell this particular morsel came from a big fat crab claw. It’s rather unusual for a Chinese restaurant to serve pumpkin soup so I welcomed the deviation with open arms, or rather an open mouth… lol. Since I belong to a Chinese family, I go to a LOT of Chinese lauriat dinners. After a while everything is the same, you know what to expect. This was different.
Next up was Quick-fried Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper. Yup, the beef was indeed tender and I liked how it wasn’t overpowering despite being a pepper-based dish.
Two Variety of Prawn (Sauteed and Crispy) was a dish I did not have, simply because I’m allergic to shrimp. It looked good though. I had just recovered from a week-long bout with sore throat, chills, and fever so I wasn’t about to risk an allergic reaction just then.
Surprisingly I enjoyed this Stuffed Crispy Chicken with Sweet and Sour Sauce. I guess it’s the crispy that got to me. One thing which makes chicken appealing to me is the crispy factor and this was very crispy.
The remainder of the duck we had earlier was served in its second way. We stuffed this into lettuce cups and then put some sauce. Wrap and eat is the way to go.
Steamed Live Lapu-Lapu with Soya Sauce is a staple at Chinese lauriat dinners and so it was inevitably part of the night’s line-up. I love the soft, melt-in-your-mouth quality of the fish meat, enhanced perfectly by the slightly savory-sweet soy sauce.
For dessert, we had Chilled Coconut Pudding. We almost always have either mango sago or almond jelly for dessert during a Chinese lauriat dinner and so again, this was a refreshing change. I’m not that fond of coconut but this was amazing. The milky and creamy coconut pudding mixed coconut gelatin was very smooth and rich yet only slightly sweet — it was the perfect ending to such a hearty dinner.
I love how we didn’t have the usual set of dishes that’s normally served in Chinese lauriat dinners. It’s usually pigeon (which I don’t eat), fish lips / fish maw soup (or something similarly bland), mushrooms and sea cucumbers, etc. I found the variety very enjoyable and I was actually looking forward to the next dish since more than half the line-up was new to me!
Here’s a group pic of all the bloggers who had dinner at Phoenix Court that evening: Sugar Spice and Everything Nice, The Pickiest Eater, Our Awesome Planet, Frannywanny, The Purple Doll, Candishhh Tales, and Teach with Joy. A big thank you to Jane Go and The Bellevue Manila for making such a lovely gathering possible! 😀
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