It’s all Chinese cuisine to us: stir fried, steamed, sauced, braised. But what we generally consider as such is actually Cantonese cuisine from Guangdong, one of the eight culinary traditions of Chinese cuisine. It was no accident of history that most of the migrants from that country were from this province and it is the cuisine that we are most accustomed to, nevermind if its under the catch all “chinese.”
But blame it on Marco Polo Davao’s Lotus Court, where one can find good cantonese food in Davao with its high end restaurant that offers authentic cantonese dishes and you will look at chinese differently from now on. There were several dishes served to us, some of which aren’t shown here. But there were actually some standouts that made this lunch quite memorable.
First is the diced chicken rice with abalone sauce. I was expecting fried rice, which is usually served in most restaurant but this one was humble. There were no bright colors to make it interesting. While it was steaming, it was a monotonouse beige in color with its sauce. But a spoon sized sample suprised me a lot and all I can utter, oh, closed my eyes and just savored and chewed. Savored and felt the explosion of wonderful flavors.
There are just moments in one’s life when we become powerless over a particular dish. It’s just so perfect to the taste, beautiful to the tongue that we remember our childhood, we remember a particular happy moment. Or we just become speechless and forget about time and space and feel this inner peace. It was a kinalas moment again. Or an ibos-ibos redux.
I was trying to limit my rice intake for the past week to cut on carbs but at that moment, I just have to make an exception. The flavor was just so good, that the rest in our table soon noticed and followed suit.
The chocolate buchi was another memorable dessert. Hot and crunchy on the outside, delicious chocolate in the inside. It’s actually one of a kind and this can only be found at Marco Polo Davao. Credit should go to their very creative and talented chefs who first played around with durian filling and later on experimented with chocolate.
Of course, we were served a feast of a lunch. The suckling pig platter with jellyfish, pork asado,white soy chicken, century egg and roast suckling pig was a hit. The crunchy skin of the suckling pig was just great. The pork asado was flavorful and I had a great time eating the slices of century eggs as most of my companions either didn’t eat it or just ate a few.
The yin-yang two way style fish is actually lapu-lapu (grouper) with its meat cooked in two ways: breaded and fried and the other steamed with garlic. The meat were then assembled and plated with the deep fried body of the fish. I did like this one. It’s filling and well seasoned while the fresh steamed broccoli was tender.
But the sauteed diced beef with basil in soy sauce was another surprise. Very tender yet succulent beef, not greasy at all. The basil adding to the delicate yet interesting flavor that at one time, we were alternating the beef with the chicken rice and praising their goodness.
All these downed with pomelo juice!
Lotus Court’s dimsum selection is good and varied and their extensive menu has something for everyone.
Food images via Instagram. Follow Me.
This trip made possible by Marco Polo Davao during a fam tour in that southern city. Like their Facebook page and follow them in Twitter.