I had a lunch meeting at the Xin Tian Di which is the Chinese outlet of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Ortigas Center. It's a restaurant that I've only heard about from friends, and it was the first time I was going to try the place. Fancy name (translation: New Heaven and Earth), nice interiors, impeccable service. I noticed that the menu had some Singaporean, Shanghainese and Beijing style cooking, but since it was supposed to be a fast meeting, we opted for the dimsum-all-you-can promotion, which was around P1,200.
We had a variety of dishes, and the good thing about the ordering system is that except for a few items, you can order by the piece, rather than having the usual serving size of three to four pieces. The hakaw was pretty good, shrimps were quite fresh. Wasn't too happy with the siao long pao though, I had expected the soup to ooze out and for me it was dry. I also had duck noodle soup, and it was good that this order comes in a small, manageable sized bowl.
I liked the beef Ho Fan. Came in freshly cooked, the beef was tender and the rice noodles were gooey and full of flavor. They had a lot of desserts, and I found the coffee gelatin very potent--full of coffee goodness, enough to keep you awake for some time. Interestingly, they have the "ampalaya buchi," which I thought had ground ampalaya (bitter gourd) mixed in. It's actually a mere buchi, colored green and shaped like an ampalaya.
Overall, I can't say the food was bad, but I'm probably not going to take the unli-dimsum offer again. You really just can't eat much dimsum (it's supposed to be snack food, not banquet courses), and it's probably cheaper (and healthier) to order individually. Next time I come to this restaurant, I'm trying the special dishes that they have on the menu.
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