Red Panda

The Red Panda Bistro in the Kapitolyo area isn't your usual Chinese restaurant.  First they serve both Chinese food and European food.  Second, the restaurant converts into a bar after 9pm, and the manager told me that the place is often booked for after dinner parties until the wee hours of the morning.  Relaxing interiors, good ambiance.  It was just after Christmas that Monique and I took the Callars for a fast dinner there--

We started off with some dimsum items, ha cao, siw mye and bean curd rolls.  We also ordered some stir fried pork, oyster cake, kiam pung (this is a sticky rice dish cooked with pork humba as the flavor base) and beef tenderloin.  For our Western-style food, we chose broccoli gratin, and seafood risotto which provided some contrast.  To finish the meal, we chose beef ho fan (wide rice noodles) and pancit canton.

Portion sizes are a bit limited to 2 to maybe 3 people, so if you are in a big group you probably have to get two orders of each viand.  Taste is pretty good, and orders come piping hot from the open kitchen.  The only dish that I thought could use some improvement was the risotto, which was creamy but bland.

The challenging part about eating in the Kapitolyo neighborhood is that parking is hard to come by.  You either have to arrived early, or make sure that your host sets aside a reserved slot for you.  We were quite lucky to get to the last available slot right in front of the restaurant.  Average spend would around P650 if you have a wide array of requests, but you can well do with say P450 if on a budget.