Luk Foo Cantonese Kitchen

Luk Foo Cantonese Kitchen

5/15/2013

In celebration of Mother's day, I decided to reward Queen with a good foodgasm brought by our favorite dumpling: Hakao. This time we needed a known good place to eat in order for us to recover from our previous bout. Her princess tagged along and it was such an honor for me because not everyone can eat along with the royal family. chos.

Place: Cozy. You can easily tell the place has been there for a long time. They want to give their customers the Chinese restaurant feel.

Food:

Luk Foo's yang chow fried rice (upper right) - It was good. The toppings were not too overpowering. Just enough to give the rice it's required taste and not too much topping to make you forget about the main dishes.

Broccoli with Shrimp and Scallop (lower left) - I chose this one because I wanted something with vegetables that is not too heavy on the stomach. I was right... except for the quantity. It was lightly flavored just how I hoped it to be. However the broccoli was just too many. I think they consumed an entire plant. It was definitely not just for two people.

Spareribs with tausi  sauce (lower right) - I also ordered this one (I know, I got to order almost everything when this event was for Queen. Haha) I just had to try it. In any restaurant that I go to, as long as they have this on the menu, I just have to try it. One of my soul foods. Which is why I am confident to say that I was quite disappointed with their version of this dish. The meat was dry and NOT tender. The tausi sauce just didn't match anything that I've tried previously. This is Queen's first time to try this dish and it didn't please her one bit. I want to make it up to her, I want to raise my favorite food's pride!




Hakao (upper left)- The star of the night. Every time I visit an authentic Chinese restaurant, I always check if they have this on the menu and I must give it a try. Yes, it's mandatory. Luk Foo did a fine job with their version. The wrap had a light sweet taste and the filling had an abundance of good tasting shrimp. It immediately won the number two spot in my favorite Hakao list (there is no actual list BTW).


So I googled LUK FOO and learned that it meant "happiness" and "prosperity" in cantonese. Despite one hiccup, I still think it was a success. Our stomachs were full and still had a lot to take home. I want to visit again, the menu was vast and I just felt there was still more to explore.


Complaint: I said the place has probably been there for a long time. How was I so sure? Aside from the old decorations and grayed out colors. The edge of the table was worn out and it was absolutely sticky. Lucky for me I was wearing a jacket. Queen was also not comfortable with how the waiters/waitresses watch you eat, the feeling was just awkward.




Luk Foo Cantonese Kitchen
Dau, Mac Arthur Hi-way, Angeles City, Pampanga

Cucchiaio Italian Cuisine

Cucchiaio Italian Cuisine

5/11/13

Queen saw one of her friends in Instagram who posted about this restaurant twice so it caught her attention, naturally it caught mine as well because of how their food was decently presented in their facebook page. We had to try it.

If there's one thing that we learned from our previous foobu escapades, we needed an assortment of food from the restaurants that we go to. Being an Italian restaurant, this time we decided to order an appetizer, pasta and a main dish.

Venue: It was huge. two-story building with a large parking lot. What was odd is that we were the only customers at that time. It was a weekend and we were just in time for dinner. We should have taken that as a sign.

 On set, Queen ordered brewed coffee and I ordered Red Iced Tea as suggested by the waiter. The coffee came along with muscovado sugar which I thought was a good indication that they choose fine ingredients.

What we ordered:
Baked Fish Puff
Pomodoro
Chicken Merlot with potato wedges


Baked Puff Fish

It was the perfect appetizer. Tasty but won't consume too much space on your stomach. They used cream dory fish, I was amazed how they managed not to make it too salty. I thought we were off to a great start.



 Chicken Merlot with potato wedges

 It looked like adobo arranged in a nice way. The deal breaker was it tasted like one. The chicken was dry and blunt. Nuf said, I don't want to rude.


Pomodoro

 I wasn't too satisfied with this one as well and so was Queen. We are no experts but we both agreed that there was something missing from this dish. There was nothing too special about it.



Verdict:
We have to admit, we lost this fight. For its price and quality, it was not worth the travel. Queen was soaked by the rain and we hoped that we would find sunshine in their food. All we got was a storm of disappointment.

Complaint:
The waiter only had a vague idea of the menu when we asked for his recommendation. He had to ask the chef how it was cooked. He also offered us Chicken and Spaghetti combo found in the kids menu. Queen and I are as skinny as high school students but we are not kids. Either that or maybe he thought we found their prices high. Bad customer service skill.



Cucchiaio Italian Cuisine
184 Sta. Ines Road, 2010 Mabalacat, Pampanga