Dining | The Chinese Kitchen - Festival Mall Alabang

Simply called The Chinese Kitchen. Must be something about chinese cooking, that figures hmmmmmm.

Located at the basement of Festival Mall in Alabang, this place is easily seen when you're hungry and on your way to the food court. I believe they just opened a few weeks back as they still have a sign that says "now open". Furnishings are simple, lighting just right, I invited myself in to try our the new restaurant in the block.

Menu items are simply, dishes are a few, easy for a hungry customer to pick out the dish for me. The have rice toppings and noodles and other few chinese dishes. I only go for toppings and noodles so this time I went for noodles.

There are two types of noodles here, they have the braised and the soup noodles. I had myself oriented by their server (who was very nice) as to the what to order. He told me that when ordering soup noodles, go for the chicken, wanton and beef brisket. For the braised one, order the roasted pork asado or the crispy pork belly. Confusing? Actually its not.

With the soup noodles, having the pork asado and the pork belly in them will make them soggy and would not be as crispy or tasty as the soup broth will seep in. Great physics or chemistry. So I went with the braised noodles with the crispy pork belly costing Php195 (with no drink).

Service was quite fast as I was on my phone checking out my first email, right before I press send on my first reply, my order came. You have a choice of using spoon and fork or chopsticks so have it your way.

Now as to the taste..... hmmmmm... it was crispy alright. The noodles were braised right... yes.... that being said, my concern is just the saltiness of the food. The pork belly was crisped great but was salty already, then the braised noodles were sauced by something salty as well. Two salty parts means..... too salty one dish. Good thing they served one small bowl of soup broth of which I made into a dipping sauce or dipping broth. This somehow lessened the saltiness and made my dining experience a little better. So thats a tip for you there. Ask for a soup broth when you order the braised noodles. I do hope the soup noodles aren't that salty when I do come back. Even with the salty experience I would prefer them over the popular chinese franchise. So expect me coming back again (will order something else next time around).

For more details visit their Facebook page here.