Dining | Quik Snack in Binondo
When were doing a Binondo food crawl. After walking in the nether streets of Ongpin, we went off the beaten track and opted to go into this alley way. I can't remember what its called but I remember there's a Meriam and Webster Store along this well lighted alleyway.
Along its hallowed corridor lies a quaint and quiet chinese restaurant named Quik Snack. It was lunchtime when we dropped by and the place was nearly packed with diners. We were lucky to have one table free and immediately we decided to dine in.
This was our second stop of our food crawl and we were just a bit full from our first visit so we decided to try some of their dimsum. We had the pork siomai, the kikiam and a meryenda favorite, pancit canton.
Service wise, the staff were quick to their feet. Soon after we were seated, the server gave us two sets of menu for a quick order. While we were poring over the menu, the server proceeded in giving us our service water and our utensils. That was quick I reckoned. When he was finished with the initial service, we were ready to order.
Food was not quick to be served though, maybe it was lunch and the place was already packed with people. I can imagine the chaos inside the kitchen with all our orders coming in at the same time. It wasn't that long that we waited when our food was finally served. We noticed that even though they had a lot of servers, all were very busy that getting their attention midpoint during the meal was a bit of a struggle. Like we asked to have our water refills. It took quite a long time to get them to do so. Good thing the water station was near our table so we took it upon ourselves to get some. Bill also went the same way, although we had to wait for our final bill to arrive. Tip - don't eat here during lunch. That's their rush hour thingie. Don't worry, you will be served, just be patient.
Serving wise for our dishes was just fine. Siomai regularly comes in 4 pieces per order so no surprise there. The pancit canton was served in small platter. Good thing our group was composed of 4 pax with 3 of us were ladies. The pancit would not be enough for 4 guys. The kikiam was just one big piece sliced into smaller portions of which we were disappointed. The server told us that one piece of this was enough for the 4 of us, but looking at this sad little piece, we knew it wouldn't be enough. So order two next time.
Taste wise? The siomai was just fine for a chinese restaurant. Taste a whole lot better than your average mall siomai so no complaints here. The sauce for the siomai is also not your usual soy sauce. It has some sort of ketchup or tomato sauce in them that went well with the siomai. A bit spicy if you ask me but nevertheless increased our appetite for the siomai.
The kikiam we already was sad about its serving size, how did it fare in our taste test? Well, we weren't satisfied either. It might be that our order was over cooked. Since it was fried, over cooking meant it had a very dark brown color already and that some parts of it was bitter already. I think they were trying to make the kikiam crispy but I like mine soft.
The pancit canton was not as greasy as I expected and this was most welcome. It had a different character which was a nice touch. It had a unique taste that is not expected of a pancit canton. Not bad, not great, but it had a new taste that made the dining experience not easy to forget. You got to try it to appreciate, I can't describe how it tasted but what I can tell you is that eating this will make you remember of Quik Snack.
Price wise I forgot how much we paid for it. All I can remember is that when you are eating in Binondo, expect a higher priced meal. This Quik Snack is not an exception.
For sure we will come back here for another run on their menu as we would like to try their hot rice meals. This is something we avoided as we had a number of restaurants listed in our food crawl of Binondo.
