Celebrate the Year of the Water Dragon at New World Hotel’s Jasmine Restaurant

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

How timely is my post today as I share with you yummy Cantonese dishes being served at Jasmine Restaurant located at the New World Hotel.  It’s a nice second visit for me and I was uber excited when I stopped by the Cantonese restaurant for dinner.

If you remember my post sometime last year, Jasmine had brought two chefs over from Shanghai for their Shanghai Surprise promo.  This time around, I was able to try out their a la carte dishes that are made by Jasmine’s very own Chef Choi Wingki.

Oh and, yeah.  There’s a surprise by the end of this post (related to Chinese New Year feast!).  But before the exciting news, here are the a la carte dishes we tried out at Jasmine Restaurant, New World Hotel.

• Fresh Fruit Juices

I was second to arrive at the venue so while waiting for the other bloggers to arrive, I ordered cantaloupe shake while Yedy got watermelon shake.  I always go for fresh fruit juices or shakes.  It’s always nice to drink healthy refreshments.

• Boiled Peanuts

We got ourselves munching on boiled peanuts which are now my favorite snack.

• Pork Siomai

It pays to be early as I got to eat more food especially dim sum like pork siomai.  Our plain old Chinese dim sum favorite.

• Har Gow

Har Gow, however, wins over pork siomai.  As soon as the har gow came out, I totally forgot about pork siomai (although it’s tradition to serve har gow and siomai together).

Do you know that this dish is said to be the one that people judge the skill of a dim sum chef on?  Well, since this was obviously a hit early on during dinner, then there was no doubt that the chef was pretty successful and super skilled 🙂

Har Gow is a chinese dumpling that has shrimps, pork fat, bamboo shoots, scallions, cornstarch, sesame oil, sugar and soy sauce inside.

• Steamed Gizzard

Gizzards, like liver, I’m not really fond of.  So I wasn’t able to try this dish.  However, for gizzard lovers out there, Jasmine has it. 🙂

• Wagyu Beef with Mango Roll

When this dish, wagyu beef with mango roll, was served in our table.  Everyone of us (who coincidentally were at Jasmine’s last year for their Shanghai Surprise) exclaimed, “Yay!”.  It was our favorite dish and we’re glad Jasmine added it permanently to their menu.

It has the same honest to goodness taste of wagyu cooked with mango and wrapped in a roll.  I can eat this over and over!

• Shrimp Mousse with Vegetarian Sauce

To make things simpler, I’ll call this shrimp balls.  But wait, they are not your ordinary shrimp balls!  They were made from real shrimps and cooked in Jasmine’s special vegetarian sauce.  Not too sweet, not too salty, just the right amount of flavors.  I love it!

• Deep-fried Oysters

How many times have I said that I don’t like oysters in this blog?  I lost count!  However, I have grown to love it as restaurants was able to cook oysters in such a way that it removes the after-taste that I used to dislike.

I usually have baked oysters.  Imagine my surprise when I tried out Jasmine’s deep-fried oysters.  Suffice to say, I was totally blown away!  It was one of my favorites at the dinner!  I think it was the garlic and some other secret ingredient that they put in that made the dish a success!  I couldn’t stop getting more servings of the dish.

• Beef with XO Sauce

Others might think that XO sauce is a liquor sauce.  In all actuality, it’s a seafood sauce that is mainly used by Chinese chefs as condiments in cooking.  Like in this case, Jasmine used XO sauce to cook the beef with.  The result is a nice delicious dish.  What I liked most is the tenderness of the beef.  I’m always wary of meat that is chewy and I’m glad that Chef Choi got the right formula for this! 🙂

• Steamed Live Garoupa with Soy Sauce

In every Chinese meal, there’s either the steamed fish or crabs.  This time around we had steamed fish.  A simple recipe but yummy nevertheless.

• Pan-fried Chinese New Year Cake & Sesame Seed Balls

For dessert, we had sesame seed balls and tikoy (fried new year cake).  It’s the chinese new year and everyone is in celebration mode so it’s nice to have ended the meal with the accustomed Chinese New year delicacy.

And with that, I share with you the highlight of the night:

Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin

A Chinese New Year custom for most tsinoys is to have a big reunion with the whole family and have dinner together.  Jasmine at New World Hotel acknowledges that and has prepared an extended Chinese New Year Feast for families.

From January 18-30, 2012, families can celebrate Chinese New Year in a luxurious kind of way with Jasmine’s Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin.

It’s a HUGE wooden basin that includes eighteen different food items that we can enjoy by eating them layer by layer.  It’s an ultimate feast and rightfully named at that! 😀

We were actually so fond of the ultimate eighteen treasures that we had to take some time looking at it, taking pictures, observing it, naming the treasures inside the basin and preparing our eager stomach to indulge such great food.  I was in total awe…

I tried to get one of each of the treasures in my plate.  See at how lovely it looked?

The feast includes abalone, sea moss, conpoy, sea cucumber, dried oyster, fish maw, prawns flower mushrooms, eel fillet, roasted duck, chicken, pig knuckle, goose web, fish balls, dried squid, taro, radish and bean curd stick.

The food highlight is definitely the ultimate 18 treasures feast on wooden basin but Jasmine prepared a whole meal for families who’ll be availing the Chinese New Year Promotion.

Here’s the complete menu for the Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin:

• Deluxe Appetizers (6 Kinds) – eggplant sesame sauce, spicy cabbage, clam meat spring rolls, shredded chicken, bamboo shoot soy sauce & marinated cucumber
• Double Boiled Chicken Soup, Whelk, ‘Sun Moon Fish, Chinese Herbs
• the Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin (featured)
• Poached Chinese Lettuce with Superior Soy Sauce
• Steamed Thai Rice with Chinese Sausage
• Sweetened Ginger, White Fungus Soup with Glutinous Flour Dumplings
• Pan-Fried Chinese New Year Cake
• LoZhou Pomkam

We were certainly lucky enough to be able to try out both a la carte dishes and Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin at Jasmine in New World Hotel.  I was completely stuffed after!

Happy Chinese New Year again friends!  Have a prosperous water dragon year, think positive and don’t forget to celebrate with your family by visiting Jasmine, New World Hotel 🙂

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Jasmine Restaurant
2/F New World Hotel, Esperanza Street corner Makati Avenue, Makati City 1228, Philippines
(02) 811-6888