Never judge a book by its cover. This is one rule that doesn't usually apply to restaurants,
except for this one.
Located at 347 San Vicente St. corner T. Pin Pin, Binondo Manila, Fortune Wok, I believe is one of the friendliest restaurants you can find in Binondo. The feeling of skepticism you will feel before you enter the place will most likely be replaced by satisfaction and connection with the place and its owner by the time you leave it. I know that is a heavy statement but this is what we have experienced in this place located at the middle of (almost) nowhere.
Although the location of the store is not that well known, the place is quite easy to find since it is just a few streets away from Sta. Cruz Church and the restaurant has a huge billboard above its entrance. It is quite easy to notice especially at night.
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Entrance of Fortune Wok at night[/caption]Once you enter the restaurant, you'll notice that the appearance is almost the same as every other traditional Chinese restaurant in Binondo, basic table and chairs as you can see in the picture. Although this one has a huge round table that can accomodate around 12 people.
Upon entering, we were greeted by the owner of the store Mr. Chow, though at first we didn't know he was the owner. We only found out while we were choosing what food to eat. He's the one you can see on the picture below. We were able to chat with him the entire time we were in his restaurant and found out that he's an international food expert and was featured on ChinoyTV.
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Mr. Chow (on the left)[/caption]At first, we only expected the usual service in a typical restaurant: we ask what their specialties are, find out if it's delicious, and decide. But our experience at Fortune Wok was different, we asked them if they can introduce us their dishes and unexpectedly Mr. Chow gave us an offer: He will choose what he will serve us and if we didn't like any of his dishes, we need not pay for that certain dish, but if we did like it, he just wants us to spread the word to our friends. In short, we accepted his offer. In total, he served us 5 kinds of dishes: Soup, rice, pork, squid and fish.
Soup: Seafood Soup (serves 6-7)
The first dish they served us was Seafood soup. The soup was tasty and quite meaty, although it can't be seen in the picture above it has shrimp and oysters in it. My friends and enjoyed it and some of us ate 2 bowls. Thumbs up!
Rice: Yang Chow Fried Rice (serves 5-6)
Their Yang Chow fried rice is good, and what's different about theirs is their big shrimps and big serving. How big is one order of this? Big enough for 6 people or 3 very hungry people.
Pork: Kowloon Pata (285 pesos)
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Picture of the dish "Kowloon Pata" in their menu[/caption][caption id="attachment_198" align="alignnone" width="720"]
"Kowloon Pata" actual serving[/caption]Next in line was the Kowloon pata, and if you like eating pata, I believe you will really like this dish. The pata here is bite sized and really soft and tasty. I don't usually eat pata especially the large one but I liked this one.
Squid: Sky Squid
The dish that I liked most was their sky squid. At first look it reminded me of the pigeon dish usually served at wedding banquets. Basically its fried squid served with kropek (shrimp cracker). Highly recommended but might be too salty for some like one of my friends.
Fish: Lapu hot plate
The last dish (or so we thought) was the Lapu Hot Star, sizzling lapu lapu with sweet and spicy sauce on top. The dish was just OK. We finished the entire thing but felt that the sauce was too strong that we weren't able to appreciate the fish.
While we were almost done eating, Mr. Chow approached us and mentioned he will be treating us their special dessert after which if we liked it he will be telling us the story behind the dish (the story is quite long but interesting so I won't be sharing it in this post).
Dessert: Banana flamb'e (48 pesos/piece)
The name of this dessert is Banana Flamb'e (pronounced as Flambey). It looks simple but it tastes really good. Basically, it's a banana with a crunchy coating covered with sweet syrup. The banana is really soft that it almost melts in your mouth. My friend even bought 2 orders to bring home.
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Banana Flamb'e take out[/caption]Overall, we really liked the experience we had eating at Fortune Wok. Good food and Great Service despite the not so good ambiance. They even have wifi here. We noticed that the owner Mr. Chow is really hands on in terms of their food and even provides us brief explanation of the dishes. If you are confused on what to order, you can ask Mr. Chow which by the way only speaks a little Tagalog but knows English and Mandarin.
Fortune Wok: Authentic Hong Kong Style Cuisine
347 San Vicente St. corner T. Pin Pin, Binondo Manila
Tel: 5238626
Cel: 09369513821
EXCLUSIVE for our readers: Just say the password "The only authentic Chinese food in town" upon ordering and you will be given a random gift personally chosen by Mr. Chow.
If you have already eaten at this restuarant, share your comments below.
***The owner, Mr. Chow was made aware halfway when we are eating that I am a blogger, therefore the service given to us might be bias.
Here are other pictures of their dishes (provided by Mr. Chow):
