I’ve been hearing lots of great things about Lung Hin Restaurant at the Marco Polo Ortigas. We tried to get a table for lunch may Sundays ago but they only had a function room that came with a minimum spend of P15,000 so we passed. One weekday my mom called up and asked if we wanted to join her for lunch. This was our first time to step inside the quite new Marco Polo Ortigas. We were super frequent visitors to Marco Polo Davao when we lived in the city before.
One takes an express elevator to the 44th floor where it shares the space with VUs, the resident bar of Marco Polo Ortigas The entrance to Lung Hin is pretty impressive with intricate checkered wood partitions in the entry way. My first thought was “How will you clean all those cubes?”.
The main dining area is really nice exuding a classy Chinese inspired look with lots of natural light streaming in. Tables near the windows are afforded a beautiful view. I wonder how it looks like at night. My mom actually recognized a few of the waitstaff because some of them transferred from Summer Palace.
Privacy comes with a price tag though but the room is nice with great views.
I ordered some dishes based on what I’ve been seeing posted on my Facebook and Instagram feed plus some recommended to us.
We started with Baked BBQ Pork Buns (P220). From no place serving these dimsum masterpieces to quite a number of places having this including Tim Ho Wan, TuanTuan, Choi Garden, and Crystal Jade Dining In. It’s quite funny that they describe them as like Tim Ho Wan. We found the buns small, about 1/2 to 2/3 of the ones from other restaurants. Taste wise, the three of us felt this was the worst among all the restos we’ve tried so far that offers this in Manila. Considering the size and price, you’d be better off skipping this.
We also tried a basket of their Steamed Shrimp Dumpling/ Ha Kao (P220). It came with edible gold flakes on each shrimp dumpling, which I thought was an extravagant touch with no added taste. The skin is thin but does not break when you get it with the chopsticks which is a good indication. The shrimp was plump, crisp and sweet making this one of the best versions we’ve tried in Manila.
Stir Fried Squid with Mashed Salted Egg (P380). I enjoyed this one a lot, crispy and well coated with their salted egg sauce. This was quite light in flavor which is perfect as other versions are very cloying.
Three Colored Prawns (P780). This comes in Sakura, Blueberry and Salted Egg sauces. It looks nice and festive in a hue of colors with three pieces each perfect for our lunch trio. The sakura was a bit tangy, while the salted egg is the same as the squid but the blueberry was the most interesting one but tasted a bit weird. I found out later that you could change up the sauces, so I suggest omitting the blueberry.
Smoked Tea Leaves Chicken (P780/half). We tried this one out because of the interesting name. It looked a bit like soy chicken but the sauce was on the sweet side with a subtle taste of the tea. The chicken was tasty to the bone not only on the skin side.
Our last dish was the Sauteed Spicy Minced Pork with String Beans (P380). The presentation was unique, an inverted cup holds the contents of our dish, finely chopped French beans and spicy pork. You just can’t eat this without some rice or maybe a lot of rice.
We got a plate of Yang Chow Fried Rice (P480) to pair with our other dishes. It was a pretty generous serving with a yellowy tinge (lots of egg yolks) and glistening grains of rice.
Lung Hin Restaurant is beautiful, adorned in contemporary Chinese decor with excellent views. Prices are on the high side but ingredients and execution are top notch. It’s a sparkling addition to our restaurant scene.
Lung Hin Restaurant
44/F Marco Polo Ortigas Manila Sapphire Street cor. Meralco Avenue, Ortigas, Pasig City, Philippines Contact No.: (632) 720-7777Facebook Page: Marco Polo Ortigas Manila
Website: Marco Polo Manila Dining
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With a toothbrush, heh heh.
What do the gold flakes taste like?
Could not taste it, it just adds a “premium” feel to the dimsum.
we are thrilled to have occupied one of the well appointed private dining rooms of lung hin on january 26, 2015. there were 10 of us enjoying the picturesque metropolitan view from the 44th floor AND savored excellent chinese dishes (we triple ordered the squid since it was so tasty, spicy pork, ordered the beautifully presented sweet and sour pork two times, excellent cubed beef, meat n scallion noodles, rice, asian fruit jelly for dessert and the best bottomless jasmine tea!). while portions were conservative as compared to the usual buffets, the finer things in life was evident with the serving dishes and utensils. staff service matched upper echelon expectation. finally a chinese restaurant in manila that we can rave about (having visited dozens of chinese restaurants in 28 countries we have been to)! we shall be back. and oh! our two- night stay at marco polo manila exceeded our expectations. thank you for the hospitality!