Banawe is Quezon City's Chinatown. Though it is younger than Binondo which is Manila's Chinatown, Banawe features several restaurants worth visiting over and over again. Would you like to do that, too?
As mentioned, there are several restaurants in Banawe. I usually check Zomato but if I don't have a strong signal, we would simply drive around and check every corner. Yes, every corner! Even though we've been coming here for a long time, every trip leads us to new discoveries.
In fact, we stumbled upon a small restaurant on the corner of Banawe St. and Sta. Catalina.
The Restaurant
The place is called New Hainan Cuisine. As the name says, the restaurant serves Hainan cuisine or Hainanese cuisine. Not familiar?
Hainan which means "South of the Sea" is a province in China. Their cuisine is lighter with mild seasoning and is dominated by seafood dishes. But their four most famous dishes include Dongshan Mutton, Hele crab, Jiaji duck and Wenchang chicken. Other notable Hainan dish is the Hainan Chicken.
Pretty sure you've heard of Hainan Chicken. This international dish is very popular in Southeast Asia, especially in Singapore. It is adapted from the famous Hainanese dish Wenchang chicken. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend visiting New Hainan Cuisine.
The Food
Sure, they're small but I can assure you they serve excellent dishes. New Hainan Cuisine's signature dishes include Hainanese Chicken Rice, Hainanese Eggs, Hainanese Braised Potato and Singapore Laksa. Besides these, they also have dishes to share such as Hainanese Chicken (half or whole), Sweet and Sour Pork, Stir Friend Mushroom Beef, Singapore Nonya Curry Chicken and more.
On this visit, we ordered the following:
Hainanese Chicken Rice (PHP 180)
Ginger Chicken with Rice (PHP 180)
Beef Single Serve with Rice (PHP 200)
These dishes are light but they did not compromise on taste especially the Hainanese Chicken Rice. This dish comes with three sauces - ginger garlic, spicy ginger and soy which by the way, is now my favourite. Moreover, all three are tender which means no slice was wasted. 🙂
The question now is, will we return? Of course! New Hainan Cuisine offers dishes worth every Peso. Plus, they have a few parking spaces and their restaurant is clean and well-lit.
If you are in the area or looking for the best Hainanese Chicken Rice, you can find New Hainan Cuisine at 834 Banawe Street, Siena, Banawe, Quezon City.Happy eating!
