A few weeks ago, I was invited by Zomato to attend one of the events for Cruising Magazine’s Travel for Food campaign. I already talked about this campaign a while ago, when I was invited to the Shrimp Bucket and the Cowrie Grill events.
This time, the featured restaurant was Lugang Cafe at the 3rd floor of the Mega Fashion Hall at SM Megamall.
Did you know that Lugang is really pronounced as Loo-Kang? But everybody’s so used to pronouncing it as Lugang… if I suddenly start pronouncing it as Loo-Kang, I think people will start looking at me funny 
Lugang is a Taiwanese restaurant, also known as the Bellagio Cafe, a chain of restaurant/cafes in China, with origins in Shanghai.
LUGANG CAFE FOOD REVIEW
We were served their specialties – we started with the Xiao Long Bao (P248 for 8 pcs). As Xiao Long Bao’s go, this was pretty good! The skin was thin but resilient – it didn’t break apart on me, and can you see the amount of soup it held? Flavor-wise, it was mild and delicate. I would consider it one of the best Xiao Long Pao’s available in Metro Manila.
The way to eat it is to lift the Xiao Long Bao from the top part, taking great care not to tear the wrapper. Then dip it into the gingery vinegar sauce, and eat the entire thing in one bite!
Next, we were served Lugang’s Three-Cup Chicken (P320) – it is called 3 cup chicken because it is traditionally made with one cup each of soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. Some spices like ginger and garlic are added, and the chicken is cooked until all the sauces are absorbed by the chicken, resulting in amazingly deeply-flavored chicken pieces that go perfectly with rice.
For rice, we had the beautiful Pineapple Fried Rice (P290) – I love pineapple rice, so I’m very happy with this. Just look at those lovely grains of rice!
The dish that surprised me the most was the Pan-Fried Siopao (P268 for 6 pcs). I didn’t expect anything much from siopao – most siopaos I have had are pretty generic, and I have given up on finding truly good siopao from regular restaurants. But when I took one pan-fried siopao, I was immediately struck by how fluffy the siopao bread is! It was really light and fluffy, like a cloud! The picture just doesn’t do it justice.
The meat filling itself was also delicious – mild and fragrant with spring onions – but it is the siopao “bread” that really knocks this pan-fried siopao out of the park! This is the dish I am going to go back to Lugang for.
For dessert, we had the Bellagio Breeze (P260) – it was like a deconstructed Halo-halo, with shaved ice, red beans, green beans (monggo), condensed milk, pineapple, but I’m really not a fan of beans for dessert.., it is nice to look at though, the presentation was something 🙂
SUMMARY
I’d recommend the Xiao Long Bao and the Pan-Fried Siopao 🙂 The Three-Cup Chicken and the Pineapple Rice were also pretty good.
Price is as expected at this level of restaurant, and it is Chinese food – so budget around P500-800 per person.
