There’s an ongoing promo where you get 50% OFF all Choi Garden restaurants with your BDO Credit Card (see details below).
Choi Garden is the perennial winner when it comes to local Chinoy gourmands’ favorite Chinese restaurant. The restaurant is known for its authentic Hong Kong-level cuisine.
Well, Choi Garden recently opened a new dining concept called Choi Hot Pot in nearby Greenhills Promenade and of course, I wanted to try it! We were told that all the fish balls, beef, and other premium ingredients are flown in daily from Hong Kong!
CHOI HOT POT
Last week, we had lunch at Choi Hot Pot in Greenhills Promenade. Some people like grilling (like a Korean barbecue), but some people prefer a hot pot, also called a shabu-shabu. Some people, like me, are okay with both, depending on the weather.
And this month, when it’s raining almost every day, the prospect of a piping hot soup / hot pot meal just warms the bones!
What is hot pot, anyway?
Everyone’s familiar with the concept of Korean barbecue, right? It’s the same thing, but with soup!
At Choi Hot Pot, they have this rectangular soup pot at the center of the table that’s divided into 2 parts, so you can have 2 different soup bases. We had the Pork Bone Broth and the Chinese Herbs Broth.
Notice the remote control – you use it to raise the strainer up so your food isn’t left boiling in the broth when it’s already cooked.
Once the soups are boiling, you can start cooking! Here are some of our orders:
Recommended:
- Diced Kumamoto Wagyu (P580)
- Japanese Wagyu (P680)
- Prawn Skewer (P1,300/kg)
- Fish Ball with Roe (P245)
- Lobster Rolls
You cook the prawns with the stick because they’re alive and might crawl away. I was happily cooking the prawns not knowing that they were still alive while they were on the stick 
No wonder they tasted amazingly fresh and delicious! I didn’t find out until after when someone asked if we could remove the prawns from the stick before putting them in the broth.
Feel free to get some of the broth as your soup. They refill the broth 🙂
They also give you dipping sauces (individual servings). I got the Special Sauce, the Satay Sauce, and the Peanut Sauce. The Special Sauce is a blend of soy sauce and some vinegar with herbs. The Satay was a bit spicy. The Peanut was creamy but a bit bland.
I like the Special Sauce the best, and I realized I liked first dipping the food in the Special Sauce and then dipping it in the Peanut Sauce. I get the saltiness from the Special Sauce and the creaminess from the Peanut Sauce 😀
There are two kinds of people who hot pot:
- people who dump everything in the boiling soup to boil and don’t care if the food gets overcooked
- people who try to be systematic and want to pay attention to the cooking to avoid overcooking the food – different food items have different ideal cooking times, you know! It truly pains me to see the wagyu overboiled
To avoid any issues, make sure you and your table companions are on the same page! 😀
I enjoyed my hot pot experience at Choi Hot Pot, and with the 50% OFF promo, I’m planning to go back soon with the family to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival!
CHOI GARDEN RESTAURANTS 50% OFF BDO PROMO
The promo runs from Sept. 2 – 30, 2019, Mondays – Fridays only. You have to reach a minimum food bill of P5,000 and max of P10,000 (you only pay 50%, so roughly about P2,500 for a P5,000 bill 🙂 ), and you have to pay using your BDO Gold, Platinum or Titanium credit card.
Note that drinks, take out orders, alcoholic beverages and Service Charge are excluded from the discount (you pay them full price). More details on the BDO website: https://www.bdo.com.ph/personal/credit-cards-promos/view/50-choi-garden-and-hai-kang
Choi Hot Pot
G/F Greenhills Promenade, San Juan City
