My Top Chinese Restaurants in Cebu

DIMSUM!!!

due to insistent public demand, this post has been edited because i suck at writing 🙂 well – this post will still suck, but wth! 

Everyone LOVES Chinese food and there is so much to Chinese food for people to love. Half of the dishes we often cook at home or during occasions are improvised Chinese dishes that we call our own. There is no wonder why there are so many versions to the all-time favorite pancit. Even the local humba is inspired from – yes, Pata tim minus the fried bread.

I was thinking of making this post solely for restaurants that offered dimsum, but then again I wanted people to have as much choices as they want. With all the Chinese restaurants that I have eaten in, I would have a gazillion posts in my blog, but that won’t even cover half of all the local Chinese restaurants.

Harbor City Dimsum Hotpot

Cebu has a quite a number of Chinese families enough to influence the City with their heritage. China town? The whole Cebu City IS China town. The downtown area is lined with stores mostly owned and operated by Chinese families. So, don’t be surprised if we eat a lot of Chinese food here. Even the local street food is part of their cuisine.

DIMSUM:

When my friends come home to Cebu, their most common cravings are STEAMED FRIED RICE and SIOMAI. Not that I have tried eating dimsum some place else, but our steamed fried rice here is one of the best. It’s basically steamed rice that’s slathered with sarsa that resembles afritada, minus the pork and beans or tomato sauce. Siomai is a huge staple as well. It’s popularity influenced people to sell them along the streets of Tisa in Labangon (which in my opinion is the best food street in Cebu City) and every where else.

In My Haste, This was the only decent picture I had

Now, my top #1 pick for the best dimsum place in Cebu is Tsim Sha Tsui Dimsum & Tea Bar. I haven’t been here in ages and I have only been here once, I won’t lie. But it’s hands down the best dimsum experience I have. For one, a good dining experience comes with good ambiance and good service and boy was I satisfied with the food there. The last time I was there, they have this eat all you can dimsum where you sit at the table and you have a conveyor belt full of plates and steamers. The price was okay, but it’s nothing compared to the price of my second choice.

Dimsum all you can!

Top #2 on my list of dimsum places is Harbor City Dimsum. Now, if you come here and you get to taste the same food that they have at Dimsum Break, well…

Harbor City Dimsum Platter

They have the same commissary and they belong to the same group of companies along with Ding Qua Qua in JY (which is a resurrection of the old Chinese restaurant on the Fuente Osmena strip). And that puts Dimsum Break on #3.

If you are avid readers of my blog, you will know that I’m big on service and ambiance. Quick differences between Harbor City and Dimsum Break: Harbor City has more on their menu than Dimsum Break and they do it restaurant style. I like their Hot pot by the way and that’s a must-try at Harbor City. They also have the dimsum platter and a selection of soups and other dishes. Dimsum Break is their fastfood version. But I love the service better at Dimsum Break especially the one that’s on my building around Gen. Maxilom Area.

Now both restaurants offer the same signature taste to their siomai and steamed rice. I have a few staples when I’m eating at their restaurants and these are:

STAPLE #1: Chicken Feet

STAPLE #2: Spicy Steamed Rice (on the far right)

STAPLE #3: Fried Wanton (that big Flower like thing in the middle)

There’s just too many Chinese restaurants in Cebu that I couldn’t mention all of them in one blog. Do watch out for my next top pick of Chinese restaurants, this time it will be more general 🙂

Oh, and one more thing… I encourage everyone to learn how to use chopsticks. It gives more pleasure eating Chinese food (well, really I mean just for the kicks). Try to learn it at home and yes, you can still use your spoon and fork when you’re really ravenous 🙂

Thank you so much for reading!

PS: if you notice the variations in the quality of the pictures, be warned that the lesser quality pictures were taken using my Nokia C3 and the rest are taken by my little lightweight companion, Albus.