camia street yunan cuisine
Don’t you love immigrants who share their country’s culinary prowess? Deep within the winding roads of Guadalupe viejo, lies an unnamed “eatery” by immigrants who specialize in Yunan cuisine. So what is Yunan cuisine exactly? Most foodies know Yunan ham, of course, the prized canned salty ham. I haven’t got much of a clue to be honest, since I’ve never been to mainland China.
This place is so secret, they don’t have a sign. Instead they have a midea air conditioner condenser outside their place and frosted glass and a “wanted waitress” at the door. The place itself was hard to find, but it was easy to find the street. From Rockwell, go into Hidalgo drive and go straight into Guadalupe viejo and turn left at Camia street, right after the Barangay Hall.
ordering
Inside was pretty spartan, but there were lots of people eating. Oh yeah, they don’t have ice in this place so we had to take a short trip to Rockwell to grab a bag. I don’t want to sound like a jerk here but ice is a must for even the smallest decent eating place here in the Philippines. Their drinks weren’t cold either. But anyway, I wasn’t here to drink. I’m hoping they could add that to their repertoire.
inside
Without further ado, Camia Street Hunan Cuisine:
duck with bay leaf and herbs
Hot pot duck with bay leaf and chili:
The duck has been slowly deep fried, like a confit. I’ve never seen so much bay leaves in one dish in my life. This was my intro to Yunan cuisine. It was very smokey aside from spicy, and the bay leaf gave such an aromatic finish to the crispy fried duck. It seems that they have roasted the herbs before putting the oil and the duck. Mmmm, as the oils came out of the herbs while roasting, the oil absorbed it all when it was time to add the duck. It was quite salty, but the good kind of salty. The kind that makes you want to eat lots of rice.
ziran beef
Ziran beef with cumin and sesame seed:
I’ve seen this done in Dong Bei, one time great, and the other time, a total let down. But this was also good. The cumin was very prominent and the addition of sesame seeds gave it a beautiful nutty flavor.
fried rice with beef
Fried rice with beef:
Delicious and moist, it had the smokey after taste of the same herb mixture they used in the duck (or maybe they used the same pan for cooking the crispy duck).
string beans with chili
String beans with chili: The beans were again, very smokey. Like it was cooked in some sort of herb mix, with lots of roasted chilies. It gave the beans a rather “soft with a big flavor punch” appeal.
» Read the rest of this entry «