Super Bowl of China: a good deal and a good meal

Craving for reasonably priced roast duck, we visited Super Bowl of Asia at SM MOA again since I remembered that they had this delicacy included in their menu with an affordable price tag to boot. When I arrived there, I was disappointed to learn that they had already phased out duck from their list. Another disappointment: they no longer had San Miguel beer. The sole beer they had was this Chinese brew that would have cost Php120 per can, so I quote Donnie Brasco: “Forget about it!”

Brushing aside such disappointments, we proceeded with our order: Yang Chow rice (super-serving) at around Php385, Super Bowl combo platter at Php380, fried fish fillet at around Php280, Crispy Fried Chicken (1/2) at Php265, and, as I was with my sister-in-law, the eternal bottomless iced tea at Php75 per glass.

What convinced us was the resto’s promo of serving FREE beef with broccoli for bills amounting to Php700 up for SM Prestige Card holders. (For Php300-499 bills, free asado siopao, and for Php 500-699 bills, free fried spare ribs.) Mind you, there are very few places in the entire world that gives you free beef, so this appeared to have been a good deal.

There was also the hard-to-believe assurance from the waiter that they did not use MSG (monosodium glutamate, or vetsin), but I just had to take his word for it. Plus they had my gauge for a good Chinese restaurant: the availability of ginger sauce.

Indeed, it was one of the best resto deals I ever had. All our orders tasted great. The combo platter was a bit wanting portion-wise, e.g. it had only 3 slices of century egg and a few “seaweed” strands, but it had shrimp siomai (hakao?) – a luxury. Supposedly, the fish fillet item that we got was something new from the menu, an item that tasted perfect if taken with the ginger strands, the spring onions and the light soy sauce (see photo). Their Crispy Fried Chicken was served with this peculiar seasoning that I have sorely missed throughout the years, which seasoning I later found out to have been spicy salt and hoisin sauce.

The free beef with broccoli was no racket – it was truly one complete order of the dish, which tasted superb. Since it was free for every bill amounting to Php700 up, and since my mental calculation reckoned our bill to around Php1500, I attempted to hustle their manager into giving us another beef freebie. Needless to say, this request was unfortunately turned down.

Service was courteous and efficient, too. No hovering, and none of that GOOD EVENING SIR, MA’AM exclamations that are a bane to peace-loving diners. You may have to wait in line to be seated inside though, because at 9pm the place was still full (SM MOA closes at 10pm). By the way, they also serve house tea for free upon request.

We were 8 adults and 3 kids. True to my calculations, the bill was Php1560, exclusive of Senior Citizens’ Discount. And the best part of all – my mum-in-law paid for it all!