Suzhou Dimsum in Malate

There's an interesting Chinese restaurant - Suzhou Dimusum - along A. Mabini in Malate (between the Malate Church and Pan Pacific Hotel) that serves authentic Chinese delicacies. It has a variety of noodles and dimsum in its menu which are not common in other Chinese food shops. I like their menu - it is coded with photos of all the dishes.

We ordered (very) soft tofu with century egg topped with pork flakes, spicy potato salad (cut like noodles), spicy chicken feet, fried chicken with crackling skin, seafood soup with tofu, pork siomai, pork dumpling, kuchay dumpling, noodles (both dry and with soup), fried rice, fish tempura, and dumpling with black sesame and sugar for dessert. Yes, its too much but there were 13 of us, too - 8 adults and 5 kids. Apple and I were not able to taste everything so we'll only comment on what we've eaten.

Their soft tofu with century egg is good. The tofu is cold and blends well with the toppings. The pork siomai and dumplings are also good, although we find the wrappings of the dumplings a little thick. But the "soup" inside of the dumpling is good (It's like eating the soup inside a balot). The potato salad was spicy and hot...ahhh ..water please! But it was nice.

The thick soup has a lot in it - mushroom, veggies, shrimp, tofu - but we find the soup a little lacking in flavor. But putting a little vinegar sauce in the soup makes it tasty. The fried rice also has a lot in it, but is also bland. (Maybe the idea is to eat the rice with their siomai or other dishes.) The stir-fry noodles are prepared ala japanese yakisoba with soft pork on the side. My friend who is a regular in that joint commented that the taste of the stir-fry noodle is different from what was served to her in the past. We were not able to taste, though their noodles with soup. (Their Taiwan noodles actually looks spicy and appetizing.)

The dumpling dessert is also interesting. The wrapping is similar to the Filipino's "palitaw" (ground rice cooked in boiling water) and the inside is ground black sesame with sugar. It is served in a bowl-full of hot water (the water is supposed to be taken if you find the dumplings too sweet). We're just not too excited, though, with the texture (the sesame seed with sugar has a sandy-like texture).

They have an unlimited supply of tea, too but a little thrifty in serving drinking water (we had to request for it otherwise they will not serve water at all). Over all, the food is not expensive. Given all our orders, our bill didn't even reach P3000.

UPDATE: Suzhou has relocated and is now at the 1st Level of the Red Planets Hotel. In our last visit in July 2016,  we enjoyed the thin beef with chili dip, cabbage and the usual alltime favorites like Xiaolongbao abd kuchay.

The new Su Zhou at the Red Planets Hotel

The Beef Strips

Cabbage with Chicken strips

The new menu