Red Onion Café
The fragrant red onion is a ubiquitous element in most Taiwanese home cooking. So when trying to come up with a catchy name for their restaurant, entrepreneurs Mark Endaya and Wen-Szu Lin readily named their new quick food service enterprise after it. The Red Onion Café serves Taiwanese cuisine that traces its roots to the omnipresent food stalls and family recipes across Taiwan.
Start with the Crispy Taiwanese Dumplings (P168 per 5 pieces). Half-fried and half-boiled, these dumplings have an interesting look and texture with one side crunchy and the other, soft and tender. Another dish worth tasting is the Sichuan Mala Chicken (P198 per single, P378 per family) which is white chicken with spicy and aromatic Sichuan peppercorn. For something familiar, try the Lu Rou Rice Bowl (P88), which Mark describes as "Taiwanese adobo." The little slices of meat pack a lot of flavor, and has that salty-sweet taste that Filipinos love.
The real attraction of the Red Onion Café, though, is their handshaved noodles. You can watch from behind a glass window as the noodles are shaved and dropped into boiling water. You can choose to have them with the 39 Spices Beef Noodle (P228 for all meat, P288 for meat and tendon), which has a special broth made from a blend of spices and sauces, then topped with beef and vegetables. Another must-try is the Sweet and Sour Pork (P228), which looks a world away from the reddish sweet and sour pork that we know. Red Onion's version looks more like soy-glazed strips of pork which are tangy and have a crunchy exterior.
Aside from yummy and fragrant meals, Red Onion also serves Spiced and Iced Coffee Latté (P128)—espresso ice cubes with special spiced milk. It's perfect for capping off your meal; just pour the milk and wait for the coffee cubes to melt.