My last Chinese banquet meal was at Gloria Maris Greenhills, right before ECQ started.
It is memorable because it is going to be the last one in a while, until this whole pandemic is over and we can safely hold gatherings again.
Gloria Maris Greenhills Under New Management
Gloria Maris Greenhills has been under new management since early this year. The Lao family that currently manages Choi Garden has taken over the Gloria Maris Greenhills branch (this branch only) because the owners of Gloria Maris were planning to retire.
The new management has tweaked some of the recipes and introduced new dishes, too. They have also brought in some of their seasoned chefs from Choi Garden to Gloria Maris Greenhills.
Here are some of the new dishes we were able to try:
I’ll just go through the dishes that I really liked:
Our meal began with a delicious start – The Two-Tone Almond Seafood Soup was mild, but also, robust? Half of the soup is almond flavored, and the other half is pumpkin. It’s very pretty, and our server was able to maintain the Yin-Yang pattern even after ladling the soup into individual bowls.
Peking Duck! Who can say no to Peking Duck? This one had crispy skin and was carved by the chef:
Lechon Kawali – nobody makes Lechon Kawali like Hong Kong-trained chefs. The meat is so tender, but not too fatty, and the skin is thin but evenly crisp and crackly. Just look at those beautiful, even layers, and the almost uniform-looking bubbles on the skin.
Mini Taro Basket with Prawn Scallop – similar to the dimsum Taro dumpling or Taro Duck
Fried Lamp Chop with Mint Jelly – this is new. It’s a bit of a fusion dish, feels like a Xinjiang-style dish because of the cumin, but it is also flavored with rosemary. It’s nice that Gloria Maris is trying out new dishes and not just sticking to Cantonese / Hokkien cuisines. I liked this one it’s nicely seasoned, nicely spiced, and the meat is succulent but also has bite.
Steamed Apahap with Taoso – this is my favorite dish of the entire meal. The taoso (crispy beans, 豆酥 ) sauce is salty, aromatic and it’s more flavorful, but milder and sweeter than black or yellow bean paste sauce. Of course, the best parts of the fish are the cheeks and the nape (back of the fish head). The meat / fish muscles here are tender but slightly chewy. If you want to try something else than the usual steamed fish with soy sauce, try this instead!
Braised Home-made Spinach Skin Beancurd with Enoki Mushrooms – this ties with the Steamed Apahap with Taoso above as my favorite dish, too. It’s a soft tofu, chawan mushi-like fried cake that also reminds me of fried milk, that’s swimming in what I would call abalone sauce. It’s just the sauce I usually associate with abalone. This dish is unique, you won’t easily find this anywhere else.
When things get back to normal, you HAVE TO get the Special Buchi!!! You know how regular buchis only have black or brown monggo filliing? Well, this Special Buchi has a sweet, salted egg filling! It’s one of the things we always request whenever we dine at Gloria Maris Greenhills.
Gloria Maris Greenhills Now Available for Pick-up/Delivery!
We celebrated my birthday under lockdown, and I seriously did not want to have to cook my own birthday noodles!
With Gloria Maris still fresh on my mind, we decided to order my birthday noodles from them. Ordering was easy. I just called the telephone number (during their working hours), and placed my order. They currently have a smaller, limited menu available that is composed mostly of their popular, staple dishes, so I just ordered some Birthday Noodles (P550) and some Sweet & Sour Pork (P690). But I really miss having a full banquet with extended family!
Payment can be COD or credit card upon pick-up. They are now also available on Grab Food.
The Birthday Noodles came with the noodles and the sauce packed separately. On first look, the Birthday Noodles order seemed small, but when I transferred the noodles onto the plate and poured the sauce over it, it was actually quite substantial!
The Birthday Noodles were really good, it tasted exactly as I had expected, and I was extremely happy that I didn’t have to make it myself. I didn’t realize how much I missed Chinese banquet dining! It’s going on 5 months since we’ve been on quarantine. How I wish I could also make birthday noodles like Gloria Maris, but I can’t, and it’s highly impractical now to source all those ingredients since I stay home as much as possible. Gloria Maris’s Birthday Noodles had liver, chicken, squid, shrimp, quail eggs, and vegetables. It was worth it to just order from them because they do it well, rather than slave over cooking it on my birthday!
Aside from the Birthday Noodles and the Sweet & Sour Pork, we also had Mango Grill’s Truffle Blanca Foldover, and also Spinach Soup that I made earlier. Relatives also ordered some cakes and pastries for dessert 🙂
For drinks, we had the celebratory, but non-alcoholic Welch’s Sparkling Rose.
Here’s Gloria Maris’s Ordering Info:
Gloria Maris Greenhills has their own basement parking.
You may also find their menu here:
Gloria Maris Greenhills
