Homegrown wonders

MANILA, Philippines - In a place where Chinese restaurants proliferate on the sidewalks like trees in a dense forest, it’s a struggle to establish your identity as an emerging Chinese restaurant. There are the usual staples, of course: the richly flavored food, whittling recipes down to tradition, but other than that, how does a new restaurant distinguish itself in order to convince would-be customers that it is worth their time and money?

For chef Sydney Y. Sy of Syd’s Kitchen, it’s just a matter of refining your approach to dining and giving customers a wicked take on dishes that they’re already familiar with. In the case of dining habits, people always gravitate towards the kind of food they’re more comfortable with, no matter how adventurous they are in exploring new types of cuisine.

Growing up with traditional Chinese cuisine, the Sy family had always wanted to put up a restaurant, so after graduating from De La Salle College of Saint Benilde in 2004, Sy underwent training in numerous culinary institutions to hone his managerial skills. He worked at Shangri-La Boracay and even went to Le Cordon Bleu, a French school based in Australia.

Rich flavor: Syd’s Pork Belly on the Block is made with a special sauce.

“My family agreed that I should have enough experience first before we opened a restaurant so I could have a better grasp of restaurant management and handling kitchen operations,” Sy shares.

Syd’s Kitchen opened in September 2010. The cuisine, of course, focuses on Chinese dishes. But since Banawe was already teeming with Chinese restaurants, Sy added his take on these dishes, pouring in his experience in Western cuisine to give the usual Chinese food a different twist.

The thing that sets Syd’s Kitchen apart from the usual Chinese fare is the flavor. The dishes are rich, painstakingly cooked with much calibration to come up with the right amount of flavor that sets taste buds on fire. For instance, their pork belly on the block may look like the regular lechon kawali, but to make it more memorable, Syd’s pork belly is marinated with a special sauce that fills the meat with a glaze-like touch (must be the apple cinnamon that goes with the sauce). It takes a lot of time to prepare this dish since each chunk is cut in such a way that preserves its flavor and the crunchiness of the skin.

Treasured recipe: The Tofu Treasures at Syd’s Kitchen on Banawe St., Quezon City

Other remarkable Syd’s dishes are the Original Chicken, which has kids going bonkers because of its crisp, clean, and fantastic flavor; chili crabmeat spaghetti, a healthier alternative for pasta lovers, which is made with shrimp oil done by Sy himself; and the delectably creamy mango cheesecake, a perfect ending to an invigorating meal.

What’s amazing about the dishes on Syd’s menu is that they are made with the health of the customers in mind. One of Syd’s specialties is the aptly named Tofu Treasures, tofu and vegetables delicately wrapped in fried bean-curd skin. “This dish is meant for vegans,” explains Sy. “The market here is mostly senior, so we created this for them. This is fresh bean curd with tofu fillings. We wrap them individually.”

Despite the “fusion” attached to his dishes, the food at Syd’s Kitchen is far from trendy. The dishes are quirkily named, like a burger called “The One,” and an Asian pesto and chicken pasta dish called “Hulk” because it’s green.

Sy thanks his mom for inspiring him, along with chef Riku Lek, his mentor from Singapore, for each dish that he crafts. “I’m influenced by my mom. At a young age, I learned a lot from her. She said I really liked to eat. This is the dream she never realized so we wanted to build this one for her,” he relates.

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Syd’s Kitchen is located at 847 Banawe St. corner Linaw, Quezon City, tel. no. 414-0826.