Yuan Congee & Dimsum Bar

Dogas

2.0

People nowadays are more creative and adventurous when it comes to food. As often as possible, they want to be participative when it comes to eating. Yuan congee and dimsum bar offers just that - customization. At Yuan, you can customize your own congee and noodles dishes by choosing your preferred toppings, soup base, and even noodles.Located near Cafe Ysabel in San Juan, Yuan is a house-turned-resto that offers dimsum, rice toppings, noodle soups, and congee. It is barely a month old and is on soft opening.Congee is my ultimate comfort food and noodle is an ultimate Chinese snack. These two dishes are considered basic yet it takes great skill to perfect. This is not the case for this restaurant. Here are some of the dishes we tried:- Congee with 3 toppings (Php129) : I chose fresh egg, salted egg, and century egg for my toppings : should be the ultimate eggsperience, but it didn't. The congee is a fujian-style of congee (texture of arroz caldo in western culture). Not the usual congee that you find in Chinese restaurants in Binondo, it has a semi-thick soup with the rice that can still be chewed. For the eggs, you are given a whole fresh egg, half a century egg, and half a salted duck egg. The saltiness and rough texture of the duck egg cannot be tasted, the yolk is also gone. Taste is ok. The good part about this is their congee is cooked only when ordered.- Congee with 3 toppings part two : my mom chose hard-boiled egg, pork liver, and seafood ball for her toppings : congee is average. She felt cheated though with the half-egg when in fact my congee has a whole egg. The seafood ball is actually just one ball that is quartered. The liver is tough and bland as it has been boiled for a long time. Overall, she felt ripped-off with the quantity of the toppings served.- Noodles with 3 toppings : my wife chose pork broth, mushroom noodles and water spinach, tofu, and sliced pork for her toppings. Noodles are thin and flat with a hint of flavor. Soup has a light flavor (doubt that they actually use pork bones) and is salty.- Asado Wrap - one of the good dishes for the day as per my brother.- Crunchy Chicken Wrap - well, we wanted to try the asado wrap, but my brother's got the last one, so we opted for this instead. Crunchy? Yes, because of the loads of cucumber. Flavor? A little, because of the hoisin sauce. Chicken? Um...few flaked pieces that are tough to chew. SO basically it's a cucumber and chicken flakes in hoisin sauce wrapped in wheat flour tortilla.- Chinese Pancakes - I didn't know what this is actually when I ordered. I was assuming it to be my favorite onion pancakes. It turned about to be an egg pancake. It is like a thin omelette with carrots and green beans. Delicious? Yup. Not worth the price though.- Fried Rice - color is right, flavor is light. What I do not like about this dish is that it is cooked in butter (or even margarine) because the strong taste and bad aftertaste of that butter can be tasted in every single rice.- Siomai (Php99) : 4 pieces of pork siomai with some mushrooms. What can I say? It has some meat, but majority of it is pork fat and flour...- Sharkfin dumpling - I learned from a sharksfin dumpling supplier that the localized dumpling doesn't really have any sharksfin but made from pork, shrimp, and mushrooms. I don't know what the contents of their version, but it tasted like their siomai in a different form.For the food, overall, needs improvement. It doesn't have any Chinese tastes to it. Most of them tasted fake or lack in flavor and ingredients. Chinatown cheap eats restaurant is way better than this.For the service. Slow. Here is my observation in my 2-hr stay. They have one cook, one waiter, one busboy, one cashier/owner, and one floor manager/owner. The food just takes a really long time to come out and I can imagine what is happening in the kitchen. The sole waiter is also the order taker and each table has to wait for their turns in ordering. He is also the only one who knows about the menu. If you ask the busboy, he doesn't know anything and will tell you to ask the order taker instead. When not doing anything, he just stands there like a statue. The floor manager kept walking from her office to the kitchen, in a stressed mood. It would be nice for her to talk to the guests once in a while to ask for comments or make friends with the customers. Upon billing, the cashier came out and started searching for the sole waiter and told him about the amount to be paid. In my opinion, the cashier lady should have just came to us for the bill. I pity that poor waiter who has to do everything.Ambiance, classy and modern. Chairs and couches are comfortable. Decorations are homey. There are two flights of stairs to the entrance of the restaurant, just a caution for senior citizens. Parking can accommodate about 6-8 cars.They have a dimsum promo (eat all you can) for just Php249. Check out their Facebook page. But after trying out some of their dimsum, I'm not interest in availing that promo.Other stuffs: serving for congee can be good for two, but the noodles, although served in a bigger bowl, can only be consumed by one. Fried rice is good for one but can be shared because of the satiating effect of the butter/margarine. They accept senior citizens card but also have a 10% service charge.In the end, they are at soft opening so they are still on the learning stage. I will probably come back again when they have had their grand opening or when everything improved. I do hope they do.

Simone Gillespie

1.0

The good first- asado rice is good because it has a huge serving and good value for money.The badDimsum - ordered sharksfin dimsum and felt cheated because its not worth the price. Doesn't taste good. Paotsins is way cheaper and tastes betterOrdered the noodles with 5 toppings. 1 of the toppings is crabstick they served to me without taking off the plastic not very hygenic. 2nd is the egg they served only half of the egg.Overall not a very good experience and will not come back again

BerellA

4.0

Ive been coming and coming back to this place with my friends several times already. So far... So good for me! The ambience at yuan is relaxing for me and my friends especially when we want to get together. For the food:My fave is the szechuan noodle soup with 5 toppings and i recommend the soy tapa tips. For the dessert: Volcanic lava cake- to die for!!! We never tried the buffet though but we are planning to try them this week. Their prices are also affordable.

Mariel Cuenca

4.0

I just visited this once with my hubby and we enjoyed their dimsum buffet. Although it was was a little chaos since theres not much waiters available to get us what we needed but we hope they would add more service staff in the future. The girl in black gave us a free coffee jelly for free since we waited for 15 mins to get a table. It was jampacked that time. We ordered congee- the bestseller according to them.. it was different and unique... but thats what we loved about it! We also loved the pork and chicken wrap... it tasted like the normal duck wraps they serve in good earth..So i can say.. you have to try the congee and the wraps!! 100% musy try. We will come back during their off peak hours next time.

Gabriela Ferlia

1.0

Saw a rating 5.0 which I can say is over rated. The taste of food is not that good, over priced. A place not worth paying for and not worth coming back.