Chef Pao opens new Chinese restaurant

For many years, Pao Han Luo played a major part in the popularity of a small Chinese restaurant in Garapan. Customers, including chefs and managers from big hotels, as well as local government officials, frequented the place because of the “great food at a very low price.”

Chef Pao’s cooking was so distinct that when he left the restaurant earlier this year, customers easily noticed it.

“He’s not there anymore,” said a hotel executive, who used to frequent the place.

A couple of months later, however, Chef Pao showed up in a different location in the Garapan commercial district. Chef Pao has now a new restaurant.

Canton Kitchen, which Pao’s group had started in fall this year, offers great-tasting Chinese food selections that are found nowhere else.

“You just have to order at your own risk,” quips a customer, pointing to the very loose translation of the Chinese menu to English.

Try this: “steams the big fish head with blank bean sauce,” “the ginger and spring onion fries the crab,” and “gold medal pig’s hand noodle soup.”

“It’s tricky but you just have to experiment,” said the customer.

The menu, printed on a spread of green paper, places the food variety into 12 exciting categories: frail, good flavor, flavor good, spicy hot, the joss-stick stew in earthen pot, green vegetables, delicious, delicious gruel, each and every item is great, wine and soda, thick soup is beautiful, and noodles.

In other words, the menu offers a variety of delicious Cantonese cuisine at a bargain price of $3 to as high as $12.

“My family loves going there. The food tastes really good. It’s fresh. The serving is generous. And everything is easy on the pocket,” says an office woman who, like many others, was greatly delighted to discover chef Pao’s new place. She recommends seafood hotpot, beef kangkong, fried rice, and spicy garlic shrimp.

Another frequent visitor says he orders mafu tofu (spicy tofu with ground pork) and chau fan (fried rice). And praises the fact that the restaurant also offers complimentary desserts in the form of fresh fruits.

Other Canton Kitchen patrons make sure to order their favorite traditional Chinese food items such as shomai, wanton soups and wanton noodles.

“We’re so happy to open our own restaurant. It’s very nice that many people are already coming,” said Canton Kitchen manager Yan Qiong Liu.

Liu also worked for the same restaurant where chef Pao came from.

In her previous work, she used to be one of the staff waiting on the customers. Now, she still serves food, but she is now the restaurant’s manager.

Canton Kitchen is located between the Payless Shoe Store building and Johnny’s Bar on Beach Road, Garapan. It opens from 4pm to 4am daily. For inquiries, it can be reached at 233-4825.