A Mini Food Review - Ramon Lee Fried Chicken

About a week ago, me, the missus and the kid took s stroll around Divisoria in seach of cheap finds.  We tirelessly scoured the 168, Divisioria, and Meisic Malls and even the Tutuban Center was not spared in the quest for chea.... reasonably priced goodies.   And after a day of non-stop walking, haggling (i leave this part to the missus) and window shopping, we didn't go home empty handed, but that was not the case for our rumbling stomachs. :P 

I decided to take the opportunity to visit one of the famous eateries I've seen featured in lifestyle shows (or maybe it's in one of QTV's Tony Pet's food trips).  The Panciteria Lido, but it was closed for renovation.  We've already eaten several times at the eateries in the estero area, so that was stricken out of my list.  

Hungry and no place to go, I've remembered the infamous Ramon Lee Fried Chicken restaurant and since I've long been curious about its taste, so we decided finally to march towards the much-talked about resto.

The atmosphere was old school, like the eateries of old, and you could tell that they've had their staff for quite some time now, :P (but not as old as the ones at MaMonLuk)    The waitress handed us the menu and naturally, we went for the stuff that made them famous -- Pancit, the RL Fried Chicken (Half an order), and Fried Rice (one serving).  

Servings were for sharing and there was enough to go around for three hungry bargain-hunters.  As for the taste, i found nothing exemplary.  Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's because of the fact that i grew up in an old-school resto which my Angkong ran that virtually served the same range of dishes.   Alas, our resto (Superiority Restaurant) died with him.  :(

The chicken was prepared veryt much like the one we served (I'm assuming it's cooked asado-style before being deep fried) because that's how we did it and I dunno if my memories of my childhood have started to fail me, but the RL chicken was not as good as ours.  It was different from the fast food fried chickens that most of us are used to, but it's nowhere near as say, Max's or Savory (which is the best tasting IMO, I've yet to taste Tambokikoy's, but I'm planning to one of these days).

Same goes with the pancit and the fried rice.  Our family can whip up better tasting pancit any day and I can trump their fried rice with my own cooking.  For pancit lovers, i'd recommend that you try our heirloom recipe Pata Pancit (my aunt still makes it).  I can give you her number if you're interested  and I think they can do deliveries in the Pasay-Makati area so long as you give them a heads up.

Overall, the food was okay, maybe it was just hyped too much that it didn't live up to my expectations.  The food and drinks was also a bit overpriced vis-a-vis the taste and the serving sizes.

Somehow, there's a part of me that wishes that I should have just gone to Chowking, saved a few bucks, enjoyed the air-conditioning whilst also having a full stomach, but i guess what you pay for was experiencing the good 'ol days of Manila, and the fact that the place allowed me to look back to fond memories of my childhood was not bad either.  But if you'll ask me if i'll come back, the answer is no.  Somehow, I am of the belief that my 500 bucks would be better spent on a family- size pizza, or better yet -- a Fried-Chicken-Yang Chow-Chop-Suey combo from Savory.