Chinese Fastfood: A Yumchee Philippines Review

Several interesting restaurants and food establishments have starting popping out on BGC, Taguig last year. I was particularly excited about the hype from each resto – The Halal Guys’ rice meals, Costa Coffee’s Flat White, Unit 27^th’s Instagrammable dishes, FAT Restaurant’s Porchetta, and quite recently, Yumchee’s “premium Chinese fastfood” offerings.

What made my workmates and I give Yumchee a shot is that we’ve heard that the food’s quality is that of a more upscale Chinese restaurant, yet the price is comparable to that of a fastfood. True enough, with Set Meals at Php 199.00 and dimsum at Php 85.00, the price is not bad for a Chinese dine-in resto.

Since it’s what would most likely get your attention first,  we experimented with the Set Meals. I say “experimented” because you can customize your order by getting one main dish and one side:

Main Dishes:

Chicken Chop

Orange Chicken

Sweet and Sour Pork

Chinese Adobo

Salt Pepper Spareribs

Black Pepper Beef

Beef Brisket

Fish Fillet Tofu

Sides:

Steamed Rice + Soup

Fried Rice + Soup

Fried Noodles + Soup

Seasonal Vegetables

Spareribs

I had a spareribs – fried rice – soup combo. The spareribs turned out to be our favorite during the meal. Not too salty with just the right spiciness. Nothing too special about it really, but it tasted good enough.

Sweet and Sour Pork

I was expecting the sweet and sour pork to at least taste as decent as the spareribs but it was a disappointment. It tasted flat, and what was supposed to be a play of sweet and sour ended up just being sweet. The breading was also already soggy when served.

Beef Brisket

The beef was tender but I would have preferred it to have more seasoning and spices. Maybe a bit more of star anise would also help?  

Beancurd Shrimp Roll – Php 85.00

These are basically shrimp rolls using thin beancurd skin as the wrapper. It was stuffed with a generous amount of shrimp, so this may be a good option for those who loved this seafood.

Aside from fried rice, we also had noodles and veggies for some of the dishes we ordered.  The veggies were pretty good – nice and crispy although I kinda wished that there was more garlic.

Their milk tea wasn't bad either.

To be fair, service was really fast and we got our orders within a few minutes in spite of the crowd. Yumchee met expectations if we talk about it being “fastfood” and “affordable” however, they may have to work more on the “premium” part.