TONG YANG: BETTER ASK FOR MORE FOOD (instead of the menu)
by Louie P. Oviedo

Tong means winter and Yang means sunrise, together, they are the name of an Eat-all-you-can slash buffet restaurant offering fresh meat, seafood, and vegetables chilled in the middle of the room. You, as the diner, have the responsibility of cooking your own food, season it to your taste and arrange it as to how it should appear on your plate. In other words you are the cook while they provide you with the ingredients and the means to cook it with---each table is armed with its own hot pot on top of a stove in the middle.

The first thing that the receptionist asks when you enter Tong Yang restaurant is your soup---which soup do you want? There are four kinds of soup to choose from: plain or chicken broth, saté (mildly spicy), oriental (consists of pork and mushroom), and sinigang. You can have them put it in a two-way pot wherein you can have your shabu-shabu hot pot (for the soup) and a plate on the side to barbecue with. There is also the one-way pot if you do not feel like barbecuing or the twin hot pot if you cannot decide on only one soup for your meal.

For your shabu-shabu and the barbecue's ingredients, you can choose either from the buffet or the ala carte. With the ala carte, you are given a plate of seafood, meat, and vegetables designed to fit around 2 up to 8 people; price range is from P495 (good for 2 to 3) up to 1,455 (good for 6 to 8 people). The buffet, on the other hand, gives you a free hand to try all their buffet table has to offer. You have 80 - 95 items to choose from, depending on the stocks available. From Monday to Saturday, their lunch rate is P360 and P395 every Sundays. Their dinner rate stays at P395 from Monday to Sunday. Drinks are included in the buffet plus the dessert of fruits and halu-halo.

Samples of what you can concoct into your shabu-shabu brew are---for seafood, I caught a glimpse of baby octopus, sea cucumber, mameng fillet, alupihang dagat, bamboo shell. For meat, they have lamb, tenderloin, beef, ox tongue, beef libro-libro, chicken liver and heart. For vegetables, you can have three kinds of pechay (tagalog, baguio, taiwan), wintermelon, polonchay, banana blossom, to name a few. You have eight sauces to choose from so that you can season your meal according to your taste.

As for the barbecue, their liempo, porkchop and tocino found in their buffet table have been marinated with special sauces prepared by Tong Yang.

With almost one hundred items to choose from their buffet when combined with 8 different sauces, you can concoct a meal totally different from those of neighboring tables.

This place is ideal for large groups eating out an example would be a family weekend outing or a barkada gimmick. It is a good venue to not only eat but also boast your culinary expertise in front of your family or friends. For the most obvious reasons, you cook what you eat, but, minus the dishwashing of course.

If you would want to unleash your hidden culinary creativity, this place is also for you.

The only problem I had with this restaurant---since you're left alone to prepare whatever kind of preparations you would be needing for your food---they use their menus as props. Props, in the sense that it is there should anybody need to order the a la carte and its additional side orders. This place has only two sets of menus so if you need a reproduction of their menus just like I did, you would probably have to wait for about two hours. Thank God you do not have to wait that long for your food.