Save yourself the trip

Alexis Yap
Lex in the City

ONE fine afternoon, I come across this gem of a restaurant at J Center Mall, I place I really don’t frequent as it is a city away from where I live. This interesting place is called Ersao, meaning second sister-in-law in Chinese as it was the family placement of the Taiwanese owner who opened her milk tea place back in 2000 in metro Manila.

When it first opened in Cebu in 2013, Ersao has already introduced some delicious Taiwanese food on the menu alongside, of course, its famous milk teas. I met the Cebu franchisee, Oileen and she let me try almost everything on the menu. She was right to be confident as I enjoyed everything she put on the table.

We started with some exotic fare like the Cuajitos, a pig’s ear dish hat I don’t usually eat. The first bite was just a burst of delicious flavors. I honestly enjoyed it and promised to order it again the next time. Then we had beef tripe, pork tripe, and some chicken gizzard all seasoned Taiwanese-style. Dee-licious!

But that was only the beginning! Next we had the spicy chicken, spicy squid, chicken steak, pork dumplings, and the super yummy and generous serving of pork chaofan. There was one more dish that I was right saving for last- the beef genji noodles, which I absolutely loved!

We also tried a few of their wide array of drinks: the taro milk tea and chocolate milk tea were very good while the most interesting drink of all was the lemon rose tea. They serve the brown-colored rose tea and the yellow-colored lemon syrup on your table, combine the two in front of you, and watch your jaws drop in awe as the mixture turns itself to hot pink! I never knew brown plus yellow equaled pink.

I had visited Taipei once a couple of years back and what I enjoyed most about the trip was the delicious Taiwanese street food. It was definitely worth going back for. But my visit to Ersao might have just saved me a round trip ticket to Taipei as their food was as good as the real thing.