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Balita
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Dynasty Court’s Winning Pancit Tradition: One of the Top 10 Restaurants in the Philippines with the best Pancit Canton
By Mike Baños
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There’s a quarter century of tradition behind Dynasty Court’s recent selection
as one of the Top 10 Restaurants in the Philippines with the best Pancit
Canton.
Established on November 27, 1987 by five entrepreneurs, Dynasty Court
Restaurant aspired to offer Kagay-anons the best Chinese cuisine in Cagayan de
Oro. Driven by its tasty Cantonese menu, business was so good that barely six
years later, the restaurant evolved into the Dynasty Court Hotel with the
restaurant still as its star attraction.
 
“We’re basically been using the same recipe for the past 22 years,” said Nelia
Lee, Dynasty Court Hotel and Restaurant manager. Although their pancit canton
is basically the same recipe one can see all over the archipelago, Ms. Lee says
the secret to the taste of their winning noodles is in their “secret sauce.”
For
the whole summer customers can enjoy this top notch menu at a 20% discount
Dynasty Court is now promoting to celebrate their recognition as one of the
Philippines Top 10 Restaurants with the best pancit canton. Also included in
the ongoing promo are their other noodles like misua guisado, bihon, sotanghon and bam-i.
Pancit Canton is one of the 10 featured Filipino dishes in the “Sooo Pinoy”
campaign, a joint project of Unilever Foodsolutions, Philippine Daily Inquirer
(PDI) and Department of Tourism which bills itself as “The National Search for
the Ultimate Pinoy Dish.”
 
“A team from Unilever and PDI nominates food outlets around the country that
best serve a particular dish,” said Jhao Carandang, Unilever sales
executive. “For instance, Dynasty Court was nominated among others in
Mindanao and by certain criteria bested other nominees across the
Philippines.”
Carandang
said ‘mystery judges’ would visit nominated outlets to judge the particular
dish and rank the Top 10 restos or hotels judged to be best in a
particular dish based on ‘Taste’
(balance of flavor, texture and aroma); ‘Presentation’
(creativity, use of ingredients) and ‘Value for Money’ (serving size, quality of ingredients and overall dining experience).
Pancit Canton was selected as one of the featured Pinoy dishes in the “Sooo
Pinoy” campaign due to its long tradition in Philippine cookery. Pancit (or
pansit) was introduced by the Chinese to the country and now occupies a
hallowed place in the Pinoy’s culinary heritage.
In her 2005 report entitled “Republic of Pancit”, reporter Nancy Reyes Lumen of
the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) says the term Pancit evolved
from the Hookien (or Lanlang, as the
predominantly Fookienese Chinese-Filipinos call themselves) pian i sit (Chinese: 便e食) which means
"something conveniently cooked fast."  
And fast cooking it is. I had the privilege of witnessing one of Dynasty
Court’s cooks, Dioniso Alta, expertly whip up their Pancit Canton in a big wok
over a roaring fire and indeed, it only took him only 5-8 minutes to cook the
whole serving. Unless the restaurant is chock full of customers (as it usually
is during lunch and dinner time) it only takes Dynasty Court’s kitchen 10-15 minutes
from the time your order is taken by the waiter to when the steaming hot,
deliciously smelling platter of Pancit Canton is served to your table.
According to food lore handed down from the Chinese, Reyes says that noodles such
as Pancit Canton should be eaten on one's birthday but cautions that "noodles
represent long life and good health” so they must not be cut short so as not to
corrupt the symbolism."
Besides the noodles, Dynasty Court’s Pancit Canton pretty much retains most of
the traditional ingredients we’ve come to associate with the recipe such as
pork or chicken meat, shrimp, white, red and spring onions, cooking oil,
garlic, carrots, celery, nappa or green cabbage, bok choy, black mushroom,
chicken broth, salt, pepper and soy sauce or Pinoy style fish sauce to taste,
red and green peppers..
But perhaps the great difference lies with the way Dynasty’s cooks do their
pancit canton, as evidenced by the restaurant’s pedigree as the overall champion
of the 2nd Edition of Kumbira, the regional culinary competition organized by
the Cagayan de Oro Hotel & Restaurant Association (COHARA) and generally
acknowledged to be the best culinary show and competition outside Metro Manila.
“We’re that confident of our recipe, and we believe any properly trained cook
can whip
it up in no time,” Ms. Lee says.
This is what Austrian Chef Norbert Gandler, who headed the elite panel of
judges for the 13th Kumbira 2009, noted during the nine times he’s been a judge
for the competition.
“You should focus on what you know and master it,” he said. “Not something completely
new but improvements of your existing best dishes would be best.”
“It doesn’t matter if you use simple products,” Gandler says. “Work on the combinations,
match your dishes with sidings. Don’t’ confuse. Simple and clean is much better
than doing too much.”
Sure sounds a lot like Dynasty Court’s Top 10 Pancit Canton.
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