Written by: Gabrielle Borromeo
Published in the Daily Tribune (Life Style section) on Saturday, 25 August 2012.
Life can get a little boring when nothing changes,
especially when it comes to food. No wonder why everyone is guilty of opening
the refrigerator again and again as if anything is going to change within a
minute.
Well, you can stop opening your refrigerator now because I
know “what’s new” out there, while your refrigerator has nothing new to offer
you until you restock.
Chowking’s latest carry-along offering, the Chow Pao, had me
snacking on it one time after another as I was excited to try its four
variants. Chowking’s Chow Pao’s four interesting flavors - Chinese Sausage,
Chinese Sausage Special, Braised Chicken and Chunky Beef – had me trying out
each one to satisfy my cravings for a filling snack.
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| Chinese Sausage |
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| Chinese Sausage Special |
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| Braised Chicken |
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| Chunky Beef |
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| My Braised Chicken Chow Pao |
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| Here is a picture of the people with their hands up high trying to win the game in Winema. |
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| Well, everyone was very competitive, they all wanted to win! Oh and funny expression you got there Mister guy in brown. Haha! |
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| Magic 89.9's Radio DJ Sam YG (Samir Gogna) hosted Chowking's Chao Pao event. |
Each Chow Pao has its own kick, but more or less each
contains Chinese fillings, sauteed vegetables and tasty Chinese sweet soy-based
sauce which is in harmony with the Filipino palate. Each Chow Pao is covered in
a soft steamed man tao bun and has Chowking’s “initials” embedded on top, and
the price ranges from P25 to P49 only.
The Chinese sausage Chow Pao is sweet and salty. For meat
lovers, it is a chockfull of meat, and the added vegetables to the special
version make it a hearty comfort food. The Braised Chicken is tender to the
bite, and the slow cooking makes it tasty for the soft and slightly sweet bun.
The chunky beef is juicy and oozing with dark soy aromas that the soft bun
became the perfect pillow for the meaty flavors.
In all of the variants, the sandwich-style steamed bun holds
up on its own with its creamy softness. I found myself peeling off a few
strands of the bun as I was munching on the savory meats.
The launch of the Chowking Chow Pao was held with an
advanced screening of Snow White and the
Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron.
While waiting for the movie to begin, the audience was handed each a Chow Pao
to savor.
The launch then began with a game of filling up the Chow Pao with
different fillings. The cinema goers had to wave to the movement sensor that
became the cursor for the game. This was the Winema. Winema stands for “We
Interact with the Cinema” and works just like a Nintendo Wii, except that it’s
played on the big screen.
The Chao Pao Winema game was fun and engaging. It kept the
attention on the screen and the hands in the air. As you can imagine, the game
was a game of catch of fillings like sausages, carrots, leeks, chicken, beef
and egg. The teamwork of the audience was evident as most of the ingredients
were caught with a few missed ingredients.
The audience were also treated to a dance number by the said Chefs of Chowking!
[Going back to the game...] Though the game didn’t require you to run, jump or move from
one place to another, it was pretty much an intense game. As members of the
audience, we were many but as a team we were one. And as one, we each had to
work togeter to direct the Chowking mantao bun by raising both our hands and
tilting it to the right direction to catch the correct ingredients as it falls
from the top of the movie screen. It was fun, almost like we were in a concert
waving our hands from left to right except here we had to do it attentively. We
also needed to avoid non-Cow Pao ingredients from getting into the bun, so the
whole audience was screaming their hearts out as an ingredient would fall. When
the crowd reached the target score, everyone was promised a prize!
A motion-sensitive camera installed in the cinema turned the
whole audience into a joystick, which allowed them to play games just by waving
their hands and moving the basket just in time to catch the ingredients.
Winema is available in SM Megamall Cinema 1, SM Mall of Asia
Cinema 3 and SM North EDSA, The Block Cinema 1.
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