Aquaknox

I took a break from work and made it a point to schedule a Happy Friday last week.  This family tradition was started by Vicky's brother in New York, and we'd tried to emulate the idea--having dinner out on Friday nights, for no apparent reason save being together with family.  This time Vicky and Monique were game to try Aquaknox, a Vietnamese restaurant located along Pasay Road (now Arnaiz Avenue), right near the corner of Amorsolo St, next door to our Japanese favorite, Nihon Bashitei.  We were lucky enough to arrive at 6:45pm, and we took the 4th of 5 parking slots.  The restaurant interiors were quite sleek and modern--lots of large painting of carps and Vietnamese countryside sceneries graced the walls, and I immediately felt at ease.  We started off with fresh spring rolls and seafood soup, and quickly got into the groove of Vietnamese cuisine.  The soup was light and refreshing, the taste of the fish, shrimps and squid was evident and made us craving for more.

We first saw the Aquaknox sign along Ortigas Avenue (near Mary the Queen Church), but alas, that branch closed in the middle of 2011 before we could even pay a visit.  The tag line of the restaurant is "More Than Just Pho (rice noodles)" which is a veiled reference to several Vietnamese restaurants that serve mostly Vietnamese noodle soup, with just a few authentic  dishes.  Vicky noticed that a lot of the items on the menu borrowed French cooking techniques--e.g. caramelized onions, bouillabaisse--but had that distinct Asian style too.  The fusion was evident in the vegetable dishes that came in (kangkong and bokchoy with mushrooms), in the tenderloin tips and in the chicken with sticky rice dish (this was a hit with Monique).

I thought the cuisine would be predominantly hot and spicy (like Thai or Malaysian food) but as it turns out--only certain dishes were spicy.  The piece de resistance?  Chef Danny Vu's naked crabs, of course!  Why naked?  Because the meat is already taken from the crab shell and one can eat without having to peel it off!  Crabs go from P1,400 for the medium sized ones to P2,600 for the jumbo sizes--add P100 to have the crabs de-shelled or, rather "naked!"

The crab comes with oiled pasta and ice tea, so this is a good reason to make this dish pang-pyesta!  All in all, if one were to eat here without the crabs, I'd say a budget of P500 per head is pretty good.  With the crabs, I'd say you'd have to prepare another P500 per head, for a total of P1,000 per person.  Hmmm..... this piques my curiosity... now maybe we could take a trip to Hanoi soon?