Tips to Enjoy Tong Yang Bacolod Ultimate Grill and Hot Pot Experience

We are excited to have another eat all you can buffet player in Bacolod City. This September, we welcome Tong Yang Plus Bacolod Grill and Hot Pot at the Ayala Malls Capitol Central.

• Related: Bacolod City Guide

Tong Yang Plus Bacolod

From their description, you will know that the specialties of Tong Yang Bacolod are their shabu-shabu and yakiniku. That means hot pot and grilled meat, respectively.

They are located in an expansive area on the 2^nd floor of Ayala Malls Capitol, which enables them to accommodate up to 100 people in one sitting.

Amenities

Tong Yang Plus has many tables with different seating capacities. The staff has to carefully arrange guests because each one would require a burner for his or her hot pot.

There are a couple of VIP function rooms that groups of eight diners can use at no additional cost. This gives your group some privacy and is perfect for small family celebrations, like simple food-trippin’ birthday parties.

In another light, if you want Bacolod birthday party catering, check out Rochelle’s Kitchen Catering Services. For a birthday party host, you might want to hire professional host Sheann Severino.

Thankfully, there are restrooms inside the big restaurant so you don’t have to go out and use the mall facilities. There are three gender-sensitive comfort rooms — for male, female, and for all genders and ages combined.

My eating buddy (a.k.a. the husband) and I tried Tong Yang Bacolod for lunch.

Tips to Enjoy Your Tong Yang Lunch or Dinner

1. Go to Tong Yang Bacolod at Ayala Malls Capitol Central at opening time. It’s 11am for lunch and 5:30pm for dinner. The more time you have to dine, the more relaxing your meal pacing will be. Less chances of a heart burn, too. We went in at exactly 11am–one of the first ones inside.
2. Take time to go around the buffet area. A once-around will take about five minutes as you mentally check what you like. Curtail your excitement a bit.
3. Discuss the soup base flavor that you prefer for your shabu-shabu (hot pot). They will give you individual bowls, which will be placed on an electric stove before you.
4. Get the ingredients that’s enough for yourself.
5. Divide your meal into parts in order to fully enjoy the most of the offerings at Tong Yang Plus Bacolod.
6. Dine with a group. It’s much more fun.

Plan Your Meal Sequence

We went to Tong Yang Bacolod because my husband and I both love yakiniku and shabu-shabu. We usually indulge ourselves at home or in eat all you can yakiniku restaurants. As for shabu-shabu, we also cook it at home.

So basically, we skipped the pre-cooked dishes and concentrated on what we really liked. For those who don’t like to cook, there are several simple dishes to choose from, along with plain rice and fried rice.

Part 1 – Appetizers

For appetizers, we sampled their Hakaw (shrimp dumplings) and their pork siomai (I like this!)

We also had some salmon skin chicharon (don’t miss) and some chicken feet.

Part 2 – Shabu Shabu (Hot Pot)

Tong Yang Bacolod has three shabu shabu soup bases to choose from, namely:

• Vegetable — Choices of clear vegetable or Chinese herb (like mild si but soup, highly recommended)
• Seafood — Choices of spicy Taiwan mala (highly recommended) soup or sinigang broth
• Pork — Choices of Laksa (highly recommended) or plain broth

After we chose our soup base, we went around to pick an assortment of fresh and frozen ingredients for our hot pot. We like beef, pork belly, octopus, shells, pork cartilage, pork innards, shrimps, and black and white fungus.

Of course, we also got a variety of frozen seafood or meat balls and other veggie meats. From the vegetable section, I got some green chili pepper, corn on the cob, and pechay.

You may want to add noodles for the carbohydrate part of your hot pot soup. They have many different noodles available, ranging from pancit, sotanghon, rice noodles, and several others more.

When I went back to our table, I dropped the corn in the soup base for it to cook. Then I went to make the my shabu-shabu dipping sauce.

Make the Shabu-Shabu Dipping Sauce

For me, the shabu-shabu is incomplete without the special barbecue sauce. It goes well with all the meats and seafood and balls. My sauce mix has an interesting flavor and it takes several ingredients to achieve.

Here is my hot pot sauce mix:

• Spiced vinegar
• Sate sauce
• Sate sauce with egg
• Teriyaki sauce
• Chopped red chili
• Sliced green onions

You use this to dip the meats and vegetables from your hot pot.

Eating Your Shabu-Shabu Creation

Going back to your table, start placing the ingredients into your boiling pot of soup base. Start with the toughest ones. You don’t really have to boil them long. After a couple of minutes, you can ladle some soup in your bowl and let it warm your tummy.

Then you may start picking up the ingredients you cooked. Dip each one in the sauce before eating. Drop more ingredients as you set your meal pace. If all your ingredients are already cooked, you may reduce the heat to low. Simmer the pot just to keep the soup hot.

If you want another shabu-shabu soup base flavor, just make the request from the staff. Then you can get another round of ingredients. By the way, I skipped the noodles and rice for my hot pot meal. I was already very happy with everything I had.

Part 3 – Yakiniku

By this time, it’s already 12:30noon. I stood up to get a glass of ice cold soda because I was starting to feel hot from all the chili I had. Talked to our companions for a few minutes then I went to get the meats and seafood that I want to grill. Meanwhile, hubby and my friend Pynky had draft beer.

The staff will then turn on and grease the smokeless grill for you. Don’t hesitate to ask for assistance.

After depositing two plates of marinated seafood and meats at our table, I made another dipping sauce. This time, it’s one that is perfect for grilled meats and seafood. But in the end, I didn’t get to use it because the grilled food was already seasoned enough for my taste.

By the way, remember to grill some of their pork chorizo — yum yum and highly recommended!

We finished our yakiniku around 1:20pm. I did not eat rice again because it is the bane of my diet. And I honestly, don’t need the extra pounds. In fact, I need to lose more weight. haha

Part 4 – Dessert

The dessert station is not very extensive but enough to give cap your meal. With such a savory lunch like this, a sweet treat at the end should always be in order.

There are several flavors of ice cream, a halo-halo bar, some fruit slices, and a few kinds of other desserts.

I opted for halo-halo topped with vanilla ice cream while hubby had coffee jelly and buco pandan.

Part 5 – Coffee Time

At 1:40, hubby had his coffee fix. He always has coffee in the morning to perk him up for the rest of the day. Tong Yang Bacolod has espresso. And ice cream. So he made his own affogato and was very happy with his creation.

If you were not able to get to the coffee part, have some of your caffeine fix at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Bacolod. It’s located at the ground floor of Ayala Malls Capitol Central. The walk to the front of the mall will do you good.

Tong Yang Bacolod Prices

Here are the current rates, as of September 2019:

• Adult Weekday Lunch – PhP499 + 5% service charge = P523.95 
• Weekday Dinner / Weekend/ Holidays – PhP599 + 5% sc = P628.95

Our Happy Meal at Tong Yang Plus Bacolod

So our entire happy meal took three hours. It was not harried and we got to enjoy our favorites at Tong Yang Plus Bacolod. Of course, we have different tastes, but this is how we did it. Our style, however, made us enjoy everything without overeating and with no leftovers.

It’s more fun to go there as a group of friends or family who also like shabu-shabu and yakiniku. We enjoyed comparing notes and recommending stuff to each other. Plus, we get to sample each other’s creations and were able to take photos of each other!

And while I am writing this, I am craving for shabu-shabu again! Next time, we are going to try it out for dinner.

Contact Information

Tong Yang Plus Bacolod
2nd floor, Ayala Malls Capitol Central
For reservations call: (042) 700 0888 |
(0977) 805-4888 | (0998) 572-8888
FB page: typbacolod
Lunch buffet schedule: 11am to 2pm
Dinner buffet schedule: 5:30pm to 9pm

Note: My husband and I were invited as Bacolod bloggers for the opening promo of Tong Yang Plus Bacolod. We went there three days after the opening day. However, all opinions are mine. No compensation was given for this coverage.