Ying Ying Tea House — Restaurant in Manila

This review is based on personal experience and aims to give the establishment a chance to improve for a better customer experience.

Honestly, I don’t understand the "hype" or maybe I just ordered the wrong items. We tried the Chicken Mushroom, Xiao Long Bao, Pork Congee with Century Egg, and Duck Noodle Soup.

It was a weekend when we visited. The place was packed, and there was a queue before we could get in. We waited roughly 30 minutes to be seated, and another 30 minutes before our food was finally served.

Food: The pricing was okay, but the food quality was hit or miss. Some dishes were flavorful, while others were underwhelming. Serving size was just right and filling. I'm trying to find something remarkable about their food, but here’s my honest take:

Xiao Long Bao: Disappointing. The filling tasted like it was mostly meat extenders. At ₱125 for 4 pieces, I expected quality.

Pork Congee with Century Egg: This one was good and filling! The catch, you have to put condiments to make sure it's tasty to your liking. 😭😭😭

Chicken Mushroom: A pleasant surprise — it had the right balance of saltiness and tanginess from the pickled garlic. I liked it.

Duck Noodle Soup: Unexpectedly good! My bf enjoyed this dish the most.

Service: The staff were diligent but still needs improvement. I appreciafe their effort, especially during peak hours but still, management could be better.

Atmosphere: Needs DEEP CLEANING. The floor was oily, and I almost slipped. The place was extremely busy, with a lot of customers waiting for their orders. It felt a bit chaotic inside. (OR BECAUSE IT'S MANILA... IDK 🤷‍♀️)

Suggestions: No hate at all—but please do a thorough deep cleaning! A clean environment makes a huge difference in the dining experience.

THEY HAVE SUPER CUTE CATS THO!!!...

This is probably one of my very few 1 star ratings. I’m not overly critical but every aspect of this restaurant disappointed me. It took about 40 mins to go to this restaurant from BGC. We were hungry and ready. First impression was that no one cared to lead us in. The restaurant seating area was mostly on the second floor. We found that out ourselves. Sat in a room to the far right. It was 11am on a Friday. It wasn’t too busy so didn’t have to wait for seats. From sitting down to getting someone to attend to our orders to getting food was about an hour. Ordered a series of dim sum, a rice dish and some drinks. Everything that came was like warm as if it sat on a counter for hours rather than just brought out from the steamers which is how it should be. Because the food lack the temperature, it tasted flat and borderline not edible. I love dim sum and this is the first time, I didn’t finish any of it. It tasted like someone rejected the food, went back to the kitchen to be recycled to others. I’m baffled at how slow everything is. It wasn’t busy but there was only one waitress serving all of us? How is this place with this much good ratings fumbled this badly? I understand that it’s relatively inexpensive but this is outright terrible. I’m so frustrated because it’s another 40 mins to get back to BGC. I was expecting good food but nothing was good about it. And… the floor was slippery as if it had an oily buildup. Almost fell on the stairs. Do...

We saw this place on TikTok and thought we’d give it a try for dinner. It was a bad experience that kept getting worse.

We got there around 6:30, there was a very long queue. Fair enough, it’s a popular place. After an hour of waiting, we overhear that there is no more duck or lechon. We’re disappointed, but well, it’s popular, I guess they sell out. Since we’ve been waiting so long, we decide to stay anyways.

Around 8, we finally get seated. I run across a cockroach in the bathroom, I’m not delighted, but eh, it’s just in the bathroom. Right?

We get served our siopao. Definitely not the quality we were expecting, they kinda soggy. As I’m eating, what do I see popping up from under my plate? Yup, you guessed it, a roach!

I hold back my breath for a minute, my husband kills it, for some reason I sit back down and return to eating. A few minutes later, another roach pops up and starts walking around the table, making himself comfortable. Mind you, both of these unwanted dinner guests were different breeds of cockroaches, so the place is clearly infested.

At this point we got up and decided to leave.

We paid for what we ate (I feel like it could have been comped haha) and told the staff about the roaches and they apologized but did not one bit seem concerned about the situation.

So, unless you do want to wait an hour and a half to dine on mediocre food with roaches, don’t trust all the food...