First Night in Puerto Princesa: Dinner Date at Haim Chicken Inato

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It was evening when me and My Beloved Wife Lei landed on the Puerto Princesa Airport. It was too dark and I didn’t see what Puerto Princesa looks like from the sky. That didn’t dampen my mood, however, because we will be exploring our dream destination soon. In fact, I was excited and I couldn’t contain it.

I know we're welcome here.

Our dream destination to Palawan came true after we booked a deal from CashCash Pinoy. The package that we got includes 3 days & 2 nights’ accommodation in Marianne Home Inn, airport transfers, and Honda Bay tour. We paid a total of 12,000 pesos for this deal.

We were informed that Marianne Home Inn was full that night so they have to transfer us to Balay Inato. This little “inconvenience” was actually a blessing in disguise because it gave us the chance to taste Puerto Princesa’s best chicken barbecue.

Our travel from the airport was quick thanks to the complimentary transport courtesy of our hotel. The hotel clerk immediately ushered us to our room and then they gave us two glasses of iced tea to quench our thirst. Too bad there’s no complimentary dinner. :-P

Balay Inato is both an inn and a restaurant. We were actually greeted by the delicious odor of food when we entered their place. Their restaurant sure made our stomach grumble. Since Balay Inato is far from the city proper (and other restaurants) and Lei is really hungry, we decided to dine in their restaurant: the Haim Chicken Inato.

Established in 1999, Haim Chicken Inato is dubbed as the best chicken house in Palawan. In fact, this restaurant is in TripAdvisor’s top 10 Puerto Princesa restaurants. What draw people to this restaurant is its version of Bacolod’s chicken inasal, which they call as chicken inato. Aside from chicken inato, they also offer authentic Filipino dishes thus making this restaurant a perfect place for foreigners who want try Filipino dishes.

Haim Chicken Inato has that native Filipino ambience. Their dining areas are composed of small bahay kubo (cottages) that are complete with sawali and Filipino ethnic designs. These are perfect places to dine in privacy so we made sure that we snag one bahay kubo for our dinner date.

We ordered sinigang na hipon (230 pesos), and their specialties: chicken inato (90 pesos) and inafish (150 pesos). We also ordered a glass each of iced tea (35 pesos) and mango juice (50 pesos).

The chicken inato came with a cup of rice and atsara. It really looked like the chicken inasal of Bacolod. I am not sure which is better between chicken inato and chicken inasal. What I am sure about is that the chicken inato tastes better the grilled chicken of Mang Inasal.

It was Lei who ordered the inafish because she wanted to try the seafood dishes of Palawan. Inafish is just grilled tuna with a cup of rice, atsara, a slice of pipino, and two slices of tomato. Lei and I agreed that that this dish tastes good.

The chicken inato and inafish may be Haim Chicken Inato’s specialty but the star of our night is the sinigang na hipon. Lei really enjoyed eating this sinigang, specifically the hipon. I think that the shrimp are fresh from the sea that’s why Haim’s sinigang tasted really good.

Yummy fresh shrimp.

Our dinner date was not the last time that we dined in Haim Chicken Inato. The next morning, we ate our complimentary breakfast in this restaurant. They just gave us the normal breakfast meal of rice with omelette paired with tocino and dried fish.  Nothing much to shout about.

I have no complaint since this is a complimentary breakfast. Actually, the breakfast was enough to fill our stomachs as preparation for our Honda Bay tour.

We enjoyed our dinner at Haim Chicken Inato. The ambience is really good. Their “bahay kubo” gave us the privacy that we want. Best of all is the food, especially Lei’s favorite sinigang na hipon. I guess we might come back to this restaurant because of the sinigang na hipon. We might do that IF we return to Puerto Princesa.
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