What started as an exotic food tasting event became a surprise birthday party for the Kapuso teen actress Joyce Ching on Tuesday, January 21, at City Best Seafood Garden in Quezon City.

Joyce Ching is adventurous when it comes to food. Perhaps one of the things people do not know about this bida kontrabida tween star of GMA-7 is that she likes to try different kind of exotic foods. So when she turned 19 last January 5, GMA Artist Center grabbed the opportunity to throw a surprise birthday party for Joyce by holding an exotic food tasting event as a disguise.

At first, only members of the press and selected bloggers were present during the start of the event on Tuesday at City Best Seafood Garden.

After the scrumptious lunch, filling our tummy with seafood cold cuts, shrimp salad, lapu lapu with oyster sauce, etc., the exotic food-tasting game began with new Kapuso talent Stephanie Sol serving as host.

The media folks were divided into three groups. Each group was asked to taste a secret dish along with Joyce and tried to describe and guess what they ate.

Joyce described secret dish no. 2 (see photo below) as something with shell. It turned out to be a turtle.

Here’s Joyce tasting secret dish no. 1 which turned out to be a pigeon:

And here’s what secret dish no. 3 looks like. It’s actually a popular dish made of eel:

After Stephanie Sol revealed the secret dishes, she eventually revealed that the event is actually a surprise birthday party for her. Her friends, loved ones and fans, with balloons, flowers and cakes with them, all entered the room to greet Joyce a happy birthday.

Joyce’s good friend and Anna KareNina co-star Krystal Reyes was present to greet her.

Her message to Joyce: “Sana wag siyang magbago. Basta lagi lang akong nandito para sa kanya.”

Her “Paraiso Ko’y Ikaw” leading man–Phytos Ramirez–was also present to show his support.

The new Kapuso actor has this to say to Joyce: “Happy birthday, Joyce! Sana more blessings and sana magwork din ‘yung love team natin.”

Aside from Joyce and Pythos, other lead stars of the new Kapuso soap “Paraiso Ko’y Ikaw” include Kim Rodriguez and Kristofer Martin. It is set to premiere this Monday, January 27, replacing “Prinsesa ng Buhay Ko.”

For more updates about Joyce, follow her on Twitter (@chingjoyce) and Instagram (@joeysching).

— GALLERY: JOYCE CHING’S SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY (97 Photos!) —

Joyce Ching inviting everyone to watch the pilot episode of her new soap “Paraiso Ko’y Ikaw” on January 27: