Finding the Real Deal

My hubby who is from mainland China has been trying out living in the Philippines for over a year now and I can’t believe there are only THREE Chinese restaurants that thus far have passed muster for him – one in Malate, one in Binondo and another near MOA.  I made it my mission thus to desperately jack this number up. 

Let me explain how this is not a simple task.  Most of the Chinese restaurants here are considered “fake” by my husband’s standards and if you’ve lived in China for a number of years, you would be able to relate and commiserate with him.   Working in Tianjin (two hours east of Beijing) made me realize how vastly different the food is there from the Chinese food we’re so used to here in Manila to the point that I’d be hankering for our very own siopao and siomai.  

But back to the task at hand, the key to spotting the “real deal” for my hubby is to find restaurants where the customers are from mainland China who speak Mandarin.   The menu also provides a clue.  If you see words like siopao, siomai or asado then it’s “Filipinized” already.   If the pictures on the wall or menu look too familiar to the Pinoy, then it’s probably not what we’re looking for either.   Hubby also shuns the big, palatial looking types which he thinks are way overpriced especially for tasteless fare as he prefers the small, no-pretense type of gigs.

Eagerly poring over food blogs, I thought I found one hopeful in this much hyped and talked about hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Rockwell.  Sadly, when hubby and I tried it, it was a disappointment.  Maybe we didn’t order right but my hubby is strict when it comes to matching the value-for-money with the taste factor.   Ah well, try again.

Last night, it was an important date for the Chinese since it was the fifteenth day after the Lunar New Year so we headed for Binondo.   Traffic has subsided considerably at night so the stroll is easier but I thought after walking down Ongpin that we’d never find a single candidate.  The establishments on the main street look just like that – very much established through the years so they’re Filipinized.   Hubby however had the magic eye and could read the characters and he found a place off the main street that proved to be our savior.

The owner spoke to us in Mandarin and everyone else eating there spoke in Putonghua.  Jackpot!  And when we tasted the food, it brought us back to China with the fish choking and drowning in a sea of chillies. 

Talking to the owner’s wife also took me back to China since she did what any Chinese woman would do seeing another woman with a small child – give a lecture about what to feed and not to feed a baby and why.  I got those lectures a lot not only from my mother-in-law but from total strangers who weren't shy about giving their opinion and usually aghast at the sight of a diaper.  They’re very against using diapers in China and mothers won’t mince words making you feel that you’ve done a major wrong deed.

Our score card is up to four – a bit paltry but with renewed determination, we'll discover more.   

The others in the list were introduced to my hubby by his adventurous friend who didn't speak a word of English and yet managed to go all over the Philippines inspecting mining sites by himself.  He introduced the restaurant in Binondo where you can get turtle soup which hopefully doesn't use the endangered type.  Jason, my husband was so happy with this find because turtle soup is a delicacy in China that costs a fortune but in Manila, it was unbelievably cheap.   The other restaurant is the Suzhou Dimsum on Mabini St. and the third is the Hong Kong ____ place at the seafood market near MOA.  A group of mainlanders entered that restaurant lugging bottles of wine in SM supermarket bags.  Definitely mainlanders since they want their meals together with their alcohol.  Passing by their table, hearing Mandarin like music to my ears and seeing what they were feasting on, I want to go back there to order what they ordered plus more.

There is a hotpot place near Manila Hotel which is a big chain in China called Little Sheep and it's the closest we can get to the Mongolian hotpot that we miss.  However, the sauce -- which is a key element -- is not as good as the one in China but passable if you crave the ultra thin slices of lamb cooked in boiling broth.  

The disappointing restaurant pictured above was so promising based on blog entries alone but experiencing it ourselves, the colorful barangay parade that passed by the window was the most interesting part of the trip.  Before going to the restaurant ourselves, I told some friends about it since they, a Canadian married to a Chinese mainlander, were also in search of the holy grail of Chinese cuisine.  They checked out the place and also weren't impressed.  They theorize that maybe the chef was away for the New Year holiday so they'll give it another try after a month.