Binondo Chinatown Food Trip

Yesterday was Philippines' 114th Independence Anniversary – means no work for me so I tagged along with friends who decided to spend the holiday food tripping in Binondo. We sure exercised our right to eat whatever our tummies can accommodate. It's gluttony I know, but hey, we only live once! So do whatever makes you happy! Food and eating makes us happy. :) I've long planned doing this but as usual, friends' schedules never met so there, it remained a plan.

We were at Ongpin by 1 p.m., I was already hungry by then because I didn't have breakfast. We started walking to look for the restaurants on Shyne's list. She did a research on what restaurants we should try. While searching for Benavidez Street, we past by Shanghai Fried Siopao, which is on our list, so we bought a piece for each (P16), which was a miscalculation because that siopao is just so damn good. After a single bite, I wanted to go back and buy some more. We were only few steps away from the shop but decided to move on and just go back later for take-outs. But we should've listened to our tummies because the shop was already closed when we went for it before going home. I do not have a photo of that siopao but I'll try to describe it. It's not an ordinary asado or bola-bola siopao you can find at Chinese restaurants. The bun was so soft and the filling is flavorful. They call it fried because the bottom of the bun was fried. Also the bun's white, not the brown bread like toasted siopao.

After a long walk, we finally found MaSuKi located at Benavidez Street. MaSuKi formerly known as Ma Kong Mami is a popular noodle house, and they've got photos to prove that. Again, I wasn't able to take any good photo of our food. (I'm using a big lens so pardon the bad photos. I still can't afford to buy a smaller lens. My shots sure didn't do justice to all the yummy food we had.)

We ordered four different mami and the boys ordered side dishes siomai and a huge siopao. I settled with Beef Chicken Wanton mami for Php170 (prices start at Php100). They give really huge servings. I thought I might not finish mine but of course, I did. Later, we would discover they have smaller servings. 

The soup was a little sweet, and the noodles come with a sweet asado-like sauce. I noticed other customers putting sauce on the noodles before eating but I preferred mine the way it is. I just added a little calamansi sauce and brown sauce, just out of habit (when eating out I tend to add seasoning on my food just because). During the time that we were there, the restaurant never ran out of customers. That must amount to something, right? If you're into genuine Chinese mami, MaSuKi is the place to be. 

Another colleague arrived just after we finished our noodles (Shyne ate like only a quarter of hers but Rein was there for the rescue, hehe). We ate food that's good for two meals so we decided to go for a walk before searching for our next destination–this dumpling place that took us almost an hour to locate, because we agreed not to ask for directions. Hardcore daw eh, but when we seem to be going around the same street, Rein finally asked some man, but didn't get a good answer either. 

Monte de Piedad, the oldest savings bank in the Philippines, but I don't think it still is a bank today. 

Mahalimuyak

Game of Thrones!

When we finally located Yuchengco Street, our instincts lead us to the wrong direction. By this time Emman was already hungry because he went straight to Binondo after getting out of bed. I was telling Shyne we should've split the group and took the opposite directions and whoever comes back to the main alley would mean they have to take the other way, hehe. Then Shyne yelled to Rein the name of the place we're looking for, "Dong Bei? Dun sa kabila, tatlong kanto mula dito," a man on the street suddenly exclaimed when she heard Shyne.

This is a plate of Kuchay-Pork dumplings from Dong Bei Dumpling. Most of their other dumplings were not available so we just ordered two of this at P100 per plate, and a plate of fried rice for Emman. We munched on them dumplings in no time at all because we were inspired by those fast-eating matakaw anime characters. What's interesting about Dong Bei is that you can see how the dumplings are made, because they make dumplings right at the spare tables beside the eating customers. They seem to not mind how the customers might discover the secret of their popular dumplings. :)

Lucky Chinatown mall was just few meters away from outside of Dong Bei so we decided to go and take a look at this new mall, and who knows we might just get lucky. ;) We spent some time going around the place and more time at Toy Kingdom reminiscing our awesome childhood.

After making fun of a child riding a fake toy pony (Rein says she could make a good white castle girl someday), we happily got out of the mall and went to look for someplace to eat dinner. Honestly, I'm still full by this time, but heck, this is a food trip, so never mind committing gluttony. We dropped by a delicacy shop, Shin Tai Shang, where my companions tried their mochi, milk tea and a Chinese yakult.

Wai Ying served our dinner. We had a dimsum party- ordered 5 kinds of siomai and other dimsums and shared with everybody. I later found out from blogs that Wai Ying's congee is also great.

While Emman's shirt says, Bite Me (Literally), this is Ren's. I gotta wear a food/eating-related shirt next time. We got out of Chinatown at half past 8. Most of the shops were already closed, that meant no more fried siopao for us. Anyway, there's always next time. Actually, we agreed to make this a regular thing. Just not too often. :)