Hopia You Like It!

My time in Manila was very short, and the majority of that time was spent in project orientation for my new job (more details on that to come). To be honest, I wasn't sad to leave behind Manila's traffic congestion or pollution, but I will definitely have to make some weekend trips back, not only to extend my visa every 59 days, but to actually see the sites the city has to offer. 

As I mentioned in my last post, the one tourist-y thing I got to do while in town was a food walking tour of Binondo, Manila's Chinatown, which happens to be the oldest Chinatown in the world. The tour was organized by Old Manila Walks, and I can't recommend it enough. The walk was appropriately called 'the BIG Binondo Food Wok'….HA! Who doesn't love a play on words with their wontons?! 

Your daily history lesson in 50 words or less: Manila's Chinatown was established in 1594, when Gov-Gen. Luis Perez Dasmarinas donated land in perpetuity to the Catholic-Chinese Community. Manila's Chinese community drew primarily from Fujian province of China, which Ivan, the ever-quotable tour leader, lovingly described as a "giant sh*thole" due to its lack of arable land. 

The nice thing about Chinatown is that it's a little bit like Starbucks…no matter where you are in the world, it looks and smells pretty much the same. That said, the food we tried was definitely not always the Chinese food that I grew up eating (mostly of the Cantonese variety)…a lot of Fujian dishes, as well as dishes that seem to be a marriage of Chinese and Filipino foods. A few things we tried: kiampeng rice and tonic soup, fried dough (it seems every culture has its own version), Hokkien-style lumpia (think burrito), multiple kinds of preserved snacks (fruit, fish, etc.), and - my personal favourite - hopia, a flakey pastry filled with different kinds of pastes, including purple yam, red bean and sesame, or jackfruit. When we cracked open various packages of hopia, Ivan pulled out the one line I'm pretty sure he was waiting all day to say: 'Hopia you like it!'

Anyone who plans to take the tour, be warned: DO NOT EAT BREAKFAST BEFORE MEETING THE GROUP…you'll regret it. 

A few snapshots from a Saturday morning tour of Binondo:

Ivan, our charming guide for the morning

At Cafe Mezzanine - kiampeng rice and soup

Cool fact: Cafe Mezzanine is a fire-fighter themed cafe in honour of the Chinese community's involvement in volunteer firefighting...a portion of the cafe's profits go to Binondo's fire department. 

HOPIA!!!!

Just a few of the different kinds of hopia to choose from

Hokkien-style lumpia