When In Binondo.

After my socially relevant moment at the #MillionPeopleMarch, we were nothing but starved. And what better place to stuff ourselves after a looong walk in Manila than in Binondo?:)


I've been to Binodo several times before when I was still in News and Current Affairs, either for coverage or for pig-out moments with my NCAD loves. On all occasions, either we have a driver to take us to our location or we have our boss to take us to his Chinese friend who works there.

But to really walk the streets of Binondo in search of great eats? Now, that's a first.

Welcome!

Empty-belly, trigger-happy me. 

There are fruit stalls round every corner. 

The famous Ongpin street. Good food is near. :)

Just one of the 37,000 Chinese drug stores in Binondo. Haha.

I looked up the best, budget friendly Binondo restaurants on the Internet prior to this trip. And we decided we'd do Benavidez Street (having tried restos in Ongpin like Cafe Mezzanine before). It was a toss between Wai Ying and Maki Place which had a lot of good reviews. But, like life and boxes of chocolates, you don't know what you're gonna get on a Chinese food trip- we ended up with a restaurant whose name we can't even read. :)

Say what? 

We learned that the place is called Lan Zhou La Mien- no English translation. We ended in Lan Zhou La Mien 'cause some of our friends are already there and we thought of having one big happy lunch together. So, on with the orders!

Their bestseller: beef noodles. Comes in chicken and pork as well.

Unless you're super, duper hungry, their noodles is big enough to share for 2-3 persons (take note: refillable soup). Although I strongly suggest to split it to three to make room for more goodies.

Like this. :)

Dimsum galore! P150/15pcs.

And this.

Chicken noodles. I forgot the price, P160-ish I think.

Seafood noodles. Same as the chicken noodles but this one has flat noodles.

This was the real winner for me, though.

Fried dimsum.  <3

House tea is served like water. 

All that food plus drinks costed barely P200 each- and that's a LOT of food. I mean we were so stuffed (remember, we came from a rally) and even had leftovers for take out. Mehn, talk about value for money!

But the afternoon isn't over yet. I say it ain't over 'til we get some authentic milk tea. I mean, come on.:)

So we decided to walk off the [tons of] calories we just had over lunch. Mau knows of a place just along Benavidez that serves Chinese milk tea, but unfortunately it wasn't operating anymore. Boo. But she knows a restaurant owner who knows another restaurant that has authentic goodness we were looking for. So we had to walk from Benavidez to Soler St to ask that restaurant owner, and walk to Quentin Paredes St. which is on the opposite side of Binondo. We even got to bordering-on-scary streets.

No more happy restaurants on this part of town. :|

Don't worry, we made it out alive. After almost an hour of walking and several kuya's to ask directions from, we finally found Golden Fortune Hong Kong Cuisine! :) It's a sister resto of Golden Fortune Seafood Restaurant in Price Hotel. My blogger instincts totally escaped me because of the exhaustion, so no pictures of the resto.

Finally!

The verdict? It was worth the walk. Real good stuff- freshly brewed tea, not too sweet, totally refreshing. Plus, it's really cheap. At P60 it's way more affordable than most mainstream milk teas which are half artificial flavors and half good packaging.

I can drink this e-ve-ry-day. 

Since we got a bit tired from the walk and we were there a new resto anyway, we're plain matakaws like that, we tried some of their dimsum to go with the drink.

Hakaw. My favorite!:)

Japanese hakaw. First time to try it. Good stuff, it's acquired taste though. Hehe.  

Lunch, check. [Really good] milk tea, check. There's one more stop to complete this trip - pasalubong. Now there are a lot of places you can get pasalubong in Binondo, but for a rather default-ish but no fail store, Eng Bee Tin is the shit. From just selling hopia, their stores have evolved into one-stop shops. They have several stores all over Binondo.

 Hopia, hopia, tikoy, mooncake, mochi, more hopia!!!

Thank God for Jerry "Mr. Ube" Chua. Haha. 

Next time you're in Binondo, don't drive around. Park your car somewhere. Walk the streets. Talk to strangers. Count the Chinese drugs stores you pass by. Buy tons of hopia (and mochi and moon cake and, well, you get my point.) Try out restaurants you've never heard of. Order dishes you can't pronounce. Get high on MSG. Have a gastronomical adventure for less than P300. Stuff yourself crazy with great food and good company.

We did. How's that for a Binondo food trip?:)