Tasting the best of Binondo
Posted by on July 8, 2006
I just came from a Binondo foodtrip with Ajay and Vina. We braved the heavy downpour just to taste the best of Manila’s Chinatown.
We met at 10AM at Binondo Church. Our first agenda: coffee at Mezzanine Cafe. This cafe is located along Ongpin and Nueva street is a volunteer firemen’s cafe. Photos of firemen-in-action are hanged on the wall. Mezzanine Cafe also serves one of Ongpin’s most delicious Kiam Pong. A Fookien rice meal with bits of chicken, chives, peanuts and what-have-you.
From Mezzanine Cafe, we went to this secret dumpling house that serves authentic stemed dumplings. We ordered pork and kutchay dumplings. The price? believe it or not: PhP100 for 13 pieces of freshly steamed dumplings. That’s was cheap. Really.
From Nueva, we were forced to buy umbrellas due to the heavy downpour. It was already raining very very hard.
Shin Ton Yon was our next stop. I bought 2 pieces of Tea Eggs. These are chicken eggs cooked in tea leaves. Tastes so good. a must-try when you are in Binondo.
We then proceeded to a carinderia known to many as Estero. Ask why Estero? It’s because it is located right besude the canal of Ongpin. The food is superb! We ordered Hototay for soup, fried pork with spicy sauce, and fish fillet with tausi.
As if we were not yet full, we then went to Salazar Bakery to check out its freshly baked goodies. I bought Kutsay So as a pasalubong. Kutsay so is the Chinese version of our empanada, and its filling is pork with kutsay (chives). From Salazar, our next agenda is fried siopao, commonly called chenpao by the locals. The taste is just so heavenly. I bought 4 of these for my take-home.
And to cap off our foodtrip, we had another round of coffee, this time at Panciteria Lido. Their brewed coffee tastes great. At forty-a-cup, this is much much better than your run-of-the-mill Nescafe 3-in-1. The panciteria boasts itself to be the home of Chinatown’s best pugon-roasted pork asado. I really wanted to try their asado, but I’m very very full already.
Maybe next time.
Ajay, Vina, where’s our next trip? 
Yum!!! Binondo = Food Heaven
It was nice meeting you Eric. I had abolsute fun with you and Lady V. Kain uli tayo sa estero ha?
Wow yummy!
I have not been to the Estero for about seven years. Yet Im sure the taste remains the same.
Nice domain name
hehehehe
haha! grabe ang bilis, you posted it agad! now i don’t know what to write anymore….
i had fun, despite the rain. it was great meeting you Eric. sa sunod liwat ha!
hi bro!
balik tayo binondo after our famfanga food trip!
good to finally discover your blog “,
spanx!
oo ba! balik tayo dun.. i jaz cant get enough of Binondo…
Calling oterh bloggers.. sino join?? ahahah
AHHH…Kutsay and Chien Pao…my favorites.
I love the hopia from Salazar bakery too! They’re uneven and thick–not commercially even. 
“good idea,good site !”
Where exactly can we get the steamed dumplings?
hi, where is this secret dumpling place that you mentioned? Care to share the address? Thanks!
okay din sa sincerity restaurant