A BANAWE FOOD CRAWL
‘This place is a soy lover’s dream from fresh soya milk to different kinds of tofu to some savory snacks and a deli of healthy and tonic food.’
Our foodie group got together to guest our very good friend, Chef Rainie Santos on a food crawl. Having made the rounds and interiors of Binondo we decided to do a preliminary crawl in Rainie’s neighborhood, where he spent his growing up years. The topography is now so different but what makes Banawe so prevalently Chinese is the presence of good restaurants from your daily average working man’s eatery to your upscale family restaurant. This is probably just the first of a series of short stops we are doing since The Banawe area of eating places extends farther crossing San Francisco del Monte and spills out to the side roads. Here is a listing of dishes tasted on every place we have visited:
Lam Tin
This place is near the Quezon Blvd. archway and is an institution among people who live and work in this area. The place serves tea house favorites and the dim
sum we had like the har gaw and siumai were pretty decent. Everyone liked the lam
tin noodles that had everything on it from wanton, pork, meat balls, wantons, white chicken in a clear brown oyster sauce type of gravy on white noodles. I missed the marinated steamed chicken thigh that had a silky tenderness and good mouth feel that was missing in our noodles.
Formosa Bakery
This bakery does Taiwanese style breads that have wonderfully fragrant and buttery flavors with variants in textures and sweetsavory combinations. We grabbed some pork floss bread, leek and chive braids, and mongo filled loaves. Everything is on sale at 8:30 in the evening.
Great Soybean factory
I have been a patron of this place for almost 40 years. This place is a soy lover’s dream from fresh soya milk to different kinds of tofu to some savory snacks and a deli of healthy and tonic food. Curious finds are the long strands of fine long tofu noodles that can make interesting cold or hot side dishes. Also its style of black marinated tofu is wonderfully silky in texture and meaty in flavor.
Hugki Dumplings
We tried three types of Hugki’s dumplings and all were well enjoyed. The steamed pork and kutchay dumplings were wonderfully garlicky but not appalling and so was the order of steamed shrimp dumplings that were fresh and moist in its interiors. The fried pork kutchay dumplings had great bibbly and crisp interiors releasing its steam on every bite.
Fang Wei Wu
This is a typical Taiwanese
turo turo with a good variety of rice and noodle choices. We tried the Taiwanese sausages that were mild and lightly sweet hinting of fruit.
This is one of Fang Wei Wu’s bestsellers aside from their hongba that is braised pork that has been gently braised so that the fat and skin melt like ice cream and so rich combined with the fork tender pork meat in a well flavored sauce. Shaved ice desserts typical of Taiwan are served as enders in the restaurant’s menu.
Shokudo
This is a new Ramen shop behind KFC serving ramen and donburi. We tried the basic Ramen called
toriton shio, a rich broth made from boiling chicken and pork bones. This was absolute umami and was to me the best among the other mixed broths, though I felt I wanted more slide and slither in the noodles because the base of the noodles could have had a higher fat content such as egg that makes the texture a bit short or mealy. The noodles, nevertheless, remained al dente up to the last slurp and are a boon to those who like a thicker style of ramen.
The tan tan had tropical leanings as it seems to be a curry tan
tan. Side dishes such as the fried cheese sticks with curry and its gyoza (with a thicker sauce), which has less grease are worth trying.