MEMORIES OF THE MAINLAND

Jing Ting serves authentic Mainland cuisine that tastes just like the ones from our memories

Somehow a lot of mainland Chinese restaurants worldwide are enjoying a renaissance. It may be because of the new affluence and the continuous rise in their economy that has made regional Chinese restaurants new havens for new flavors to the worldwide dining public.

In the Philippines alone, a lot of regional Mainland Chinese restaurants with distinct specialties have opened their doors to cater to Chinese residents, tourists, and, of course, adventurous eaters. Besides some favorites such as Shine in Boracay, Eastern Spicy, and noodle factory in Yakal and Dong Bei in Binondo, one of the restaurants I can further add to my list is Jing Ting inside the City of Dreams.

The past months I would always see this restaurant and brush off the curiosity until I read about its very good reviews on the Northern Chinese dishes it specializes in. I’ve been back twice making a list of my familiar favorites, many of them enjoyed when I was training as an athlete with a limited budget at a time when China was just starting to open its doors.

This restaurant has two Chinese chefs who oversee favorites that we used to enjoy after a hard day of training. The dumplings in this place are as good as one can get in areas like Beijing and Nanjing. As true to tradition, these dumplings are made fresh per order. I have tried the vegetable, mushroom, and pork jiao zhi and it totally sends me back to the restaurants we were treated to with a mountain pile of these juicy, tasty boiled pockets of minced pork and vegetables dipped in a dark vinegar and fried chili XO type of sauce. The sheng jian bao or Shanghai buns which is their slightly leavened variation of a shao long bao is totally delightful as it excretes its soup trapped inside, though I would bite the exterior dough off and slurp the flavorful hot soup out for fear of scalding one’s pal- ate when you do a large bite. The experience finishes with a crisp bottom crusted with oil and steam from the yeast raised wrapper.

For noodles, I would definitely recommend the flat, chewy shanxi noodles with minced pork and eggplant, the addition of quartered fresh tomato though an introduced ingredient to China is one of my yardsticks to this everyday proletarian dish. The noodles coated with stir fried pork and the tender batons of eggplant are complementing textures and flavors to these silky and smooth neutral noodles. A few drops of dark vinegar with fried chili sauce to cut the richness of the pork put the needed roundness to the otherwise rich sauce.

Simple but with impressive use of sweet and pungent spices are those xinjiang dishes representative of the Manchurian areas. A skewered lamb kebab or shaslik which in their menu is part of the Chef’s Recommendation is Xinjiang skewered lamb that is presented Hangman’s style or the skewers are hung in gallows and gracefully plated on the tableside by the wait staff. The spicing shows deep marination mixing with the light smokiness of the tender lamb cubes from the grilling.

We had fun trying out their exotic desserts like the chilled hone and red bean cake that is quite similar to the kueh of Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It sort of reminds me also of a red bean flavored kutsinta. Oftentimes, I would think of their steamed molten salted egg custard buns. Their interpretation is one of the better ones even if it seems to conform to the stereotyped black steamed bun streaked with edible gold dust. This one is a must whether you follow western principles of sweet items at the end of the Chinese principle that these sweet savory buns would figure at any part of the meal. As one bites into the bun, the palate is met by the soft rich fermented flavor of the bun as it is followed by the smooth hot, sweet, and salty flavors of umami-filled custard with the salted egg profile. We decided to pair this with their eight treasure dessert of shaved ice which I feel could do well more with Chinese ingredients. The salted egg custard buns just completely overshadowed the iced dessert.

Looking at Jing Ting as a whole with its impeccable service and well chosen dishes (even the house tea is of excellent choice) I would say it deserves another comeback for their mainland Chinese dishes (or it’s a great excuse because I can’t stop thinking about those steamed salted egg molten custard buns).

You can email me at chefgenegonzalez@yahoo.com or message me on Instagram.