PING PONG DIPLOMACY
“How Forrest Gump, President Richard Nixon, and a deep affection for Binondo’s small eateries led to a dazzling display of culinary showmanship in the BGC’s hottest new Chinese restaurant.”
There’s a lot of history behind the name of this latest establishment from Charles Paw and co., the group famous for these irresistibly witty restaurant monikers: Wrong Ramen, Freezer Burn, Bad Bird, and Hey Handsome, to name but a few.
Millennials unfamiliar with the tensions between the Chinese and the Americans during the Cold War may think that “Ping Pong Diplomacy” is simply a cute and catchy name for a new restaurant that innovates on Chinese dishes popular in the United States. Gen X film and food fans will undoubtedly recall the scenes in 1994’s Best Picture, “Forrest Gump”, where Tom Hanks’ title character helped establish entente between the two super powers through his table tennis prowess. Baby Boomers however, know that a real, non-cinematic American national Ping Pong team’s invitation to play a series of exhibitions in Beijing in 1972 directly led to the visit of then U.S. President Richard Nixon to the People’s Republic, which allowed friendly relations to resume between the two countries: one capitalist, the other communist. The lines between ideologies have been blurred in the intervening 45 years, but back then, Ping Pong Diplomacy allowed the rest of the world to heave a collective sigh of relief.
Back to present day. Charles, the tech guru turned culinary entrepreneur, seems to have the luck of Forrest Gump: always in the right place at the right time, running across the most talented people to work with, and inevitably, succeeding dramatically with a combination of serendipity, passion, talent, and old-fashioned hard work. In this latest venture, or more aptly, adventure, Charles has teamed up with two highly regarded chefs: Him Uy de Baron,
the brilliant, bespectacled gentleman considered to be one of the country’s geniuses when it comes to Asian cuisine; and Noel Mauricio, the young man who gained experience in the kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant located on the second tier of the Eiffel Tower.
As its name implies, the trio originally envisioned Ping Pong Diplomacy as a destination for their own take on Chinese-American dishes. But that proved too constricting for the partners, each bursting with ideas. Noel was inspired by the Americanized Oriental food of San Francisco’s Mission Chinese Food. Him needed an outlet for his interpretations of Chinese cuisine from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and from all over South East Asia. Charles wanted to revisit and reinvent his hole in the wall favorites from his days as a young businessman in Binondo.
Chinese food is always an easy sell in the Philippines, but in this era of affordable airfare, when more and more Filipinos are exposed to world-class dishes, enjoyed in the countries of origin, simply being “okay” just won’t cut it anymore. Restaurants in general, and Chinese restaurants in particular, have to be spectacular in order to succeed. And in that regard, Ping Pong Diplomacy is rising to the challenge by fearlessly, and with obvious fun, crossing borders with their hyper-creative menu of winning dishes. To use the parlance of the sport it was named after: this restaurant is a smash.
PING PONG DIPLOMACY IS RISING TO THE CHALLENGE BY FEARLESSLY, AND WITH OBVIOUS FUN, CROSSING BORDERS WITH THEIR HYPER-CREATIVE MENU OF WINNING DISHES.