Foodie Wonderland

Before I start, can I just say that I’ve already tried Peking Garden’s Xiao Long Bao as well as the highly reputed Din Tai Fung version. But I’ll blog about that another time, it’s about time I talk about something else. 

I am currently in Singapore, foodie wonderland, as dubbed by thousands of people lucky enough to visit this place where enormous food courts are in every building, “tea time” is served after every gathering, and where spicy, sour, savory, sweet and salty combine to make up the national palate. 

My first meal in Singapore was not Din Tai Fung’s Xiao Long Pao, rather it was Herbal Black Chicken Soup from a fairly visible stall near Furama City Center in Chinatown. 

 Soup cost me S$5.00, about Php165, pretty steep, but it is black chicken and brewed medicinal soup. It would have cost about the same in the Philippines. Milk tea was cheap, just 80 cents 🙂 What I liked about the soup was that it didn’t taste too much like medicine. ‘Sibut’ (local term for herbal soup) has a tendency to overbrew itself in the herbs, making the broth bitter and unpleasant to drink. But this one tasted a lot like chicken (like its supposed to), with a touch of herbs. The chicken, likewise, was just as good, the meat was tenderly falling off the bone and had the richer taste of black chicken meat. Very nice. I drank it all up and left the stall super hydrated (soup and a mug of milk tea, delight). (Random fact: I love the little orange bits served in sibut)

My mom and brother got the same thing: Roast Duck Noodle which is pretty popular in Singapore. I just had this for dinner a while back, but mine had asado pork in it, not duck. Cheap yet filling, but has the tendency to taste the same after a while. If eaten repeatedly, may become too ‘nakakasawa’ My first night in Singapore, I was in the mood for more soup and protein. After walking around Takashimaya in Orchard Road, we chanced upon a lovely food court called ‘Food Village’ at the basement floor. There were all kinds of meals and delicacies available, gelato stalls, bakeries, yogurt stands, Bee Cheng Hiang, a specialty store that sold all different kinds of nuts, a Korean street food stall, even a durian delicacy shop.

Around the food court; you name it, you’ll find it there. Congee, pasta, omurice, hotpot, noodles, rice, etc. I decided to save some bucks and order something cheaper than what I had for lunch.

 I preferred the Herbal Black Chicken Soup, but this one was delicious in its own right. There was an unexpected generous helping of salmon, and the vegetables were crunchy fresh, I didn’t even mind biting on the celery stalks. My only qualm is that there was probably too much soup, and too much soup can be overwhelming, especially for a person like me who doesn’t like leaving leftovers behind, even if it is only soup and a few vegetable leaves. Too much liquid lah. I compensated by biting from some of what my mom ordered.

 One thing I liked about this: The fish cake served with some kind of sweet chili sauce. A well-missed combo, and a refreshing one at that, gave me something to chew on after having all that soup :))

More to come next time 8D 5 months of foodie wonderland! ILU S’pore! 

 * I’m in Singapore to study, not just eat 😀 Currently at NUS and missing home 😦

Xiao Long Bao Pt. II, where to get them locally

1) Gloria Maris – My family usually dines in the Greenhills branch, but I know there are other branches in Manila (the original branch), SM North Edsa, Gateway, etc. There is a difference of taste when it comes to the older branches as compared to the newer ones. Older, more established places like Gloria Maris Manila and Greenhills seem to taste better.

There used to be a time when Gloria Maris’s Xiao Long Bao didn’t break so easily, now the wrapping seems a little more easy to break. They serve it with the usual black vinegar and ginger, but what I love about their serving is the quality you’ll get for what you pay. For about Php110, you get a dish with more dumplings than any other place. Other places would usually serve just 4 pieces for Php80, while GM serves twice the amount for just a little more.

Taste-wise, it doesn’t really compromise palatability for quantity. Soup’s tasty, the meat doesn’t taste undercooked, nor is too gristly (in fact, it was richly savory, evidence that good pork was used). My only gripe would be that the wrapping is dry and unpleasantly sticky outside, quite unnoticeable once dipped in sauce. Overall, I really like it for the value, and how well it goes with my usual order of lean meat congee. Not the best, but still awesome enough to order everytime we visit.

2) Mr. Choi’s Kitchen – Mr. Choi’s Kitchen has branches in Robinson’s Galleria, Pioneer, WalterMart North Edsa, etc. We used to eat here all the time when it first opened it’s first branch in Galleria. I got my take-out order of their Xiao Long Bao from the WalterMart branch.  

I don’t know if it was because I got it for take-out, but it was not satisfying at all. There was barely any soup inside, and the meat tasted like fat. I don’t know about everyone else, but I like my XLB lean and mean. Although there were more pieces than the usual serving (I think there were 6), it took me some effort to finish the order (with a little help from some family members who only wanted one piece)

3)  Summer Palace – One of the best Chinese restaurants in the metro, it’s inside a freaking hotel (Edsa Shangri-la), so it should be 😀 I made sure that we ate here for my high school graduation back in 2007, because apart from serving good, albeit pricey food, they served the best jasmine tea in beautiful cups. (I’ll make a separate review on our visit here)

Summer Palace’s Xiao Long Bao

It came in a pricey serving of 4, but it was okay, as long as we knew we were paying for potentially, one of the best. It tasted good, very satisfactory. Surprisingly, it was not as good as we expected. The wrapping was delicate, you had to cleverly work your way under the dumpling and use the the thin carrot slices for cushion. Taste-wise, it tasted a lot like Gloria Maris’s dumplings, only a tad better because of the hint of spice in the meat.  

4) Choi Garden (not to be confused with Mr. Choi’s Kitchen) – Found in Annapolis Rd. near Greenhills, the place boasts of an impressive entranceway architecture and signature red/black furnishings. Don’t sit in the area where the lighting is a strong, painful red. Nakakahilo kumain, and everything you see becomes tinged with red. 

I vaguely remember trying out their Xiao Long Bao, but what I do remember is that it tasted exactly like Gloria Maris’s, only with a lesser number of pieces in their serving. Probably because both restaurants came from the same owner, I’ve heard. 

The verdict: Well-roundedness

For now, I’d recommend Gloria Maris for the satisfactory taste, hefty serving, and excellent value. Also try their Lean Meat Congee (with Century Egg). But if you’re eating alone, and you have money to spend, try Summer Palace, and while you’re at it, try their Mango Spring Rolls 😀

I still have to try XLB at the following places: Peking Garden (Trinoma), Su Zhou (in Mabini).

Pretty soon, I’ll be trying out the world’s  best XLB in Singapore, in Din Tai Fung. I cannot wait, yun talaga ang una kong gagawin 8D  

 

The Great Search for the Awesomest Xiao Long Bao ever!

Finally, the comprehensive review on the best soup dumplings I’ve ever tasted + the endless search for the best one there is! So far I’ve only tried them in Hong Kong and in Manila (where I live), but I will not stop looking!

But before anything else, what are Shanghai Soup Dumplings? I never really looked it up before, I just know them to be buns filled with minced meat and a small amount of soup, wrapped  in dough, then steamed and served on a bamboo tray. But for formality’s sake,  

from Wikipedia:

Xiǎolóngbāo, also known as soup dumpling,^[1] is a type of baozi from eastern China, including Shanghai and Wuxi. It is traditionally steamed in small bamboo baskets, hence the name (xiaolong is literally “small steaming basket”).

Xiaolongbao are more often known in Shanghai and its surrounding areas as xiaolong mantou (simplified Chinese: 小笼馒头; traditional Chinese: 小籠饅頭; pinyin: xiǎolóng mántóu). Mantou describes both filled and unfilled buns in southern China, but only describes unfilled buns in northern China. To avoid confusion, the name xiaolongbao is usually used in other areas.

Xiao Long Bao from Crystal Jade,

a Chinese Restaurant located in Harbour City, Hong Kong

What constitutes a good serving of Xiao Long Bao? 

1) Taste – In every dish, taste is paramount. Some people use pork that have too much gristle and fat, some dumplings blend or chop  their meat too finely, that the savory, meaty texture of the pork wanes away. Many dumplings are come in below-stellar qualities of  wrapping that are sometimes too chewy and too rubbery.

2) Durability of wrapping – There are only a few things in the world which I hate more than broken soup dumplings. You see, once the wrapping breaks, all the precious juice comes out, thus the dumpling experience is wasted. Why else would they call them soup dumplings? Most of the time soup dumpling wrappers are extremely sensitive that once you pick it up with your chopsticks, the wrapper tears and the soup drips, trickles down to your lap instead of to your mouth 😦 One of the saddest things in the world 😦 

3) Amount of soup – This one is self-explanatory. Too much soup and you get to taste little of the meat, too little and the point of having soup dumplings is lost. I have experienced eating soup dumplings without any soup inside at all, the only upside to it is that I don’t have to worry about breaking the wrapping D:

 Taking all of these into consideration, my favorite Xiao Long Bao would be the ones from Crystal Jade Restaurant in Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. 

Taste: 4.5/5 

Their dumplings have the right amount of gristle and meat, not too meaty that one bite can stuff you out (“nakakasuya”), not too fatty that you might just want to spit it out after chewing. The beauty of soup dumplings lies in it simple flavor, so I think it’s best not to over season it with onions, etc. Plus it goes really well with black vinegar and ginger. So far, this one ranks best in taste, I have yet to try the one I’m reserving the perfect rating for. (I BELIEVE IT EXISTS!!)

Durability of Wrapping: 5/5 

Amazing. I picked one up with my chopsticks and the wrapper didn’t tear up, eventhough it was evident that the soup was causing pressure on the it. I didn’t even have to scoop it with a spoon, like I always do.

 Look Ma, no spoon! 

Amount of Soup: 4.5/5

Delectable proportion of soup to filling. The soup didn’t taste like steamed water, but like actual soup itself, unlike many other dumplings out there where in the liquid just tastes like evaporated water from the meat. 

The liquid inside’s actually soup *__*!

Overall: 4.75/5  (I still have yet to try that 5/5)

Other Xiao Long Bao’s to be reviewed:

Gloria Maris

Choi Garden

Summer Palace

Mr. Choi’s Kitchen

on food

I’ve been meaning to turn this blog into a food blog, but there’s just too many random things going on in my life, and as per usual, I really can’t choose something to focus on yet.

me eating fresh salmon slices dipped in soy sauce (with my fingers)

and me with bea with cupcakes from andrea ang!

But I did realize my particular attachment to food, long after I should have noticed. My mom runs a catering business, I’m a picky eater, I like going inside gourmet shops just because, and it wasn’t after I noticed that I was watching way too much Barefoot Contessa or Iron Chef that I kinda considered myself a potential foodie. (also found myself unconsciously reading Margaux Salcedo’s reviews every week that come out in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. I love her job)

Finally, the next entry will be my long-delayed review on the best soup dumplings I’ve ever tasted and how it compares to the plethora of other soup dumplings I’ve tried out there in the metro. Just because I love Xiao Long Pao that much ❤

on making a blog

Reblog if you’ve had this blogging frustration of not finding your niche! 😀 All the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve had urges to make the following, but failed miserably (either out of lethargy or just plain un-inspiration)

1) Food blog – unfortunately, I do not get around that often. I rarely eat at fancy, adventurous places, or at adventurous places, for that matter.

2) Sports blog – As much as I’d like to talk about Ateneo’s siege in the UAAP, or the heated rivalry of Nadal and Federer, I find that I am not well-versed enough in jargon to talk about sports. I might as well dissolve into puddles of fangirling. Especially during UAAP season.

3) Fashion blog – I like clothes and dressing up, but if you look closely at my wardrobe, only my torso and shoes change. Waist down, I always wear the same jeans (flared or skinny). And I’m not waif/”lookbook-y” enough to make one 8DDD

4) Photo blog – This one I got around to making, still in the works, but my photos are all too random and uncategorized to fit in a certain niche.

But then after all this talk, I have come to realize that the point of blogging is so you can have space to throw in all the random junk in your life, no matter how they all disconnect :)) Just goes to show how random I can get

:)

Hell week, no substantial post as of yet 🙂 Some pictures from the bonfire in the meantime. 

Enjoying countless days and nights of instant 3-in-1 coffee, Vienna Teng songs on repeat, and my trusty 3-year old laptop, hanging every once in a while. 

What are grades anyway, just letters on paper. Bahala na.

Aminin natin

LONG WHITE SOCKS KASIIIII, DON’T WEAR THEM AGAIN – joke lang 🙂

Yabang rin kasi.

I’m not the type capable of making post-game analyses that actually sound correct and plausible. I understand the game, but I can’t articulate it in words or in predictions, analyses, etc. People say that it was just a bad day, or maybe the refs sold out, or maybe Chongson’s hair was distinctively shiny that day. Nonetheless, having said all this, despite all the bad calls, the unlucky shots, UE’s lucky streak, etc., the major reason why we lost last Sunday was yabang.

Back to back was all we could think of, that we forgot to take account that we still had 40 minutes. Actually, by halftime, we were matched up pretty well with UE, Ateneo must have thought that they could retain this shootout until the dying seconds of the game, and we’d win by 1-2 points.

If you asked around the crowd last Sunday, most of them were expecting the victory mass at Gesu later on. People in forums were already posting sentimental, season-ender posts. Many people were thinking that Sunday would be the last time they had to go to Araneta, line-up for tickets and wait at Starbucks after the game was over.

It was heartbreaking, last Sunday. Even after Espiritu’s alleyoop, I was still inkling on an OT. But as UE shot 3 after 3 after 3, my stomach began to sink down and after minutes of shouting “get that ball”, Zamar pulled in a despicable, dishonorable three that finally ended the slaughter. Shame on you, Zamar. Walang delicadeza.

What pissed me off even more than UE’s blatant cheer and school song ritual copying (they shouted “Go UE” as they sang their school song, only Ateneo and La Salle do that) was this annoying girl seated in the row before us. She was seated the whole time during “Song for Mary”, I would understand if she’s a fan who’s not studying in Ateneo, but she was TEXTING the whole time. Ginusto kong ilampaso yung mukha niya sa basketball court. Konting respeto lang. Pocha

After this loss, I’m sure we’ve all learned a lesson in humility, and I believe this will be the key to our victory.

To play as if we’ll lose, sounds wrong, but to play like this would mean that we’re more cautious, more humble, more desperate and more persistent.

We can, we really can. Lessons have been learned.

For Thursday.

On a lighter note, Buenafe was Silverworks’ Hardcourt Heartthrob last Sunday :> WOOHOO!

EAGLESSS

TAPUSIN NAAAA!

I missed the Finals game last year due to a major History play we had to stage, this year I’m not missing it again.

rainfall

Silence overcame me yesterday, the past few days have been dismal, but it’s safe to say that Ondoy brought out the best in all of us. When I think of friends who live in Marikina, Cainta, Pasig, etc., who’ve been injured, who’ve lost their homes and their belongings, it makes me feel sad and unsettled. I was watching the Finals game with Bea, and after showing me a text message about Pepeng’s impending danger, I suddenly felt disturbed in the middle of a close match with UE.

I was particularly downtrodden upon hearing the misfortune of two good friends, one got into a refrigerator accident and the other’s house filled up all the way to the second floor, damaging most of their belongings and washing away things that were once part of their lives. With this, I began to think, who else could have gone missing? When I come to school on Monday, will I be sure that all my classmates are still there? Will the lunch ladies in the caf, or the profs who all live in Marikina still be there to go to school with us?

Some thoughts:
1) Opportunism – Shame on you, politicians who have the gall to label each and every bag of the relief goods you donate. For once, stop thinking about the damn campaigns.

And some bloggers out there who post call for donations posts without signs of actually doing something tactile. What irks me is that they post this alongside pictures of lavish dinners, brand name shopping and 723329 pictures of drunken rave parties. Stop pretending.

2) Mistaken priorities – To students out there who actually feel happy that classes were suspended for a week and are actually jubilant that final exams and all requirements are now optional, stop being so detached. Posting nothing but your useless Facebook quizzes isn’t gonna be of much help either.

ondoy