- Hey everyone its Mark Wiens. I am in Manila and one of the
best places to eat in Manila one of the most famous
places for food is Chinatown. And in Manila it's called Binondo and so today I'm going to
take you on a tour of Binondo we're gonna eat some delicious
Chinese-Filipino food and just walk around and
explore this vibrant, and very interesting and
fascinating area of Manila. (upbeat music) On our way first this morning
to eat some dumplings. Oh, hello fish bowls. First place that we've come is called Dong Bei Dumpling House. This place is legendary
for their dumplings and they're, I can't
think of a better way to start the morning than
with a plate of dumplings. And so i just ordered
a plate of their famous kuchay and also pork dumplings. And you just walk into this restaurant and you can just smell the
aroma of chives and pork. I was gonna eat inside, but actually they're playing
kind of loud music in there so I decided to just get it for take-away and it's hot and fresh and steaming. I added some chili oil they
are still hot and steaming. Oh yes fresh dumplings are hard to beat. Oh and I already added a
little bit of chili oil uhm and then it's also served with I think it's probably I think it's vinegar. Usually these little
sauce bags one of the best methods to opening them
is to bite the tail. So that you get a little bit oh that was like some air was released that's very fragrant and garlicky. Alright oh perfect. I think this is if I can
taste those fumes alright I think this is vinegar and
maybe soy sauce and garlic. Okay perfect I'm going right for that top dumpling right there. Oh that's so fresh and
so good and so juicy. The wrapper has a little bit
of a gummy texture to it, but what I like is that it's not too thick and it's not too thin it's
right at that medium thickness. So you can taste that
you're eating noodle, but at the same time
it's not overly starchy. And then the inside just
kind of explodes with that juice that pork, those chives you want to soak up as
much sauce as you can. These are the type of dumplings
you can eat a whole plate just in seconds without even knowing it, without even thinking
about it they're so good. And as much as I'd love
to go have another plate I think I'm gonna pace myself
today for this food tour. Something interesting about Binondo that I really wanted to share with you is that it is one of the oldest if not the oldest established
Chinatown's in the world. And it dates back to
1594 when the Spaniards set this area apart as
an area for the Chinese to settle which is across
the river the Pasig River from Intramuros which is the Spanish area of colonial rule in
Manila in the Philippines. We've only been walking
around for a little bit, but Mika is getting
hungry so we've decided to stop off and eat lunch, an early lunch. This is a whole strip of restaurants which is right along the canal. They have all sorts of Chinese food, Chinese-Filipino food here
you can order seafood, you can order lots of stir-fry dishes and then I was watching
him as he cooks and he is a master at the wok. Igniting the oil and the sauces and then just putting
all the dishes together I ordered a couple of different dishes one of the things that I
really wanted to try here is their fried frog legs. So I got the fried frog legs. They're also known for
their buttered chicken which I have no idea the only
buttered chicken I know of is Indian-styled buttered chicken. So this is gonna be a first for me and then I also got a dish
of stir-fried vegetables with seafood and then
also it's squid which is stuffed with I think
it's stuffed with chives. So let's start with the
fried frog legs since they're sitting right before me. Here's a nice leg down here and it is breaded, coated and then deep-fried. Going in just like a drumstick. Oh the bone came off with that pull oh wow that's pretty salty. Very salty and quite oily,
but really, really crispy. And it has that crispiness
that sort of tastes like maybe cornstarch rather than just flour. It sort of has a grainy crispiness to it. Next up I'm gonna try the stuffed squid and you just check out this cross section. It's just filled with
oh that sauce is gooey. That tastes almost exactly how it looks. You've got the tender,
yet slightly rubbery squid and then yeah those are definitely chives they have the chewy texture to them and really, really fragrant and really juicy. One of their specialties
here is the buttered chicken and ooh is that butter
on the bottom there? There's a little pool of
something on the bottom there and I can see garlic and
that must be the butter. Let me go in for a little
bit more of that butter sauce if I'm gonna eat butter chicken I don't want to skimp on that sauce. Oh yeah that looks pretty buttery and that appears to be garlic as well. Alright. Yeah, that is extremely buttery fried chicken soaked in butter. Let's just say if you love butter you're gonna love this dish. And then the final dish
is the mixed vegetables with seafood there is shrimp in here there are there might be some
or maybe it's mostly shrimp, but there might be some squid in here, yeah little pieces of squid as well. That's good and simple
not too salty actually the vegetables are not too salty. Their style of cooking is very saucy so its almost like a soup of sauce. I'm gonna grab another piece of frog and this time I'll dip it into this tomato or maybe chili sauce. Oh I can eat that whole piece despite there being bones in it. That's like a sweet and sour sauce that does go well together because it kind of cuts the saltiness of the frog. The food was okay I didn't really like the fried dishes that much as they were pretty oily and heavy on the breading and the ingredients didn't
taste all that fresh, but it was a nice enough place to sit. I like the breezy
environment under the tree. We are now off to walk around and explore more of Binondo hopefully get some snacks. And actually I would just like
to say that Binondo is such a nice place to explore it's
actually very charming. And it has a, oh I gotta move, whoa that's a lot of mung bean noodles, but it's very charming it has a really friendly nice feel to it and it's actually quite, at
least this time that we're here it's quite calm and not too busy and it's quite clean as well. Uh just a normal market I came in here mostly to
get their signature hopia. Which one is their signature one? The hopia, alright this
is what I'm getting right here with mung bean pastry. Actually Ying bought quite a few snacks, but I just went straight for
their classic mung bean hopia. And it is heavy you can
feel how solid that is wrapped in paper you could lift weights with this mung bean pastry. I didn't grab a, oh it's cut into pieces already okay. Here we go they're like
into little hockey pucks. I almost took a bite, I barely noticed the little wax paper on the bottom which I'm assuming you don't eat let me pull of that wax paper. It's a little bit dry and very dense oh it's good though. The mashed up mung beans
on the inside which are sweet and starchy it's kind of like a really heavy cookie. It kind of has that texture, kind of that sticky texture
kind of like peanut butter where it kind of sticks to the roof of your mouth a little bit. It's kind of hard to talk. - Hi it is so nice to see you I'm a fan of your channel. - Thank you
Thank you. Are you from Manila? - Yes I am from Manila from Binondo. - We were just eating
that pastry at Ho-Land and met up with Nathan. - [Nathan] Hello. - What's up Nathan? - [Nathan] Hi - And you live in Binondo? - I live right over there. - Cool, cool and so he
is accompanying us to our next place to eat. - [Mark] So this is called New - [Nathan] New Po Heng. - New Po Heng and these are actually like the size of mini
burritos they're pretty big. There are a number of
different things in here she added I saw lettuce,
I saw peanut powder, what was the darker powder? - [Nathan] Oh that is seaweed (inaudible) - Seaweed okay like dried seaweed powder? - Mhmm. - And then the main vegetable mixture is? - Cabbage and bean curd and carrots. - [Mark] Cabbage and
bean curds and carrots. Okay and so then they wrap it up into this and it's all vegetarian as well. So it's all vegetarian
it's a pretty good size. Let's take a look at the cross section oh wow look at all those vegetables alright Nathan squeeze some sauce on oh it's very like thick. More?
Uh that's okay. - This sauce it almost has
the consistency of honey. Alright cheers man.
Cheers. Oh yeah, really just
packed full of vegetables it has that very contrast
of salty to sweet to it. There I think the peanut
powder is a little sweet and then also the sauce
yeah it tastes like peanut butter like a dry
crumbly peanut butter and then also the sauce its sweet, but then the vegetable mixture
is more on the salty side. This is a Chinese type
of fresh spring roll and they have it all
across Southeast Asia. I've had it in Singapore
and Thailand popiah, but I have to say that this
is one of the best versions I've ever had the ingredients, the balance of flavor,
really, really nice. Okay next up we are
walking along with Nathan and his fiancee I think we're gonna go get some fried buns, fried siopao. This place has no name so luckily Nathan escorted us here and they have a lot of Chinese snacks and different little dessert and
shumai and different things, but we came here mainly for the baos and you can actually feel in that bag how kind of fluffy and
how soft the bun is. Mmmm. Wow that is awesomely
good, that is delicious. The bread is so pillowy,
so airy and pillowy and then it has some
water chestnuts in there I can taste the crunchiness
of the water chestnuts. There are some green onions in there, it has a sesame flavor and a
black pepper flavor as well. Even though it looks kind of big, it's so fluffy that you
can eat the whole thing in a couple of bites. And I love that layer
between meat and bread where it's kind of gooey and just absorbed all of the flavor. One of the most legendary
or maybe infamous dishes that you have to eat
when you come to Binondo, oh you don't really have to eat it. It's called soup number five we got two different soups one of
them is black chicken soup and that is not the soup number five. This one is the soup number five, but the black chicken
soup also looks awesome and it smells delicious. This is the legendary soup number five which is a cow or bull, is it bull? - [Nathan] Bull. - Okay bull penis and bull testicles and that whole kind of region chopped up into bite sized pieces
and made into a soup. So this is very famous in Binondo to eat. Alright, and can you get this in other parts of Manila as well or is this mostly in Binondo? - I've always had it in Binondo I'm not sure if it's
available somewhere else. - Okay, there's some ginger,
there's some go gi berries, and it has, it smells very like cinnamon. It has a cinnamon aroma to it and very Chinese herbal aroma to it. Wow it's really, really good. Oh it's really, really good. It's like, it tastes
like concentrated herbs it kind of tastes like
a Chinese braised soup, braised flavor and then
should we go in for some parts next okay lets
take it right off that spoon. And so you can eat that
whole thing right there, there's no bones or anything in it. Alright, oh wow they are kind of slippery. Alright, cheers man.
Cheers. It's really, really good. It's actually the texture
is exactly like tendon. - Tendon, yeah. - It's gelatinous, but at the same time it's not chewy kind of like gummy. The parts are good, but
that broth is insane it's so flavorful you can just taste how it's just packed with herbs. Let's go on to the
black chicken soup next. I'm going for that broth, so is this a half, wow
that's just a tiny chicken it's almost like the size
of a quail look at that. - [Nathan] It's black. - [Mark] And it is black
alright lets taste the broth and also black chicken is
supposed to be very healthy right? - Yes. - It almost tastes like
caramel when you have that aftertaste, do you
know what that could be? - [Nathan] I'm not sure what that is. - Okay, but a black
chicken is supposed to be a cure all in Chinese culture right? Cure all for anything. Actually lets just go in with our fingers. Oh that's like really creamy. It's incredibly delicious, it's so tender you know it's probably
been boiled for so long that it just slips off the bone. Look how clean that bone came off with the cartilage and all. You can eat the cartilage
and all its very tender. Do you think the black
chicken has a different - Flavor? - Flavor I guess. - A little. - It's a little bit of a different flavor - Slightly gamier. - Slightly gamier, but
you can definitely taste that it is chicken though. It kind of has that
taste of a quail though. - Or a pigeon. - Or a pigeon. I'm gonna go in for another
bit of the gelatin goodness. It's really good I'm actually hugely impressed by soup number five. Of everything I've eaten so far on this Binondo, Manila food
tour- soup number five this is by far my favorite dish so far. It's so good, it's so herbal. This is my last piece right here. That's one of the crunchy pieces you get some many different textures some parts are very gelatinous and soft all the way through like tendons, but some are crunchy like you know when you eat a gizzard
it has the same kind of crunch that kind of like weird crunch. Thank you. Don't let the ingredients
of soup number five through you off. It's truly a winner of a soup. I thoroughly enjoyed that. And I'm feeling very
strong and very healthy after eating that as well. (speaking Filipino) This is just a really small
restaurant on the corner and what's the name of this place? - 899. - 899, what are we gonna eat here Nathan? - [Nathan] Uh, pork tongue
Pork tongue. And large and small intestines. - Awesome and it's braised? - It's braised. - Oh nice the tongue so it's braised, it's sitting at the front
and then you order it and they just slice it
into bite sized pieces. What's in the sauce? - It's soy sauce, vinegar,
black vinegar and garlic. - Oh okay, it looks amazing. Just look at how meaty and and
how beautiful that tongue is. Oh wow, yeah that is amazing. Tongue is just such a
wonderful is it a meat? Yeah it's a meat. It's tender, but it's not overly tender, but it has a little bit of texture to it. It's not like stringy
or anything like that it doesn't have any
kind of bizarre about it being the tongue at all. It just tastes like really
the best of the best of meat. Really tender, fleshy its
a nice salty braised flavor that they have on it and with
that vinegar garlic sauce. Oh wow, that is like a world
class snack right there. (woman speaking Filipino) Oh and here comes the large intestines and the small intestines they
look like little shoots and yeah you can definelty tell the difference between the two. These ones are much smaller in size. Let's start with the small ones. - [Nathan] The small ones. - Small intestines
these are my favorite. That little shoot, that little hose. You wanna get some good sauce on this, how's that- oh yeah. They're not even rubbery though they are very tender, very, very tender. Very, very kind of smooth they have more. I can't stop, it's
something you can't stop you just want to keep on eating it. And they are well cleaned as well so you don't have any
kind of foul taste at all they're just really well cleaned. Look at that, that's almost like a yeah you can actually see through the hole okay let's dip that. Wow, that's also
delicious it has a totally different texture while
the small intestines are more of a little rubbery the big intestines are
kind of creamy and fattier. It's a little fattier. Mika we finished off
all of those intestines and that tongue. Thank you very much. That was very good, thank you. After finishing all that
food on that Binondo Filipino Chinese food
tour we just came back to this is an apartment
that Ying and I are renting here in Manila that was an amazing food tour and it was great to it was actually completely random Ying and I went to Binondo this morning and I just had a list of restaurants and places that I wanted to go and we were gonna just kind of walk around and explore and find things out on our own, but luckily we bumped into Nathan and completely by chance and
not only is he from Manila, but he's from right in Binondo. So he knows everywhere in Binondo so he took us to some
special spots that he likes, uh and I have to admit soup number five was the best thing of the whole day. That was my favorite food of the whole day so when you're in Manila don't forget and don't miss taking a food tour in Binondo and it's a great place to visit. Thank you all very much for watching this food tour video hope you enjoyed it please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and also
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