The Binondo Food Tour

Two or three years ago, I birthday-gifted Spanky with a cutesy card with cutesy coupons he could redeem for bike accessories or a Binondo food trip, and my sweet love.

So last month, he finally availed of one gift (i mean the food tour; the sweet love was given 24/7--or whenever one or the other wasn't bugnutin). We decided to drag along a friend each, and we hied off to Binondo in full anticipation, and with empty tummies.

Ivan, the now famous tour guide who appeared in Anthony Bourdain's show, led us in and around the streets. The group was largish with, I think, 15 tourists, roughly half of which were foreigners.

And I don't know why we didn't take food photos, but needless to say, we had a delicious time sampling the exotic dumplings, the fresh lumpia topped with minced raw garlic, the piping-hot siopao, and of course, the flaky, creamy hopia.





It was nice to see Binondo in a new light. The few times I was here, I was always rushing, my eyes straight ahead, and on my bag, to make sure it wouldn't get slashed or snatched. But this time, we lingered on the sidewalks, looking up and down, drinking in the olden buildings, the Buddhist shrine suddenly popping out from nowhere, the street names adorned with Chinese dragons.

After the trip, we had our nightcap at East St. Louis, our ears having their fill of 80s music and soulful conversation.