Like any other South East Asian countries, Philippines has a large community of Chinese too. Chinese food is common and you don’t need to go to China town in Binondo or Ongpin just to eat your favorite Chinese cuisine. This hot pot restaurant by the name of “Little Lamb” however is a franchise from China. You can either order ala-carte or opt for the buffet style. I prefer the buffet style ( 599 pesos per head ) as I don’t want to have the dilemma of what to order.

Thin sliced lamb met eat all you can

There are quite a few hot pot restaurant in Manila but I have to say this is my favorite. The variety of dishes is way more from those others that I’ve eaten before. I like the fact that they have my favorite hot pot items like fried bean curd skin ( Foo Chook ) and those grass jelly like noodles. I’ve never come across any other hot pot places in Manila that serve the fried bean curd skin. Another plus point for this restaurant is that finding parking space is such a breeze.

Restaurant is fully air condition, clean and spacious

The glass jelly like noodles that I’ve eaten for the first time in China. Never really see other places in Manila offering this.

Quite a big selection of hot pot items

More hot pot items

The bull frog is kinda small but is all right I guess

There are few types of soup but I ordered the chicken and spicy soup made of Szechuan pepper corn.

Cooked dishes like fried pork ribs and intestine were also available. There are actually more items I didn’t get to snap the pictures like the dried bean curd skin, vegetables and wide array of innards of all animals.  I guess I was too busy eating and explaining to my Filipino friends about the hot pot items. My friend love the pig’s brain especially and his wife loves the dried bean curd skin. Both of them told me that they really love the food here and will definitely bring family and friends back her.

Little Lamb Hot Pot Restaurant
La Marina, South Drive, Area 2, Rizal Park
Ermita, Manila ( Tel : 02-5163886.

]]> http://spicegasm.com/2012/01/china-style-lamb-hot-pot-in-manila-xiao-fei-yang/feed/ 1 http://spicegasm.com/2012/01/welcoming-new-year-2012-in-the-philippines/ http://spicegasm.com/2012/01/welcoming-new-year-2012-in-the-philippines/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:19:43 +0000 Alex http://spicegasm.com/?p=1107 After Thailand, I head on to the Philippines for an unplanned trip. I was kinda coaxed by my friend Zach to travel together with him. He bought his ticket a few months ago for a very good deal with Cebu Pacific. Me on the other hand paid a pretty high price for my ticket as it is last minute booking and most likely is the high season. Nevertheless, I decided to go with him as the idea of meeting up with my Filipino friends during New Year is always a fun thing to do.

Food vendors offering their goodies in Baclaran

New Year in the Philippines is celebrated in a very unique way. It has the combination of Chinese culture influence and the local tradition. Firecrackers or “paputok” is an essential part of New Year celebration here. The sound of loud firecrackers could be heard when the month of December begins and it gets heavier during Christmas eve and of course New Year’s Eve. I was told that loud firecrackers will keep the bad spirits away. This will bring good luck to the household. The louder the sound of the fireworks, the better luck you will get in the coming year.

More Filipino food offered by vendors near the Baclaran church area

While is not only the paputok that can chase the bad spirit away, singing out loud with your Karaoke machine with your family members can also get the job done. Being Filipino, singing comes as a second nature and for sure you will hear the latest hits being belted out. Occasionally oldies like “My Way” will be part of the repertoire especially when you have sporting Lolo and Lola ( grandfather and grandmother ) amongst the group.

Wearing polka dot shirts is believed to increase your wealth as well during the eve. Putting lots of coins in your pants pocket is also highly encourage. Round fruits like orange, grapes and water melon are also decorated in the house. I used to joke to my friend that maybe putting lots of coins in the pants pocket and having those round fruits might not be such a good idea. I suggested that they replace the coins with Peso notes, the bigger the better or if real money is not available, go scan it and print more out. As for the round fruits, replaced them with bar of chocolates, especially those chocolate with gold wrapper!

All you need is a small push cart and a small wok to fry these peanuts. I like those with cili and garlic. It is call adobong mani.

A lot of Filipino loves shopping in Baclaran

A wide variety of cheap products are sold in Baclaran market.

There’s a lot of restaurant near Baclaran area too. In the background we can see Max Restaurant and also Andok’s

Most of the Barangay are decorated with colorful lights

I am never really into special occasion celebrations as I would like to believe that everyday is special. If anyone want to make a change with their life, for example like losing weight, you don’t need to wait for the New Year to do it. You can always do it like right away and the date could be July 18th or something. However, I do enjoy the part where most friends are free during the eve  and free flow of San Miguel accompanied with a wide array of food are being served.

I really do love this experience, I am like a kid going to the candy store but in this case, the “candy store” comes to me. All you need to do is just sit down, chit-chat and drink, continuous stream of vendors with different type of food will just come to you. My personal favorite has to be seafood. Is normally steamed different types of shells like mussels and cockles. The river prawns are awesome too. The seafood sauce which is spicy and tangy really enhanced the taste of the seafood.

Here are some pictures of one of my drinking session with some of my friends.

Cheap Thai whiskey and Chang beer

Can’t remember what this vendor is selling but he is cool enough to let me take his picture with him doing the thumbs up

A Thai noodle vendor on her motorbike having a brisk business

Beef, chicken and pork jerky. Salty and tasty, perfect match for beer

Seafood vendor with his push cart offering various type of steamed seafood

Big headed river prawns, the head is super tasty and some people believe it serves as aphrodisiac. I not sure bout that but it surely will give you the spicegasm feeling!

Flower crab with some sort of water snails

Lots of cockles! One of the funkiest tasting seafood but loved by many Thai and Asian foodies

Baked mussels with the special Thai seafood sauce. So addictive just like pop corn, you can never stop. If only the cinema allow this item to be sold in Thailand, I bet it will beat the sales of pop corn.

Flower crab which has not much meat in it but is not about the meat, is about having something to munch and not to get full. Is kinda like eating pumpkin seeds.

There you have it, pictures of cheap seafood in Thailand. An activity where you can do it over and over without feeling bored. Most importantly, it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket when you go with a few friends.

I woke up the next day at 7am and I really felt like going to Chinatown and get the taste of Chinese Thai Dim Sum. The thing with Chinese food in the region of South East Asia, every country has its own special twist to it. It is normally a fusion mixed between Chinese cooking and the local style. So I thought would be a cool idea to go sample some Chinese Thai style Dim Sum. My friend Zach is still sleeping and I thought would be a good idea to invite him as well.

Busy street with many roadside vendors in Chinatown, Bangkok

Wen Zach woke up, I told him about my idea. He said yes and we should do it. So we were thinking whether to take the MRT or taxi. Since Chinatown does not have an MRT station nearby, we decided to take the taxi. How bad could the traffic be at 9.45am in the morning. We stopped a cab and the driver was more than happy to bring us there. That’s when our ordeal began!

I have no idea why the traffic was so bad on that day. It took us 2 hours to reach Chinatown from Ratchada. I bet without any traffic, it would probably take us less than 20 minutes to be in Chinatown. We had to go pee so badly while in the cab. By the time we reached Chinatown, our man pipes feels like is going to explode. I gave the taxi driver extra 100 baht on top of the meter charges and frantically trying to look for a restaurant. To my surprise, I didn’t see one single restaurant near the area where we were dropped off. It was all shops selling various merchandises. There’s a lot of street food though, mostly selling “Wan Ton Noodles”.

Street food in Chinatown, Bangkok

We walked frantically for another ten minutes looking for restaurants with toilets. My mind is no longer thinking of Dim Sum. I no longer feel hungry. Finally out of desperation, we thicken our face and asked a Thai lady vendor in our halting Thai – “Where’s the nearest toilet. She gave us some directions in Thai. We quickly thanked her and walked as fast as we could. “Thong Pai, Liaw Sai , Liew Sai, which means go straight, turn left and left again.”

We were so happy to have found a run down restaurant which has a working toilet. Is not 5 star quality but under the circumstances, this is more than welcome. I went first and asked Zach to sit down like we are customers. I have no idea why at this old age, I still feel embarrassed to use the restaurant toilets only and not eat there. Zach is no better than me when it comes to having a thick face. I guess no Dim Sum for us, whatever the shop sells, we will consume it.

This is the front of the beef noodle shop

When I got out of the toilet, I only realized that the run down shop is selling beef noodles. This is the kind of shop that I love. Run down shops in Asia always serve the best food, most of the time based on my personal experience. Judging from the crowd, the shop must be really popular. The waitress came to us and asked us what we want. We couldn’t understand a word and upon sensing that, she told us in Thai what they have. We could only understood the word noodles and beef. I just nod my head and put up a peace sign, indicating TWO please. I have no idea what we are going to get but at times is fun to eat something different in situation like this.

Customers waiting for their beef noodles

Beef balls that is really crunchy and bouncy – awesome!

My second round – beef tripe, tendon and more beef balls

Gelatinous goodness – beef tendon

She brought us two bowls of rice and another two bowls of soup with beef meat and beef balls. The serving is pretty small and after finishing my bowl of soup and rice, I wasn’t satisfied. I knew beef noodle shops would definitely have the cow innards like stomach, tendon and tripe. I went to the area where they prepare the dishes and just pointed to all the innards that I wanted, together with their awesome beef balls.

Can’t understand Thai, but it seems like this is a recognition poster by a TV station for serving excellent food.

After the meal, we walked a bit in Chinatown and as usual, like most other Chinatown in the world, is pretty busy. Rows of shops selling clothes, toys, hardware and many other products. The afternoon heat was pretty intense on that day. After snapping a few pictures, we decided to hop on a tuk tuk and go to the nearest MRT station. The ride was just less than 10 minutes and the MRT ride home was less than 20 minutes.

Rolex anyone?

Toy vendor

Rows of shops most likely own by Chinese Thais

This is the main reason I want Dinemates to be successful. I wouldn’t have to tell my friends in the future that it took me 2 hours to go to Chinatown to pee and eat beef noodles only.

I invited another American friend to come along. He came to my La Cerise, the guest house which I am staying and we asked for direction on how to go to Mum Aroi restaurant. The front desk staff then told us that transportation is provided for free to the guests of La Cerise. I thought the gesture was super cool and on top of that, the transportation was a bad ass looking tuk tuk!

It was just a 7-10 minutes ride and upon reaching the restaurant my host is already waiting together with an ex staff of his who is a Thai. His Thai ex staff brought along her mom as well. I really love it when there’s a party of 5 or more  when it comes to dining in restaurants like these. On top of that, there are locals in the group and this means we will definitely get to sample more varieties of dishes.

The restaurant looks really classy and has the Zen like feel to it. Spicy and delicious food served in a calm atmosphere is good for a change compared to the loud and noisy atmosphere of street food.

The parking lot of the restaurant is pretty huge. Easy to find a parking slot.

The ambiance of the restaurant is really cool. Dim lighted with some lights on trees and sound of the pool with a mini water fall.

Dining at Mum Aroi restaurant feels like eating in a really nice garden. Felt very relax and made me feel at ease and ready to swine and dine.

The restaurant has a pool which added a touch of class to this chic Thai restaurant. With the sound of flowing water it made me kinda thirsty and it just confirmed my beverage of choice for the night – BEER!

First dish was a spicy seafood salad. The shiny round balls are not pearls but some kind of fish egg. I have to admit this is my first time seeing fish egg this big. It has no distinctive but I guess is added to the salad for texture. I don’t know how to describe the texture exactly but is definitely not chewy  like those taro balls that you find in the pearl tea. I will leave it to Andrew Zimmern to make those descriptions. If he can describes how is it like eating dried camel testicles, this fish egg would be a piece of cake for him.

Baked mussels with Thai herbs. Really good appetizer when dip with the Thai seafood sauce. Sourish and spicy makes you want to eat more.

Khao Moo Yang, barbeque pork’s neck. Very famous Thai dish from Isaan. I can remember this dish’s name in Thai as I simply have to remember the words “young cow that moo”. I used to get confused during my first trip to Thailand between pork and beef. Pork is known as “Moo” and I always get mixed it up with beef as cow moos. Beef in Thai is known as “Neua”.

Dried chili stir fried with chicken and cashew nuts. Most likely a Chinese influenced dish but ordered for the courtesy of the American friend.

Can’t remember the name of this Thai soup dish. Made of coconut with spices, lemongrass and sea food. Didn’t want to order Tom Yum as we been ordering the King of Soup since the first day I was introduced to Thai food. Just wanted to try something new for a change. I have to admit that I still prefers Tom Yum but is good to experience new dishes once in a while.

BBQ river prawns! Just fresh big head river prawns grilled on charcoal. It has a special spicy dip to go with it to make eating these prawns more heavenly. Super fresh and the flesh of the prawns bounced right back to your gums. I love the head also which is full of yucky looking gooey goodness. The elderly Thai lady that was with our group would only eat the heads. This comes as a perfect trade between my American friend and her.

Nam Prik with crab eggs. I ordered this as I’ve never tasted Nam Prik with crab eggs. I was disappointed though as it is just regular Nam Prik with some crab eggs in it. It cost 120 Baht which I think is pretty pricey. All the other dishes were pretty standard and I think the bill came up to 2000 plus ( with 5 bottles of large Heinekken beer ). I did not know the exact price as my host fights to pay the bill.

Overall, the dining experience was pretty good because of the ambiance and atmosphere of Mum Aroi Thai restaurant. As for the food, I think is pretty good but definitely there are places that are better and less fancier. Everybody has their preferences and I am sure some people would regard Mum Aroi as their number one Thai restaurant. I would definitely go dine there again once in a while if given the choice.

The set meal comes with plain white rice, a piece of fried fish, three kinds of vegetables of your choice (fried, boiled or raw  ) and egg omelet. Fried fish and omelet comes as default and I selected raw cucumber, boiled okra ( ladyfingers ) and fried egg-plant. I added a fried dried fish.The stall offers six different types of Nam Prik and I only know the name of one. I chose Nam Prik Kapi. It cost me around 65 Baht.

My Caucasian friend Zach ordered the same set meal too. He is being featured in my blog a lot as I am trying my best to convert him into a real Asian foodie. Still got to get him to enjoy eating innards and the big prawn heads. So far I am pretty happy with his progress as he really loves Nam Prik Kapi. His love for Nam Prik is real and sincere as I’ve seen him whacking it few days in a row. I do know some other Caucasian friends who declared their undying love for Asian food but whenever we go to food court, they would still order hamburgers.

I actually wanted to eat with my hand but there’s no sink available in the food court. I voiced my disappointment to Zach and he gave me a look that would be translated as “Ewwww…with your hands!” I then told him that to enjoy Nam Prik Kapi 100%, you need to eat with hands. By using fork and spoon, is just probably 80% satisfaction. The statement made him gave me another look like I am retarded for coming out with that reasoning. At that point my mind was working extra hard to find a perfect example to strengthen my reasoning. I then asked him if he ever eaten steak with plastic fork and knife. I then got a look from him that I was felt very pleased with. Case close and i started to eat my Nam Prik Kapi with a smugly face.

I thought I would make a review of the guest house that I stayed for more than 2 weeks. The name of the hotel is Le Cerise and the owner is from France. La Cerise is pretty cool in my opinion as it’s a restaurant and a guest house at the same time. Everything is new and I opted for the cheapest room which is at 999 Bath a night. It comes with free breakfast and you can order up to your room at any time of the day.

My room has a tiny balcony that can accommodate 2 person and it is really breezy. I always eat my breakfast at the balcony during my stay there. Another thing that is worth mentioning is that La Cerise has a living room on the second floor. The living room is a common area that can be shared with all the guests. It has satellite TV and DVD player as well. Is cool to entertain your friends here when they come visit you.

I normally do not review hotels or guest houses but I had to with La Cerise because at one time, the manager told me that they also provide transport services with their special made “tuk tuk” around Pattaya City. So this cool service made me want to include this little guest house in one of my post of Spicegasm.A guest enjoying the Free Wifi at the cafe just outside of the guest house premises.

The lobby is also a restaurant where you can have your free breakfast here if you choose not to have it in your room. At the end of the restaurant is a counter where all the friendly La Cerise staffs that will attend to your needs. The restaurant has a big selection of Thai food and also French food. There’s also French pastries for those who has sweet tooth.

This is the living room for the guests and it has satellite TV. The bean bag chair is pretty comfy.

This is where I do my work most of the time. Sometimes I would work at the balcony too.

My bed is clean and comfy. Mattress is good, no complains.

Toilet is clean but I wish the shower would have stronger pressure.

Having my free American breakfast at my tiny balcony. Feeling really happy and contended. It doesn’t take much to make me to feel a million bucks.

Some days I would have the French breakfast instead. Still having it on the balcony though.

The guest house also has many bicycles for rent. I have the feeling the owner of La Cerise is into biking. Tour D’ France!

And finally the picture of the coolest “tuk tuk” in Pattaya City. Bad ass looking motorcycle taxi!

I got the idea of making this site when I was blogging one day. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if I were to visit some new places and I can find a fellow foodie who would be eager to introduce me to their local cuisine. I tried using Facebook to look for fellow foodie but most of the people there are only connected to their good friends.

Then I thought, why not try a dating site. But then again in dating sites, most of the girls might expect me to be her soul mate and I for one am not looking for romance. In the end I decided, why not make a social networking site that could actually work as a dating site too. The only difference is, people can hook up for one common interest – “Good Food”. If people can find love via Dinemates, good for them. In a way, I think meeting via Dinemates might not have so much pressure as opposed to the conventional dating site.

I have no idea how this site will turn out to be but I do have plans line up to make this into an awesome site. Making a site successful definitely is quite a challenge as it will cost a lot of money and time. End of the day, the site just got to be useful and fun for its members. I hope to create more events and members will provide useful contents to its community. Is hard to compete with the more popular social networking sites but I still believe there’s room for a new social networking site like Dinemates that is very niche.

So head on to Dinemates and create a profile to make the site more interesting. Your presence is very much welcome. Oh and did I tell you that the site is 100% Free?

>>>GO TO DINEMATES NOW<<<

I was invited to dinner by a friend who brought along the wife. We went to the food court in ABC Market near Jalan Bukit Merah and decided to have Taiwanese Porridge for dinner as they feel like eating something light. This is not the first time for me but is my first time to blog about it. I don’t think any of the cooks are from Taiwan and the dishes tasted local for me. I don’t really care for the name but as long as the food is good, they can name their stall whatever they like.

This is how the plain porridge looks like. Is just basically rice cook with more water. This stall added some sweet potatoes into the porridge. Not sure if it really makes the difference.

Is so easy to over order as the dishes comes in small portions. They have the menu ready and also provide you with a list whereby you tick or check on any dishes that you fancy. When it comes to ticking the list ( pencil provided by the store ), I am pretty fast at it as I know what dishes I like. It reminded me of my early school days when I did not study for my exam and I would be doing the same for my multiple choice answers papers.

This is a must have for me. Fatty pork cooked with preserved vegetables. The flavor is really good and the meat is really soft and tasty. The saltiness of the preserved vegetables blends really well with the plain porridge.

Bean sprout stir fried with salted fish. Also a must on my list whenever having porridge.

My friend like this sizzling beef in hot plate. The beef is tender but I think is because they used tenderizer to soften the meat.

Chili clams that tasted a little bit like sweet and sour. Tasted pretty good but I think I would prefer it to be more spicy.

Sambal petai is a Malay dish that is adopted in many Chinese cooking in South East Asia. I still haven’t found the English name for this funky beans. I bet it probably doesn’t have an English name as the taste is bitter and leaves a foul smell in your mouth. Definitely not a white man friendly food. Girls who are fans of petai avoid these beans whenever they want to go out on a hot date. The worst part is these beans has a kind of chemical reaction to make you want to go do number 2 all the time in the toilet. If the ventilation of house is not good, everybody within the vicinity will know that you had the funky petai beans. Really can’t blame the white dudes for making fun of the eating habits of Asian people.

I like this minced pork steam with salted fish. If without the salted fish, I probably won’t like it. I think what makes this dish tasty is the salted fish. Not those really dried salted fish but a special type of salted fish that is slightly wet. If direct Chinese translation to English, this type of salted fish would be known as “Rotten Fragrance”. I have no idea if this makes sense to people who never tasted this type of salted fish. It really does smell like someone who never changes his running socks for 2 weeks. Another type of Asian food that is a big mystery to the white folks. Whenever they make fun of me, I will always counter them with their foul smelling cheese!

It cost us around 50 USD for the meal. Not exactly cheap for Asian food standard but sometimes the taste bud dictates us what to eat. I guess our “light” dinner turned out to be a heavy meal instead. Is not that hard to commit gluttony when you are Singapore.

I was deciding on what to eat on the eve of Deepavali and couldn’t really decide as there are simply just too many choices here in Singapore. At 5.30pm, got a text from a friend, Eric and he asked me if I am up for some claypot Bah Kut Teh in Joo Chiat Road. I replied back in a heartbeat with just a simple text “ON!”. I like it when this happens when you are not sure what to eat and suddenly someone makes the decision for you, what more when that someone offered to come pick you up.

We arrived at Joo Chiat at around 7.30pm and there’s no parking available. We kept circling and driving to look for parking but still couldn’t manage to find one. We almost gave up and wanted to go eat something else. As we circled back again near to the restaurant, we noticed there’s a carpark in a building call Katong Junction. The building was just next to the restaurant and we never knew this car park even existed. We drove in and there’s one more slot available. Awesome!

As we approach the entrance of Sin Heng Bah Kut Teh, there’s no seat available and also a lot of people are waiting for available tables. We waited for around 10 minutes and finally got our seat for two. We ordered right away and didn’t the service was really fast. I think our dishes came less in 10 minutes.

We ordered a small pot of “Sin Heng Special Bah Kut Teh” which cost 8 SGD. Singaporean and Malaysian are especially proud of this dish. Reason being, this dish was invented by migrant Chinese workers who came from China to Singapore in the early 1900′s. It is a herbal soup dish which contains pork ribs, innards, vegetables, dried tofu skin and mushroom. Back in the days, this dish is meant for only poor migrant workers who needs the extra energy as they work as laborers. No time to stir fry or make fancy dishes, just throw everything in a big pot of boiling water and you get Bah Kut Teh with all the nutrition in it.

I didn’t even know that Bah Kut Teh wasn’t available in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong till I have friends from those countries visited me. They told me is almost impossible to find good Bah Kut Teh in their countries.

Next on our order list is another claypot dish. Not a soup but a dish with pig innards cooked in thick black sauce most likely with dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, ginger and I bet a whole lot more stuff and some secret ingredients. In Sing Heng Bah Kut Teh, I love this dish the most as opposed to what they are famous for, the claypot Bah Kut Teh. The sauce is just simply AMAZING and if you are a rice lover, I bet you will have a field day eating few bowls of rice.

Most Bah Kut Teh restaurant will have chopped bird eye’s chili, big red chili and fine chopped garlic available at your disposal. However in Sin Heng, the fine chopped garlic is not available for free. You have to order and it cost around 0.50 SGD for just a tiny bit. Since I love to mixed the chili and garlic with soya sauce as the dipping sauce for my meat, I have no choice but to pay for the garlic. Next time I will bring my own chopped garlic. Not that I am a cheap skate but I am used to the fact that I get it for free in all the Bah Kut Teh joint!

We also ordered some fried dough call “Yow Char Kway” and a small plate of salty preserved vegetables. It is kind of a MUST condiments for me when eating Bah Kut Teh. Among Eric and I, we whallop 3 bowls of rice. The dinner cost us 25 SGD with 2 can drinks. I think the pricing is pretty standard when dinning in places like these but I would be happier if the garlic was given for free. I think I prefer them not telling me about the garlic and just secretly put it in the bill.

Sin Heng Bak Koot Teh
439 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: +65 6345 8754