Chinatown with its trademark tikoy, siopao, mami, lumpia – what a long way it has come!
How it has leveled up from no-frills, no-fuss in noisy, messy Ongpin to the glamorous heights of five-star cuisine fit for an emperor and his favorite concubine.
Just as an example, this is what Conrad Hotel’s China Blue by Jereme Leung has done to “tikoy,” the sticky, gummy sweet that friends are obliged to give one another to represent bonding and fidelity during the Chinese New Year: Tikoy now comes in different flavors, starting with the traditional brown sugar; a modernized orange and red date with ginger; as it comes in the customary circular form, or shaped like koi fish, or mini gold bars. All to signify good fortune and accomplishment, i.e., good beginnings result in good endings.
There’s more to tikoy and the anticipation of the sweet tooth of success, as a glance at China Blue’s menu will show: Golden roast duck (Stateside); braised abalone; sea cucumber and dried oyster (allegedly endowed with aphrodisiacal qualities); simmered pork belly; and to top off the Prosperity theme, money bag and fried fish maw with garlic. What little I know about prosperity dishes, no New Year’s Eve meal should be without a roasted dish (for abundance), fish (to signify surplus), and garlic (to stand for “counting money”).
At Shangri-la Hotel in Mandaluyong, where restaurant manager Nancy Farm presides over the hotel’s Summer Palace, the New Year sweets are just too pretty to be chewed and swallowed. Even the boxes they come in are a sight for lockdown-weary eyes. The good news, confirmed by Nancy, is that the hotel is in no danger of closure, the reason being that the land is owned by the owners, not leased.
Geographically and culturally speaking, Chinatown’s expansion to Greenhills has also meant that Binondo’s branding as the place to go for affordable, great-tasting food for non-millionaires, small traders, students and struggling artists has moved up and outwards to the most people-friendly malls all over the city. Look at SM’s incredible lineup of restaurants with a taste for Chinese (in a generic sense), Taiwanese, Singaporean, not to mention those noodlesome places – Masuki, Chow King, Tim Ho Wan, etc. Unbelievable (burp!)!
