maaraw

There's also Terry's Selection, which sells mostly Spanish products (ham, cheese, sausages, olive oils, turron, lots of other stuff). The branch I know of is in the basement of the Podium shopping center in the Ortigas area; I've heard there's another branch somewhere in Makati. And there's also the deli of the Mandarin hotel, which has a branch at Gateway Mall in Cubao.

Oh, I forgot, not quite Chinese but a lot of Chinese shops do sell them. Preserved tamarind. I particularly like the Thai kind, nice and tart, and rolled in sugar, salt, and chili powder. Yum!

My vote goes to haw flakes and the chewy walnut and date candies. When I was a kid, my brothers and I would pretend to be priests and give each other communion with haw flakes (same shape, same width, different color, better taste). Of course we also got scolded once for smuggling salami into a church and eating during mass. At the communion rail, no less (when churches still had them).

Heck, I live in Madrid, and the Chinese restaurants here are the worst of any city I've ever lived in. In the eight months I've been here the selection of frozen dimsum has expanded exponentially. Yes I miss the fresh stuff I used to get in Hong Kong. But you grab what you can. Do I buy frozen dimsum? Hell, yes, and it's damn better than nothing. Just last week I served some microwaved frozen "ha gau" to a Brazilian couple and they were begging me for the address of the store where I bought it.

Interesting topic, this. I now live in Madrid but I'm originally from the Philippines where we also have turron and polvorones. Our turron is (relatively) similar to the hard turron you get here. Except that instead of almonds, we make them with cashews, and they're shaped like tubes, about the width of two cigarettes, wrapped in rice paper wrapper very similar to the stuff that's around the hard turron here. Polvoron- different matter entirely. Polvoron is one of the many things I was surprised (but shouldn't have been) to find in Spain. But back home, turron is toasted flour, powdered milk, sugar, and butter, mixed together till it adheres ever so slightly. It still crumbles into powder when you put in your mouth. I think it's delicious, and a few years ago, some crafty chef got the idea of mixing it with crisp puffed rice and stuffing it into barquillos (which are exactly what they are here). Good stuff. When I saw Spanish polvoron about a month ago, I just had to try it. And I gagged. Sorry, not for me! This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Venezuelan friend also living in Madrid just a few days ago. I had brought her a Philippine-style "ensaimada" and told her it was nothing like what you got here in Spain. She called me the next day and said they had exactly the same thing in Venezuela, except they called it something else, which I don't remember right now. Eating in Spain, for someone from a distant ex-colony- is fascinating. I keep discovering things I've always thought of as native to us, but which I then learn originated in Spain. Sometimes (as in the case of barquillos, turron, yemas, and churros) they're exactly the same thing, or pretty close to what we have back home. Other times (as with polvoron, mantecado, ensaimada, and longaniza) they're entirely different.

Kababayan, mabuting biyahe sa iyo! I've lived abroad for a long time but in the last eight years have been lucky enough to get to Manila almost once a month. Here are a few restaurant recs for you. For Pinoy food: 1. Gerry's Grill- several branches around town, including at least two in Makati- on Jupiter Street and in Greenbelt 3 in Makati. 2. Kamayan- ubiquitous, a bit cliched perhaps, but the food is good, specially the lechon de leche. Their lunch buffet has all the standards, and very well done at that. Again, several branches around town but the ones I know of are on Edsa between Ortigas and Santolan in Greenhills, and on Pasay Rd in Makati. 3. Ang Bistro sa Remedios- in Remedios circle, Malate. A pretty place, with very good Kapampangan-style food, higher-end than most. 4. Via Mare- the coffee shop, not the formal restaurant (which isn't bad but I don't like my Pinoy food served European style!). In my humble opinion they make the absolute best bibingka and puto bumbong that exists in the country, and a very good pancit palabok as well. Again, several branches in town, but there's one in Greenbelt 3, and I'm sure there's one somewhere in Greenhills but I don't know exactly where. 5. Bangus- I forget the name of the strip of restaurants that's behind the Greenhills commercial complex (runs perpendicular to Annapolis St after the parking lot in front of what used to be the Greenhills theater), but that's where the branch I used to go to was. Almost everything in the menu has bangus in it. The last time I went to the Ongpin Chinese restaurants was about eight years ago, mainly because I used to live in Hong Kong so I never really looked for Chinese food in Manila. But my parents and friends still go to Ongpin and they say it's as good as ever. One place you may want to explore is the fish market on Roxas Blvd near Baclaran. The market itself isn't that big, and is a normal fish market, but on one side are two restaurants where you can bring the seafood you buy and they'll cook it for you however you like, or if you ask them they'll recommend what they do best. The restaurant I used to go to was called "Aling Lety's" and I've never had a bad dish there. I assume you know your Pinoy food so I won't put in specific recommendations for each restaurant but if you want them, just reply and tell me so and I'm glad to help. If you want to try something unusual, the restaurant "Uva" in Greenbelt 3 serves fairly creative Philippine-inspired Western food- the dreaded fusion food. While not everything on the menu works, most of it isn't bad, and some of it is quite good- and certainly interesting and different. The ice cream there, though, is superb- specially what they have on the menu as "dirty ice cream" flavored with the cheap Choc-nut peanut chocolate candies I used to gorge on as a kid. I tended to avoid hotel restaurants, but that was a personal choice. Just thought that it was more fun getting out of the hotels. For non-Pinoy food, here are some of my favorites: 1. Pepato- Italian food at Greenbelt 3 (again), very pricey but one of the best restaurants I've been to in the world. 2. Sushi Tsumura- a small place on the 3rd floor of some non-descript office building on Pasay Rd, there's a small sign and it's about a block from a big bowling alley. (There's a good Korean restaurant in the same building) 3. Casa Armas, on Julio Nakpil St in Malate, for Spanish food. 4. Banana Leaf Curry House, one branch near Greenbelt, another branch in Eastwood (I think). Singapore/Malaysia style food, not bad. Enjoy.

Sorry, forgot to answer a couple of other questions: Man Jiang Hong and Da Ping Huo are both Sichuan places. At Da ping huo, you get a set meal- you don't get to choose. At Man Jiang Hong, regular menu. At both places you really should reserve. At Man Jiang Hong, even with a reservation, I had to wait quite a while for a table so I used to do a typical HK thing- get there early, give them my cellphone number so they can call me when the table's ready, then walk over to either Times Square or Sogo in Causeway Bay and window-shop while waiting. Seafood- virtually every mid- to upscale Cantonese and Shanghainese restaurant will serve very good quality seafood. No need to go to Sai Kung or Lamma or Cheung Chau to get it. But if you wanted to go on a little excursion, I'd recommend Cheung Chau. Unfortunately a lot of restaurants in Sai Kung take advantage of non-Cantonese speakers and charge very high prices and add lots of extra costs. Same in Lei Yue Mun; less so in Lamma if you go to the restaurants a little bit away from the ferry pier. Cheung Chau is a very nice place in itself and the prices were always much more reasonable than in Sai Kung or Lamma. As for your "splurge" meal, where to go depends on what you enjoy. If I had a splurge meal in HK I'd easily choose to go to Hu Tong. What makes FLM famous, special, and expensive, is how they serve the traditional Chinese "prestige" expensive foods- things like abalone, shark's fin, bird's nest, etc. This are the Chinese equivalents of caviar, foie gras, truffles in Western cuisines. Personally I've never seen what the big deal is with abalone, shark's fin and bird's nest- I'll eat them if they're there, but I'd never pay for them myself- to me they're not worth the money. But that's my opinion- and some of my friends, whose food tastest I respect, do go crazy over these things. So I'd say, if you like these foods, or if you want to try them in a place which specializes in them, by all means go to FLM. If you've had them before and you're not particularly crazy about them, then splurge somewhere else. All the 5-star hotels in HK have superb Chinese restaurants- One Harbour Rd in the Grand Hyatt is a particular stand-out, but Man Wah at the Mandarin, and Summer Palace at the Shangri-La are also very, very good. Outside of the hotels, one superb high-end Chinese restaurant is Victoria City Seafood restaurant, with branches in CITIC tower and Sun Hung Kai Centre. Dim sum here, by the way, is very nice.

Answers to a couple of questions: Dimsum: at Metropole, and at most any standard Cantonese restaurant (and many non-Cantonese ones), you can get it any day at lunchtime. The only place I knew of in HK which served dimsum all day, including dinner was the Dimsum Restaurant (sorry, only know it by its English name and I dont' remember the address) in Happy Valley. Most any tourist guide to HK will list this, and I can't imagine a hotel concierge not knowing where it is. It's one of the very few places in HK which has a full English-language dimsum menu, and because of that, it's very popular among foreigners. Despite this, the food is absolutely authentic and delicious, and by no means is it exclusively patronized by foreigners. non-traditional northern Chinese food at Soi Wu Kui: hard to describe. But I fell into the wonderful rut in this place of ordering mostly the same things everytime. My favorite dish there was the crispy lamb. I don't quite know for sure how they prepared this but it obviously started with braising a nice piece of young lamb, skin-on, in some very aromatic spice mixture, until the meat was meltingly tender, then they must have deep fried the stuff because when they served it, it had a thin layer of crisp skin and the meat melts in your mouth. They gave you a dipping sauce of soy sauce and raw garlic, too. The lamb shanks, also deep-fried after braising- were also good. I also loved the prawns in crab roe, and the beans with salted fish (very strong flavors, maybe a bit of an acquired taste). They also serve la zi kai here, but I prefer Man Jiang Hong's version. In Hu Tong in Kowloon, they have a dish of soft-shell crab prepared like la zi kai, and I thought the heat and spices would overwhelm the delicate crab flavor, but I was (fortunately!) mistaken and it was very good. Their version of mapo tofu was also novel- a big block of very soft tofu, served whole without frying, with the spicy sauce poured all over it. M at the Fringe: you can't go wrong, I enjoyed all my meals there, quite creative, fresh, reminded me a lot of the best meals I had in Sydney (and vice-versa). Much as I enjoyed everything I had there, what I can't forget is the pavlova dessert. One last thing- my own personal opinion, you can skip Luk Yu- atmosphere is nice, but the food, if you're not a regular, isn't particularly exceptional, and I was very put off by the attitude of the waiters. If you know anyone who's a member, try to have a meal at the China Club- food is good, although again not exceptional, but the decor and atmosphere are great.

Agree with the earlier poster who said your list of HK restaurants included well-known "standards," a bit on the pricey side. Also, I second the recommendations on Man Jiang Hong (the chili chicken, in Cantonese it's called la ji kai, is out of this world, as are the dumplings in chili oil, hong yau cha sau). Same goes for Metropole for dimsum. I've been to a few of the other restaurants mentioned here and NONE of them are bad- you'll get a great meal in any of them. Da Ping Huo is good and quaint (for the paintings decorating the restaurant and the famous opera number which concludes your meal). I haven't been to Aqua since they moved to Kowloon but it was very good before. Here are a couple of other suggestions: (I'll give English / Mandarin / Cantonese names in that order if I know them all): 1. "Mum Chau" / Zhou Ma Ma in Mandarin / Chau Ma Ma in Cantonese, on (I think) D'Aguilar St, in the building whose extrance is right next to Al's Diner, in Lan Kwai Fong- even better than Da Ping Huo, in my opinion, and cheaper. Go for dinner- you get a set menu, don't need to order a thing (can't even if you wanted to) of way too much food than you can handle. I've been there numerous times and never had a bad dish. The best Sichuan food I've had outside of Sichuan itself. 2. (no English name) / Shui Hu Ju / Soi wu kui on Peel St in the Soho district. Non-traditional northern Chinese-inspired food in a beautifully decorated cozy setting. Expensive, but well worth a splurge. The same owners have a place called Hu Tong (in all three languages, it's more or less the same) in 1 Peking Rd in Kowloon, same building where Aqua is. Menu is about 60% the same, prices I think are slightly higher, view is spectacular, as is the food and the decor. 3. "Winner" / Wan Loi Kui / Yun Lai Ju somewhere in Quarry Bay, don't remember the exact street but well worth seeking out. They advertise themself as a Shanxi restaurant. I've never been to Shanxi so I don't know how authentic they are but I couldn't care less- this is a true hidden gem, known to very few non-Chinese. The Hunan braised pork is so good that my ex-colleague from New Jersey would take a 20-minute cab ride to buy some at lunch time. Great with beer and "choi fan," rice cooked in chicken stock with chopped greens. Also known for their "dou siu meen" or hand-cut rough broad noodles, with a variety of sauces. Cheap, too. 4. (no English name) / Cheung chung kui on (I think) Percival St, across from the entrance of Lee Theatre Plaza, big blue Chinese sign with a yellow neon duck. Hakka restaurant, been there for ages, try their salt-baked chicken (yim kok kai) and pork shoulder in preserved vegetables (mui choi hau yuk). 5. Super Star / Hong Sing on the downhill section of Wyndham St just next to Lan kwai Fong in Central. Good, moderately priced Cantonese restaurant with all the standards- dimsum, roast meats, steamed fish, hairy crab at this time of the year. 6. (no English name) / Tam to. The best "chachanteng" I know of- a chachanteng is a cheap restaurant which serves a wide range of cooked foods, not just roast meats or noodle soups or congee. Easiest branch to locate is on Stanley St in Central. My favorite dishes here are the salted fish fried rice (ham yu kai lap chao fan) and Amoy fried noodles (ha mun chao mai fun), but another friend loves the pork chops in black pepper sauce. 7. Zahra, on Jaffe St in Causeway Bay- my favorite non-Chinese restaurant in HK, serves good Lebanese food, particularly the "josh mahrouz" or something like that, spicy pistachio and garlic dip with hot pita breads. I know it's funny suggesting Lebanese food in HK but I've never found this particular dish elsewhere. 8. My favorite Italian restaurant in HK was Panevino on Mosque Junction about a block away from the escalator. Sorry I don't have more detailed addresses but you can try to find them on www.foodeasy.com or ask your hotel concierge to track them down for you. Last: I love Shanghainese food and the stuff you can get in HK is pretty good- actually better than what I've had in Shanghai but then I was a tourist in Shanghai while I lived in HK for a long time so knew my way around. Food in Shanghai can also be very very good and it comes at a fraction of what it costs in Hong Kong. You may want to take advantage of the regional Chinese cuisines you can get in Shanghai which you are harder to come across in HK, such as Xinjiang, Hunan, Sichuan, and Yunnan foods. Enjoy! I live in Madrid now and miss eating in Hong Kong so much.