Daydreams on the Moon

Image by cuiyulong43829 from Pixabay

On another adventure on my one month vacation in the Philippines wherein this is not far from home, in fact, this is my hometown! I've been gone for the past two and a half years and I've been seeing all these new foodtrends that keep popping up on my algorithm months before my flight home, so of course me being a local foodie just had to put that as part of my itinerary right?

Ah Binondo, one of the oldest Chinatown established since the late 1500s and growing up as a Filipino-Chinese I kinda took our local dishes for granted. I knew they were good, what with all those Chinese restaurants that only your aunts, uncles and grandparents frequent during birthdays or whatever special occasion, but at some point when you grow up with all these delicious food around you, they all kinda just mix together... yah know? Well that's when I had to leave for Spain.

GIF from tenor

I left for a beautiful city don't get me wrong, but the local food here just ain't hitting my tastebuds that already grew up on MSG (unhealthy, I know), and I lost at least 10kg just from adjusting with the overall cuisine and food - never quite getting the right taste from home no matter how I try to cook nor eat out in similar Asian restaurants - and all that while my hometown has basically established itself as a place you go for foodtrips. So you bet your bottom Euro I crawled all those childhood food-stops while also discovering the new ones that popped up during my absence:

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=ilovewintergem/back-at-my-hometown-foodtri-368

Now this post is mostly for the new spots I tried and also to pay tribute to my hometown which I greatly missed and so off I went on a rather cloudy afternoon, first on the list was Nonopark. It's a quaint lil mochi dessert place where you pick a combination of flavors (or a preset one from the menu), this one's a success story in my opinion as I initially just saw then trending selling their goods on a particular street side of Chinatown and before I visited they now had this newly opened shop! The place has some improvements to work on (like the not-so-working AC), the mochi wasn't a cold dessert as I was expecting. It still tasted good though, just preferred it to be slightly colder but what I liked about the strawberry crystal flavor of theirs were the lil clear tapioca pearls mixed in between the strawberry cream. Definitely satisfying overall.

Next stop was Kokee Bakery, there's no dine-in option in this place but just a quaint waiting area which was still nice. Like Nonopark, this one also popped up like most trends, they already started with a shop though and will soon to have one which I spotted in a big mall called SM North Edsa when I passed. Still, I was used to the classic egg tarts at Lord Stow's (a childhood fave which I also bought from again ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧), so I had to order their talked about savory Jade Buns and also included a box of Butter Rice Cakes on the side.

Tasting them at home, mom liked the Jade Buns as they reminded her of those pork floss buns - savory indeed, but not up my alley. Though I quite liked their Butter Rice Cakes though, they weren't sweet but not exactly tasteless, fluffy is the word that keeps popping up everytime I chew on these bitesized treats. They're small, so it takes only 2 bites each, I won't recommend eating it whole as it has a chewy consistency in its dough while feeling lightly crispy on the outside. Like I said, a delight and something I'd prefer going back to rather than their Jade Buns.

GIF from tenor

Last but not the least, I've always been curious what sugarcane juice tastes like - sweet, I know, obviously - but would it be an artificial kind of sweet? I can be very particular about my sweets. （´∇｀''） Turns out though, it has a 'woody' kind of sweetness that makes it all the more refreshing! They grind the sugarcanes in this juicer fresh so it's made in front of you, most of the people were just buying them in standard cups when I saw they had this specialty one that was only less than a euro difference:

Comes with a cute companion I affectionately named Wei Wei, and I ended up reusing the bamboo bottle too!

GIF from tenor

Overall, good to have come back (even for a short while) just to check what's new and also get back to some comfort foods I've been missing. I just might make a habit of this. (っ˘ڡ˘ς)