Binondo redux

When our office was still in Port Area, we made regular visits to Binondo – for a lunch of maki-mi and xiao long bao at Mezzanine café followed by shopping at Carvajal and Ongpin streets, with a side trip for me to the tea shop (which also sold bearings) on Nueva street.

But since we moved to our spanking new office in Sucat, Parañaque in November 2023, these outings stopped, Binondo being quite literally at the other end of the world. I’ve had to do my shopping in the Chinese groceries in my neighborhood (there are several), which generally have a pretty good inventory, but it’s somehow a different experience shopping for red dates and goji berries and tao si (fermented black beans) and whatnot in my favorite store on Ongpin street, searching for what I need among shelves crammed with bottles and cans and plastic packs (often dusty) then having a quick chat with the owner – always ready with a smile who sits in an elevated section by the window – while waiting to pay for my purchases.

The other week though, my Gang of 10 decided to have lunch in Binondo, a suggestion that delighted me. We carpooled, as parking is next to impossible there, and dived into the noise and chaos of Quintin Paredes street, ready for the sumptuous lunch of soup and noodles and tofu and sweet/sour pork (pasado! said the one who insists that this dish is the barometer of how good a Chinese restaurant is), fried rice (you know that sort-of-racist joke about it being “Fly-day” so you eat “fly-lice?”) and the freshest shrimps, never mind that they ran out of vegetables (how could that be, with the market just half a block away) and forgot our appetizer of roasted meats. Despite that, we were properly and happily fortified, ready for the adventure that is shopping in Carvajal.

It’s really an alley, not a street (no vehicles here, although occasionally a wayward motorcycle intrudes), and over time Carvajal has become a bustling palengke, with vendors displaying their wares on both sides of the alley, selling fruits and vegetables and dried fish and what have you. Prices are competitive, you can haggle, and the quality of the produce is top-notch. It does get crowded, and it’s totally your responsibility to avoid getting run over by delivery men and their trolleys.

I was happy to see my old vegetable suki, looking not a day older than the last time I saw her many years ago, and for old times’ sake I got two packs of polonchay (Chinese or Malabar spinach, to make up for the lunch order that wasn’t) and a kilo of shallots.

My duck and pigeon suki (who came over from Fujian some years ago and has lived here ever since) now has her own store space, when she used to just have a table and a chiller set up in front of a grocery. She hasn’t changed either, still as sassy as before; to my query on the availability of pigeons, she replied, in Hokkien, “If they deliver, then I have; if they don’t, then I don’t.” Can’t argue with that.

I was sad to see Ho-Land Hopia at the corner of Carvajal and Nueva shuttered, after a fire broke out on the upper floor (thankfully empty) of that corner building a few months ago. They have moved to a space further down along Nueva, but I am told they might move again as that space is quite small since, aside from all kinds of hopia, they have expanded to become an Asian deli, selling everything from machang to Japanese 3-in-1 coffee.

Alas, some of us working girls had to get back to office, so the delights of Ongpin and Salazar streets will have to wait for another day, another outing.

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Acknowledged as the world’s oldest Chinatown – established in 1594 – Binondo is as full of history as it is full of culinary delights.

Carvajal used to be Umbrella Alley – Ho-swa Hang – since that was supposedly its main product way back when. It is named after Supreme Court Justice Ciriaco Carvajal, who helped Governor-General Jose Basco set up the tobacco monopoly in 1784.

Rosario, which older Tsinoys call Jiu-ah Hwa and is now Quintin Paredes (Senate president in the 1950s), is named after Nuestra Señora del Rosario and runs from Jones Bridge up to the Binondo Church, or the National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz, our first full-fledged saint, a Chinese-Filipino executed in Japan in the 17th century.

Formerly Calle Duque, the street became Nueva (new) as it was newly built in 1863 to ease traffic on Rosario (they run parallel to each other) caused by repairs on Puente de España – now Jones Bridge, named after William Atkinson Jones, who authored the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916 – after it was damaged by an earthquake. Nueva, now Enrique Yuchengco (Phl permanent representative to the UN and founder of the conglomerate that bears his name), was (or still is) Aw-kweh-ah or back street, back of Rosario, I guess.

Ongpin street, the acknowledged heart of Manila’s Chinatown, is named after Roman Ongpin, a businessman and philanthropist who aided Filipino revolutionaries against the Spanish and American colonial governments. His place in history hopefully insulates his name from being changed on this very important thoroughfare.

At the Bahay Tsinoy in Intramuros, there is a table-top diorama of old Binondo, which gives a very comprehensive overview of this fabled district. Then there are the guided walking tours of Binondo, combining history and food, which locals and not just tourists should go on. For sure, Binondo (from the word binundok or mountainous, for its original hilly terrain) is a district worth visiting and exploring, especially when you’re hungry.