Incredible Manila Chinatown Food Tour 🇵🇭 a must do in the Philippines! #travel

Get ready to tantalise your taste buds on an extraordinary journey through Manila's Chinatown. We'll explore the oldest Chinatown in the world, savouring its vibrant flavours and experiencing culinary wonders like never before. Where Jordana and Grant from Shot the Dark travel and from the bustling streets of Manila to the stunning beaches of Boracay to the epic landscapes of El Nido, we're bringing you a front row seat to the magic of this extraordinary country. Hit that subscribe button and let's uncover the beauty of the Philippines together. As you can see from all the dragons we are in Chinatown and this is the oldest Chinatown in the whole world. It's not your typical Chinatown, there's not like markets or anything like that but there's lots and lots of food stops to try. So we're gonna try all the Chino-Filipino food because there's quite a lot of fusion food here. So yeah we're gonna try a few bits. I'm on a mission to eat as much Chinese food as is possible in one afternoon slash evening. I'm gonna have to reign him in because he's already really excited. But first stop we're going to get which I think is a dessert and I think it's called hupe. I'm probably absolutely murdering that but yeah. I'd have said hopia based on how it's spelled but that's probably also not right. It doesn't sound very Chinese. I think right here. Oh we're going right here so we'll go and find it. A really lovely man saw us struggling so recommended his favourite flavours of hopia to us. So we went for the ube purple yam and the mung bean flavours. Because hopia is a dessert, we'll be having these at the end of our food tour. We just needed to collect them now before the shop closed. Should we eat this walking to the next place? Yeah we'll have to, won't we? Yeah. Just one? Just one yeah. So we're just having a sit down in Chinatown. We bought some lumpia. This is a Filipino Chinese speciality and it's basically a vegetable roll. They don't have an indoor area so we've kind of just picked up some stools that were just out on the street and sat ourselves down. So I hope whoever stools us on they don't mind. But yeah we just thought we wanted to have a quick bite before we go and have a look around at what else there is to eat around here. So this is the wrap. I'm gonna have a bite of it and then put some sauce in. Eggs, veggies. Smells peanutty. It's got like a few like really really small crushed nuts in it but it's actually really nice. I'm gonna try some of the sauce and not try and get it everywhere. Oh that's very thick. I'm surprised at how thick that sauce was. Yeah is it good? This is really strange because it's almost like sweet but savoury. Yeah when I googled it said it's almost like a crepe with vegetables in. It's really weird but it's really nice. Would you recommend it? Yeah you should definitely try it. It's really good. Grant's turn. It's different isn't it? Yeah it's it is a little bit like a spring roll. It's basically a vegetable spring roll except in a crepe with syrup. It sounds like it shouldn't go but it really does go. It's really good. So thumbs up from me and Grant so far. So next up is tasty dumplings. Now this is obviously by the name they're gonna sell dumplings so we're gonna have some dumplings but they also have like a famous um like breaded pork chop and rice so we're gonna try that next. So we've just got some soup here. We've got our pork dumplings and we've got our pork chop and rice. So what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna try one of the pork dumplings. I'm gonna have a I'm excited to see if the dumplings live up to the name. With a restaurant called tasty dumplings you've got to hope they're pretty good. This is some special sauce. I don't know how it comes out. Oh there we go. Like a pro. I mean it just looks like soy sauce. I might have misheard him. He said special sauce. Did he? So I think they've given us a spoon and a fork because I think they don't think we're gonna be able to use chopsticks. Oh yeah looking around the restaurant everyone else has chopsticks except us. They've taken one look at us and thought they don't know how to use chopsticks. Yeah they've obviously not seen my chop skills. Chopstick skills in action. Chopstick skills in action. So that's like the meat inside which looks really good. So first I'm gonna try it with the spicy sauce. That is good. I'm gonna try the special sauce. Get a good dip in there. Has it lived up to the name? They're really good. They are indeed tasty dumplings. Smashed a bit of oil on my top. Whoops. Going in whole. I thought you were gonna put it all in your mouth then. The spicy sauce is a meat shock. Nothing I can't handle. With that special sauce it is amazing. It is really good isn't it? Yeah it honestly does. We've had quite a lot of like dumplings and dim sum while we've been traveling around and that is very very good. Some might say exceptional. Can you try some of your pork chop and your rice? Pork chop and rice. I don't know what I'm supposed to eat it with. Is this again with special sauce or? Yeah I would say so. Yeah I love the special sauce. I'll just have it I love what you're grabbing. I think that's how the professionals do it. I've never had braided pork chop before and that is really nice. Very soft and tender. Good now I'm getting jealous though. I'm gonna dig in. I'm just gonna say before you take a bite of me is if you're coming to Chinatown genuinely I would really come and get these pork chops. My turn. I think we've got an early contender for possibly the favorite bit on the food tour. We've still got loads to go but that was absolutely fantastic. I think that's gonna be right up there. So we've just arrived at LGA fast food. I don't know if it's just because it's dark. We had to go down a few like weird alleyways. I thought we were 100% going the wrong way and then all of a sudden it was here. So the thing we are here for, there's multiple things to do here that's supposed to be nice but the garlicky frog's legs are supposed to be fantastic. Can we get fried garlic frog's legs? Is it good? Yeah just one. God I know. I think it's safe to say we've come a bit off the touristy beaten track here haven't we? We're just in like some weird alleyway but I love doing stuff like this because it's just a bit random isn't it? I think this is mainly the sort of place locals eat so that's usually a good sign that the food's gonna be good. And this is our first time ever eating frog's legs so it's gonna be interesting. Instead of getting it in France we thought we'd be traditional and we'll get some manila. I was gonna say manilini. Get some Filipino frog's legs. The frog's legs have arrived. They smell incredibly garlicky. They smell really good. They smell good. I don't know if this is me being stupid but I feel slightly nervous about eating them. I don't know why. I'm sure they won't be horrible but. It's like chicken legs. Yeah I like chicken wings. Do you want to go first? I want you to go first. They don't always have loads of meat on. I'll give it a go. No chilli sauce first. Get the authentic flavour. You've eaten a lot of it to say you're unsure. Are you unsure? Do you like it? I'd say the batter to meat ratio is not quite right. I'd say there's a lot of batter and not loads of meat. It genuinely tastes like a little bit of chicken with lots of garlic and lots of batter. Like it's nice. I'm not sure I'd be in a rush to get this again. I wouldn't not get it but I wouldn't get it if there's other options. It does look like chicken as well. Yeah this is like chicken with like you said more batter than meat but really nice and garlicky. Yeah I'd have frog's legs with them. Yeah like I'm glad we came. It was something different. I'd be interested to know if you could let us know in the comment section are they always, is there always such little meat on them? There are very little animals. So I'd have thought it would be like on a par with a chicken wing whereas I'd say there's like a quarter of the meat on this frog's leg than there is on a chicken wing. What frogs have you seen the size of chickens? I'm going from a frog's leg to a chicken wing though. But they're just frog's legs. All right anyway let us know in the comment section if they're always so small and delicate and not very meaty. So we've just walked up to Ying Ying Tea House which is also in Chinatown and this is really highly recommended restaurant and it must be good because there's quite a large queue of locals outside so there's maybe like 15 people sat in the queue in front of us. We're just waiting to get inside and the reason we're here is we are going to try the chicken feet. We've never tried it because to be honest it doesn't sound that appetizing to me but we're trying to try as much local food as we can while we're here so we thought let's give it a go see what it's like. So we've got into Ying Ying's tea house and Jordana's not been too impressed with what we've got. So we've got the shake which sounds good. It's a four seasons shake which had watermelon, mango and two other fruits in which looks good. Yeah she's mixed it all up so don't look as nice now. It was all in layers before. The bit Jordana's looking nervous about is the chicken feet which look way bigger than I expected. I didn't know how big chicken feet were like I was expecting like tiny little bits that just like have a little like and then I'm like oh yeah it's fine but this is actually quite intimidating. These have got to be turkey feet and they are like velociraptor feet they're not chicken feet. Right you can go first. So neither of us have had chicken feet before. I'm assuming you don't eat the bones and you just like nibble around the edges a bit so that's what we're gonna try and do. It's just like a chicken wing just imagine it being a chicken wing. You love chicken wings. I've never seen someone eat it without bark or pork and bark even better. I'd just nibble it babe. I know I don't know about that. I wouldn't be surprised if we get ejected from Chinatown at this rate with a double fork on the on the chicken foot. What does it taste like? Very fatty. I don't think you got any meat I think you nearly got fat. If you think she's struggling now wait till we get to the next place I've got something up my sleeve waiting for her. A bit of a surprise. I think that's for me though. I can't. No. Have you tried it? It wasn't for me. I'm not sure that counts as trying it I'll be honest. Well that's what you're getting. So first time eating chicken feet it can't go as bad as this is how you do it. Oh he's going for it. I thought I'll show her up here I'll look really brave. I feel like I've just eaten fat. Right I think we're done. I can't even watch you anymore. No let's keep going. I'm hoping to get a bit of meat soon. It's also kind of gross what you're eating. Sorry. Conclusion? I'd say the taste wasn't bad but I didn't really get any meat. It's almost just skin and gristle and fat. I'm not quite sure I see the appeal to be honest. The taste was fine. The texture was a bit weird. The worst bit was that as I was eating it I could feel the like the finger the toes. I could feel the chicken toes moving around. Right stop. So yeah I think that was the worst bit was the feeling all the toes moving in your hand as you're eating it. Oh my god. Yeah I'd say probably won't get it again. Glad I've tried it. Maybe this is a one-time thing. So we're in Cafe Mezzanine which is the final stop on our food tour and this is the oldest restaurant in Chinatown in Manila and it also which is really cool donates all of its money to the volunteer fire department of Manila and we are going to order a pork bowel bun and some adobo which we've already had which is a Filipino specialty that's really nice and the other surprise for Jordana that I think she's really excited about is that we've been having a monopoly deal competition that's gone on for the last couple weeks. We both absolutely love playing games. We always take it to the bar whenever we're going anywhere and I won the which means I get a forfeit so I can give Jordana anything to eat or drink and she has to accept it. Just in case you want to see how scared she looks here's a little close-up of the terror. The thing is he needs to be careful because he has to go home with me after this. Also if he if he loses the next championship league of monopoly deal he's going to get it worse than what he's given me so he needs to be careful. So I've just had some really bad news it's going to be hard to take this but I'm going to try and get over it. Jordana's laughing but honestly it's really serious. So there is no special number five soup like I'm absolutely gutted. It's literally the only reason we came here was because number five special soup is bull testicle soup and the forfeit was Jordana was going to have to eat multiple bull testicles and she's got off lightly because they don't have any in that's not on the menu today. I've absolutely gutted. I'm so annoyed. This is a face of smugness right now I ain't eating no bull testicles. Bulls testicles. What did I say? Bulls testicles. Same thing. Bulls testicles would have been ideal. I've gone around the back and asked them if they have any bulls in us or bull penis they don't have any they don't have any parts. So the testicles are off the menu but we're not going to let it ruin our night we're really going to try and still have fun. So Jordana do you want to tell everyone what we've got? Bolo bolo cha pao. Which is basically some sort of massive bao bun thing with some filling that we're not sure about so we'll find out in a minute. And then this one's called asado with adobo egg. Yep so that's basically I think it's like grilled pork with some sort of tasty sauce and then some eggs. And some more pork dim sum because we've not had enough. Exactly it's a xiaolongbao. So we didn't know what to get here and we just said what's your best selling thing on the menu and it said xiaolongbao so we were like right we'll have one. Turns out we got more than one. We served one and we'll have one. We didn't quite say it like that. I think we've got a good one here to end off the food tour. She's struggling. I can see why at the last place they thought she needed fork and a spoon instead of chopsticks because it's embarrassing. I'm really struggling here. It's really slippery. That's what they always say don't they? A bad chopstick man blames their slippery bow. The pastry's a bit different. It's really slippery. She's got it. What do you think? I'll wait till you finish chewing. Oh I was just going to ask you that. So far that's the best dumpling we've had. Really good then. I'll try a little bit of this. A little bit of pork. So we've gone for the pork I think we've got pork bao, pork bao and pork. I'm not usually a pork fan but this being in Southeast Asia I've probably eaten so much pork. The sauce is very sticky. You like a sticky sauce? Mmm. Good? That is delicious. What sort of sauce is it? Is it like a sweet one? Yeah it's like a sweet sauce but it's really nice. I'm not really sure how to get into this one. I think you just eat it with your hands like an animal. You're an animal. I honest it up and that's how you do it. It's really tough. It's really tough? Yeah. I wasn't expecting that. I thought it was gonna be nice and soft and fluffy. I thought my bao was soft and fluffy like a cloud. If anyone watching isn't sure what to do with a bao, you get your fork and you get a spoon and then you like wrestle it for a bit apparently. It's got like loads of meat inside it. I've never had a bao but like that. Loads of different layers isn't there? Yeah if you look closely there's like lots of different bits in there. Oh yeah there is a lot going on in that bao. I'm gonna eat this with my hands because it's falling apart. It's funny I think someone suggested eating with hands earlier didn't they and they were shot out. I've never tried anything really nice. If you had to recommend one of these three for anyone watching to try to come here what would you recommend? What's the best one? Maybe that. Maybe the bola bola shao pao. Just because it's different and it tastes really good. Is that the best thing of the day or is that pushing it? I don't know but we haven't had dessert. We haven't had dessert yet. You're right let's start shooting the gun. So I'm going to start off on the shao long bao that was impossible to pick up with the chopsticks. It's quite easy actually. No one likes a shower. I can't decide if it's better than the one from before or if it's a draw. I think it's better. Don't eat the top bit it's got bones in it Grant. We're laughing both of us because he did just eat some earlier and ate it with the bones. Good? It's getting really nice I like that. Can I just get you that one now? So you're alright with that? Yeah. Grant is such a dainty eater. It's not bad but there's just a few flavours going on that I'm not sure about. I can't quite put my finger on what it is but not for me. You can have the rest of that. Oh thank you. I'm gonna tuck into that now. We ate our hopia when we got back to the hotel. The ube purple yam flavour was really nice. We definitely recommend it but the less said about the mung bean flavour the better. I think it's safe to say we won't be getting that one again. We had a great time in Chinatown and we definitely think you guys should check it out when you're in Manila. It's so near to the old town in the Intramuros and there was so much amazing food. Our favourite was probably the pork chop rice plate and dumplings at Tasty Dumplings so make sure to get yourselves down there and try that out. You will not be disappointed. If you've liked watching this video please hit like and subscribe and keep an eye out for our next video where we'll be continuing our Philippines journey and heading to the island of Siargao.