Peace and Happiness Dumpling House

My travels have brought me back to Manila once again and upon my non-stop nagging my friends agreed to meet up with me. The weather was uncharacteristically wet that time of the years, which is just as well since I don’t want it to be hot. My friends told me they would bring me to a store which they think I would like, it made me curious. Little did I know that they would be bringing me to a Chinese restaurant. I tried to hide my disappointment when I saw where it was.

Peace and Happiness Dumpling House is something like of an odd ball especially when they set up shop in the ground floor of one of the Cityland towers along Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City. It is closer to the PNR train tracks. One might find it strange to name a store Peace and Happiness but it is actually not very strange in Chinese culture. Upon closer inspection, there Chinese characters crudely displayed on their sign board, obviously local sign artist have no experience writing Chinese characters. The Chinese characters say 老北京 or Old Beijing, which is actually a very common name for a Chinese restaurant. However, the owner of the store, from China, wasn’t able to register the name “Old Beijing”, so Peace and Happiness it is.

I am quite familiar with Chinese cuisine enough to be able to tell regional specialties. Beijing food is typically norther fare with noodles and of course dumplings. Of course they do have their own share of famous dishes most notably Peking Duck. From the name of the store, I can only surmise that they serve typicial Beijing fare. My friend recommended the braised beef, which was smothered in some chili oil. It was really very tasty and I loved the texture of the meat. We also ordered some hotpot which was supposedly dipped in hot and numbing broth, bringing back memories of Sichuan. This is probably the first time I’ve had Sichuan pepper in the Philippines and I’m glad it is finally taking root. Sichuan cuisine is wildly popular in China and some of its aspects, notable hot and numbing flavor, has made it into other cuisines.

The restaurant at the time of visit, has much to improve on. The airconditioning wasn’t working so hotpot wasn’t really a good idea. The owner however was very apologetic and she said they needed to fix it. She actually speaks English, not that fluently though, so she needs to rely on her helpers. I suggested, in Chinese, that she try to expand to barbeque or 烧烤 as I’m sure it will be a hit with the Filipino locals, not just the Chinese expatriates. The problem is the building management won’t allow it. Not a surprise, since the strong smell of cumin might be offensive to the people unaccustomed to it. Amusingly, a helper commented how stinky cumin was. I guess it really is a very different market in the Philippines. I hope they do well as I won’t mind going back there.

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