Fine Thai dining in Manila
So, Manila is not exactly the culinary capital of the world. Filippino specialities included boiled fertilized duck eggs, pig intestines, lots and lots of fried things, and all sorts of meat and rice with no vegetables at all. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about this since food is such a big part of my life. However, since I am living in a nice hotel that caters to all types of travellers, eating food within the hotel has not proven to be a problem whatsoever, but I was worried about eating out. Turns out the variety of restaurants is actually quite impressive!
It was one of our team members’ birthdays last week, so to celebrate, we went to one of the nicest areas in Manila (which is really so upscale that when I went back and looked it at later I was shocked, as this mall wouldn’t appear out of place in Sydney or Hong Kong) for dinner. People’s Palace is an upscale Thai restaurant that’s known to be one of the better places to eat in the city. It has some really innovative dishes that were absolutely delicious, and of course the best part of having a big team is that we get to order many dishes and share them all.
This is a prawn and pomelo (like a grapefruit) salad with coconut – I have never had that combination of foods before (love seafood and fruit when it’s done well) before and it was utterly fantastic. So tropical and the textures were amazing in addition to the perfectly balanced flavours.
I was thrilled to get some stir fried veggies (in the background) and a vegetarian curry – pumpkin with bean curd. That’s almost Australian style Thai food right there!
This one was amazing – a spicy glass noodle salad with delightfully long unwieldy noodles and some great fresh seafood in addition to the veggies
You can rarely go wrong with classic pad thai, especially when it’s an accompaniment to all these other great dishes
The desserts were amazing too. A pavlova with super fresh mango and passion fruit seeds (again, like Australia, but about one quarter the price)
Be still, my heart. Mango sticky rice on the left and banana fritters with coconut ice cream on the right. Oh Southeast Asia and your tropical fruits, you are so good to me…
Definitely a great (although non-authentic) start to my time in Manila!
merrifood 