Address: Manila, Makati City, Fort Bonifacio, Market Market

I highly recommend Market Market for tourists. It is a well-designed, spacious, sleek and clean mall, buzzing with people. There are heaps of shops, cafes and restaurants. There are also pushcarts and stall lined along the squares selling native produce and goods, as well as a market selling fresh produce, fried chicken, flowers, etc.

On the evening that we were at Market Market, the wise superior/colleague and I opted for seafood at Seafood Island.

There was a good crowd in the restaurant and a live band played in the al fresco area.

After scanning the menu, the wise superior/colleague ordered the pacific baby lobster done Hawaiian style (aka grilled and served with a skewer of tomato and pineapple chunks), the kangkong adobo and the chicken and garlic hot-plate.

The pacific baby lobster was quite nice. I thought it was quite fresh (since the meat was firm and there was no strong, fishy taste to it). However, the wise superior/colleague’s taste-buds were more sophisticated and he detected the lack of freshness in it.

The kangkong adobo was passable, but stood no chance when compared against the sambal kangkong we have in Singapore. I am told that the sauce for adobo dishes consists of garlic, soy sauce and vinegar. To my unsophisticated taste-buds, however, it basically tasted like kangkong stir-fried in slightly sour soy sauce (i.e. salty and…slightly sour). This was mildly disappointing because the waiter had warned me that it was a spicy dish. Sigh. I miss my chilli sauce, chilli padi, sambal belachan.

The chicken and garlic hot-plate was also passable but not sufficiently savoury (unlike the hot-plate dishes back home). Again, it was salty, but there was no complexity to the taste, as might be expected if spices or condiments other than salt had been added to it.

To sum up most of my culinary experience in Manila, the meal was cheap (i.e. slightly less than 1,000 pesos, or about SGD 33), above average but generally unexciting. Bonus points for the lovely fireworks that lit up the night sky after the meal though. I wonder what the occasion was.