Celebrating Mooncake Festival the Traditional Way with Eng Bee Tin

Mooncake season is here! With beautifully designed Chinese baked treats in countless shelves in the market, the only other thing that excites me is the annual dice game. Known in Manila as Mooncake Festival and more aptly called Mid-Autumn Festival in China, this tradition can be traced all the way back during the Qing Dynasty in 1600. It has been said that this celebration is to give good luck to scholars for their exams hence the game being known as zhuang yuan bo bing. It eventually evolved throughout the years and we now veer away from mooncakes as prizes and give out snacks or money instead. But Eng Bee Tin had the wonderful idea to bring back tradition. 

Hello, Eng Bee Tin and The Great Buddha Cafe. 

Eng Bee Tin has been around for over a decade now having started in 1912. Its name has been closely related to hopia and tikoy that others actually use the brand name when referring to these Chinese favorites.

Rub at First Sight: Rub Ribs & BBQ

Ribs. Who doesn’t love them? Even those on a diet cannot resist the big slab of oh so good meat with overflowing barbeque sauce. I could testify. I momentarily forgot my diet--at least for a good 2 hours.

 

Finally, Rub Ribs! I’ve been hearing a lot of good reviews about this place. I know three colleagues who could not stop raving about it and I just have to try it. Actually, the reason why we had a “rib lunch out” today was because of my colleague’s addiction to the place.

The place was quite small and parking was a bit difficult that we had to park on the other side of the street. The place also has another side business—SMILE intervention center.

We were all very hungry so we ordered within 2 minutes. I ordered the Singles—half slab with one side dish (I ordered Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes) and plain rice (PHP190), an additional side dish of Buttered Vegetables (PHP65) Soup of the Day—Cream of Potato Soup (PHP100), and Fried Oreos with Vanilla Ice Cream (PHP140).

Backtrack: Racks

This has been buried in my laptop for quite a while now but I had to share this because I still remember how much I loved my hot meal and lovely dessert. 

Tired from another Rizal Rediscovery Tour (which turned out to be more like of a Binondo Food Trip), I headed to SM Megamall for dinner.

I do not want to walk far (since I walked the whole day… well, while chewing something at some point) so we (my mom and I) sought sanctuary at Racks. We thought that it was a good idea since it has been years since we last visited it. 

We normally start our meal with soup so we ordered Clam Chowder and Minestrone (PHP85/cup). Since we were not super hungry, we decided to just order one main dish to share—Pork Ribs (PHP275). For dessert we ordered Mississippi Mud Pie (PHP130).

When the soup arrived, both orders were not warm at all. My mom had to ask the server to warm it up. We had to wait for an additional 5 minutes for it.

Finally, warm soup!

The clam chowder was a bit bland and there was not much going on. True, the soup was thick and creamy but there was not much clams inside. In fact, the soup was pretty much forgettable.

The Minestrone on the other hand has a lot of vegetables, bacon, beans and ham. It was a bit salty and oily for me. I guess I am just not fond of soup with just too much stuff in it.

For the main meal, the Pork Ribs were (or should it be just "was" since there was only one big chunk of pork?) tender and seasoned well. It was also well-cooked (not burnt). It was a bit sweet and salty. However, the fat was a bit scary. We only took a bit of it and enjoyed the less scary meat instead.

The meal was pretty heavy because it was served with rice and potato salad. I had to skip the potato salad to make space for dessert.

Oh my chocolate galore! I was so surprised that the serving was quite big. For PHP130, it was a steal. It was definitely good for sharing.

The chocolate fudge brownie was soft and chewy and it was stuffed with melted chocolate inside while covered in chocolate syrup and topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

It was quite good. I managed to finish half of the mud pie. My mom though was not in the mood for sweets so I ate a few more and I got… sore throat.

Yes, the mud pie was good; but do eat it with caution. Make sure that you drink lots of water.

Racks is located at the 3rd Floor, Building A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City