How my food crawl strategy failed

This article was initially featured on Inquirer Plus on April 24 2025.

“I hope you guys are hungry!” host Tim Yap said, as he welcomed a crowd of celebrities and media personalities to the recent grand launch of Streetscape, Shangri-La Plaza’s new dining strip, featuring a “curated” selection of “premium dining establishments,” both international and local.

We were about to go on a food crawl this one late afternoon, we were told, so we could have a taste of what each of the dozen or so tenants have to offer in the posh culinary lane, whose name is play on the words “street,” “eat,” and “escape.” And yes, I was hungry—like intentionally-didn’t-eat-lunch hungry—the best preparation one could have for these types of events.

Just for good measure, I came up with five rules to abide by, to—hopefully—help me pace myself and maximize stomach real space:

I shall prioritize restaurants I have yet to dine at.

I shall go easy on rice, pasta, breads, and other high-carb foods—at least at the beginning.

I shall not have more than one serving of a specific dish.

I shall have desserts, cocktails, or sugary drinks only after I’ve eaten my fill.

And above all, I shall take my time to enjoy the food. As the saying goes, life isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon, er, a crawl.

With these things in mind—and after a few words from Shang Properties executive director Wolfgang Krueger and executive vice president for retail and commercial Joy Polloso—I was off.

I entered the mall and headed to the rightmost end of Streetscape’s indoor corridor. My first stop: the Pan-Asian restaurant Gingerlily. There I was greeted by servers in cheongsam, holding up trays of shrimp cakes and shrimp sticks and platters of grilled chicken satay. I’ll have one of each, thank you very much.

They tried to tempt me with some pad thai, mango sticky rice, and coconut pudding with corn. But as enticing as they all looked, I had a game plan in place. “I’ll come back later,” I said with a self-satisfied grin.

Right across was the ever-popular Filipino restaurant Manam, one of the places I had considered putting off until much later or skipping altogether. The food is good—that much we already know—I’ve already eaten there many times.

Restraint

But before I could even pat myself on the back for showing uncharacteristic restraint, I made a grave mistake of making eye contact with one of the servers. I don’t know how it happened—perhaps it was the smiles or the sing-song manner in which the staff hawked the food—but I looked at my hands, and suddenly, there it was: a plate of pancit Canton topped with crispy sisig.

“Did they insist on giving me a plate? Or did I grab one of my own volition?” I wondered as I shoved a forkful of noodles into my mouth.

Before I knew it, I was at a table with my second plate, because I didn’t think I got to really appreciate the sisig’s crunch the first time around. Now, if only I had something to wash it all down. “Ube shake, sir?” another server said. It wasn’t so much a question as it was an announcement. It was already right in front of me. Might as well.

It was at that very moment I realized that I had just broken all my made-up rules in one fell swoop. The charade was over before it began.

But oh well, it was good while it lasted (all 15 minutes of it). At this point, with my strategy in shambles, I dropped all pretenses, threw caution to the wind, and went all the way in.

I went back to Gingerlily. I said I would come back later, did I? By “later” I meant “now.” I’ll have the mango sticky rice and coconut pudding, please. The heaps of bomboloni at Wildflour Restaurant? Give me one in hazelnut, one in dulce de leche, one in custard. Just as that Ariana Grande hit from a few years back goes, “I want, I got it!”

I dug into The Wholesome Table’s spread of torched salmon on black rice and nasi goreng. A cup of Caesar salad? Sure, if only to create an illusion of a balanced meal. The Spanish-Mediterranean restaurant Sala Martinez, meanwhile, served flavor bombs in the form of croquettes—one batch filled with spinach and gorgonzola, the other with spicy chorizo.

Strolling down the strip, you would be stopped, after every few steps by roving servers, urging you to try their respective restaurants’ signature dishes. ​As it turned out, in this food crawl, the food does the crawling, too—like the mini-Margherita pizza from A Mano that sort of just crept on me from nowhere.

“This would fill me up quickly,” I thought. “I’ll just take a photo,” I told the server. I lied.

Memorable

At the opposite end of Streetscape was Juniper, a new concept by the renowned chef Josh Boutwood. Of all the dishes on display, theirs looked the most unassuming—but also the most memorable.

In a small styro cup were two fatty strips of succulent pork, brushed with a zesty herb sauce—a curious mix of mustard and chimichiurri. For a bit of texture, the crushed chicharon on top did the trick. And as I savored each bite, I couldn’t help but imagine, for some odd reason, that if this dish were to become a drink, it would be a gin tonic—crisp, clean, and packing a punch.

The fried tapioca and cheese cubes, laid on a bed of creamy spiced tomato, were surprisingly light and delightful—an interplay of rich, heavy flavors and bouncy textures. Think fried mac and cheese balls, but more refined in taste and more playful in the mouth.

Beside Juniper was the chic Chinese resto-bar Red Lotus, where small sampler plates of char siu tostada, shots of dragon fruit cocktail and fried hakaw awaited guests.

The American steakhouse Longhorn served an array of appetizers—mostly fried, many with cheese, and always in-your-face—that had me hanging out at their stall way longer than I should have. The Wild West Shrimps, the spicy chicken bites, the beef sliders, and the flatbread chips with creamy cheese spinach dip were all so guiltily satisfying—so much so that I forgot they didn’t actually serve steak.

But I would have my revenge. (That’s for another story, though.)

Because I didn’t want to eat anything cold and raw early on, I decided to save Nikkei Sakagura—an izakaya and a sake bar—for my last bites. Yet another miscalculation. By the time I was ready for some nigiri sushi and tuna gunkan, they were gone. All there was on the wooden boards were curled up leaves on which the glistening balls of fish and rice once sat.

I waited, dropping by the storefront every so often to see if the staff would replenish the food. No luck. Finally, I mustered the gall to ask, “Wala na?” “Wala na, sir,” the server said apologetically. And then another man joined my cause. He had the exact same question: “Wala na?” The server had the exact same reply: “Wala na, sir.”

Cue violins. Better yet, cue the DJs. Night has fallen, and outside, in Streetscape’s alfresco space, dance beats started to drop, signaling the start of a lively after-party. Across the sky, fireworks danced. How fitting. An explosion of lights after an explosion of flavors. (Just trying to force a connection here.)

Did I enjoy myself? Heck yes. Did I get to try everything there was to try? Heck no. I didn’t even realize that the Refinery restaurant and the Harlan + Holden cafe, located outside, were also part of the crawl. But at least now I know that when I come back, there are still new flavors waiting to be had.

Streetscape is located on the first floor of Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City.