Chic Delights: Dampa

After many years apart, my High School friends and I had a reunion lunch by visiting a Fresh Seafood Market in the reclaimed area of Manila before exploring the Mall. This part of Manila is known as reclaimed area because this was all water before, part of Manila Bay then the Government dumped massive earth here to expand the City. The Government built the Cultural Centre of the Philippines and currently the SM Mall of Asia, which is among the biggest Mall in Asia after the Mall in Dubai. This adventure is a fun way for my friends and I to bond again after being apart for many years. We shopped for our food, had it cooked in the restaurant nearby and we chatted for hours while eating these delicious and fresh seafood from the market.

Fresh Manila clams and scallops.

Wow, what an adventure for me. It was my first time to visit a wet Seafood market full of clams, scallops, crabs, seaweeds, prawns, lobsters and different kinds of fish. Everything in this Seafood Market is fresh. We purchased from the market what we would like to eat for lunch then transferred to one of the nearby restaurants for them to cook our seafood according to our preferences. The Philippines is surrounded by water from all sides so there is always an abundance of all kinds of Seafood. If you ask me what is the best food to eat in the Philippines? I would say, don't miss the Seafood!

This market is full of Dealers from Crab dealers, Sea Shells Dealer to Fish dealers. The general public are welcome here to shop and also cater to Chefs and other Restaurants around the City for their fresh source of Seafood.

Mussels and fresh oysters.

Here we had some education about choosing fresh crabs in a Seafood Market. Anna here explained to us how to choose those big and fatty King Crabs. See how big the crabs are in Manila?

Oh prawns, I love prawns. Only in the Philippines that we can eat those big and fatty prawns.

Fresh squids.

There are plenty more fish in the sea.

So beautifully arranged and so fresh.

More lobsters and crabs.

We bought some Seaweeds for our salad, baked oysters, Chili King Crabs and boiled prawns. My favourite are those little green lime called calamansi. We drizzle the calamansi (Filipino version to lemon or lime) to soy sauce as our sauce for the prawns.

After our delicious Seafood lunch, we headed over to the SM Mall of Asia which has become one of the Tourist Attractions in the City. It is large for sure with parking for over 8,000 vehicles, 407,000 square feet shopping area with over 2 million cement bags and 44,000 gallons of paint used to build it.