Every so often, I get hungry in the middle of traveling, unable to sit down and have a decent meal due to time and/or budget constraints. My go-to place to eat during these moments is Paotsin.
There’s really only one meal that I order at Paotsin, and that’s the Dumplings with Hainanese Rice. I’ll start with the positives first – this meal is relatively affordable at only php55.00 per order, and its served really fast, faster than most fast food restaurants. This is because there usually aren’t any people lining up to buy food at Paotsin and the rice is already cooked when you order. You can choose between having fried or steamed dumplings and if you opt for the latter, they’ve also got that cooked already as well. All they need to do is put the rice and your choice of steamed dumplings in a box and you’re all set. Choose the fried version and, well, they still have to do the frying so you’ll have to wait.
The meal comes with a generous serving of Hainanese Rice, definitely more than the serving you’ll get at most fast food chains. And the rice does have some flavor; it has a pale green shade which makes me think that they added pandan or something similar while they were cooking the rice.
The dumpling and rice meal comes with four dumplings, and Paotsin has a decent selection of dumpling kinds; they have the usuals like shrimp, crab, sharksfin, and pork wanton. The problem is, they all taste the same – I have trouble telling them apart based on taste alone. Because of this, I usually order shrimp wanton dumplings simply because they’re the biggest.
And I’m aware that the bigger size of the shrimp wanton dumplings is mainly due to the amount of wanton wrapper that Paotsin uses for this type of dumpling, but I don’t mind. I actually like wanton wrapper a lot, especially this thick variety.
Dumplings are usually served with soy sauce and Paotsin is no exemption to this, but their sauce is this weird blend of soy sauce, kalamansi, probably water, and who knows what else. If you can’t already tell, I don’t like their sauce. The only that you have when it comes to sauces is between a spicy or a non-spicy option which is very limiting because I prefer soy sauce.
Finally, I hate the “utensils” that Paotsin provides: a spork (a spoon/fork hybrid hence the term) and a stick. The spork doesn’t work all that well for scooping the sauce due to its prongs, which are too short to properly skewer the dumplings. Sticks don’t work as fork stand-ins either; you’d need to skewer the dumpling all the way through or else it’ll fall off. And the dumplings are usually too big to be dipped in the sauce “bowl” that Paotsin provides so you’d have to slice it to smaller bits anyway, making it even harder to use the stick.
I have a lot of complaints but the bottom line is you get what you pay for with this meal. A generous serving of lightly-flavored green rice, generic tasting dumplings, salty/sour sauce that may work with some people, and poorly thought out utensils. All for a very affordable php 55.00, which makes Paotsin one of my go-to options. I won’t dare ask my girlfriend to eat a meal here though.
simple food lovers 