THE BIG BINONDO FOOD WOK Map begins with these words: Four hundred years of history and a tummy full of decadent treats.

It describes what Binondo is?a place created during the Spanish era and a place to have good Chinese cooking. The map contains both the heritage trail and chow places, a listing made by Ivan Man Dy who is the ultimate Chinatown guide. It is available in some bookstores but you can order from him (fun@oldmanilawalks.com). Now, why create a map that might make his ?Chinatown walk-through? obsolete?

Dy sees the map as ?not just about food but also about the relevance of his community to his city. It?s feeding the mind as well as the soul.?

The colorful map itself gives a bird?s eye view of the place bordered at one end by the Pasig River, whose waters flow through or sometimes stagnate at canals that dissect through Chinatown. One of the canals has an eating place called Estero (the Spanish word for canal), but it is no longer the place to eat at as it used to be.

Eating places

The eating places are sorted according to groups like Noodle Houses, Specialty Restaurants, Old Timers, Chinese Fast Food, Vegetarian Options, Lauriat Dining, Filipino and Japanese Cuisine, Desserts and Pastry Shops. On his list are 77 eating places in all of Chinatown. Those are marked with stars on the map, each with a number that corresponds to the number on a table containing the name and description of the place.

For a group of us that Dy took to show his personal restaurant choices, we went to seven restaurants in one day. In each one, we ate only the specialties. Which is why your Chinese guide will still be needed, because who can tell you those? But now the map will guide me if I want to go back to where and what we ate, such as the asado of Salido, the duck miswa and oyster cake of Sincerity, the northern specialties of Dong Bei Dumplings, authentic Hookien home-style cooking at Xian Chun Yuen, chami at the Café Mezzanine, the noodles with saté taste at Quick Snack, and mami at Masuki.

Heritage trail

What I find as interesting is the Heritage Trail that takes you to important streets, monuments and other landmarks in Chinatown.

Foremost is the Binondo Church; many people don?t know that its formal name is Basilica Menor del San Lorenzo, dedicated to the Filipino saint Lorenzo Ruiz.

Probably more known to the Chinese community is the Te Ya Kong Temple founded in 1882. It has the Chinese name in characters, just like some of the streets. The map says that this is where one can still view the vanishing art of the Chinese opera being performed on some religious occasions.

The Santo Cristo de Longos at the corner of Ongpin and Thomas Pinpin Streets is a curiosity, a shrine on one wall of a building with a cross and joss sticks. It?s a physical statement of the mix of cultures and religions which all meld, an apt description of what Chinatown still is.

E-mail pinoyfood04@yahoo.com.