What is a Dampa?
A Dampa is a wet market type of place where you can pick your seafood and have it cooked in the various restaurants available on site.
Living in my own home country as opened up to me places that I have never been to before. I had never stepped into a dampa prior to this. Lamma Island in Hong Kong does not count.
My friends and I trooped to Seaside Macapagal Boulevard (Manila) to have some seafood and celebrate our friends’ birthdays.
When we got there, it was peak time for dinner and the parking spaces were already packed. Since we were hungry, we didn’t bother picking our own seafood and just ordered off the menu.
Yours truly is deathly allergic to crabs (*hear wailing in the background*), all I could eat were squid,
baked mussels,
baked oysters,
fish, tempura and pork liempo.
The squid was on sizzling plate with garlic. I liked how they didn’t overcook the squid. It was just right. Not gummy and full of flavor.
Strangely enough, I barely touched the pork even though it was so good (When is pork not good?).
All the seafood we had were super tasty though cooked simply.
I only sighed at the crab. Gone were the days when I could stuff them down like a champ. Now I can’t without a trip to the emergency room.
While we were eating, a friendly orange cat came by our table to feed on anything falling from our table. My friends are insanely afraid of stray cats but I couldn’t help but feed the little kitty a piece of squid. I tried to do this stealthily.
I didn’t know that the kitty had a crew with him and before I knew it, 6 kitties swarmed under our table and my friends started shrieking. My friends had the servers shoo the cats away but these two stayed with us until the end of the night.
For dessert, we had customized cake. Nothing fancy but then again I’m not a fan of cakes.
I’m getting on a plane to Hong Kong tomorrow. More food adventures there.
Until then.