I had my birthday a few days ago. Before the big day, there were the usual questions about what I wanted to eat. I said I wanted dim sum, chow mein and chocolate cake. To be more specific, I wanted dim sum in a hotbox, birthday noodles and a two-layer chocolate cake with custard filling and ganache on top.
My daughter, Alex, baked the cake. My husband, Speedy bought the dim sum and noodles. My older daughter, Sam, was stuck in the city (where she works) because the last typhoon brought floods, as usual.
What is dim sum in a hotbox? I’ll get there but, first, let me tell you how we discovered it. See, here in the boondocks, really good restaurants are rare. Most of the ones with those gorgeous views and rustic ambience peddled by influencers do have great views and lovely ambience (Instagrammable!), but not much else. The food may look fancy (plating always helps) but is rarely extraordinary.
Food available for delivery is even less great. Pizza, fried chicken, burger… There are some unique ones, though, but so few that I can count them with the fingers of one hand. A Vietnamese cafe, a Korean food place and a Hong Kong-style restaurant where the claypot meals are superb (this is not a sponsored post). But when you keep ordering from the same establishments, well, it can get boring.
Good Chinese food is especially difficult to find. So, during the last quarter of 2024, when we started seeing signs of “Old China” opening next door to where we buy toasted siopao, we waited excitedly. We tried the food within a week from opening day. When Alex had her birthday in January this year, she wanted assorted dim sum, and she discovered the hotbox at Old China. We never forgot the experience so I wanted a repeat on my birthday.
What’s so special about the hotbox anyway?
Hotbox is the brand name of the “first self-heating, portable food box” made in the Philippines (again, this is not a sponsored post). When we first encountered it in January, we thought it was so unique. Turns out it has been in use for a while in many hotels in Metro Manila. We’re just so provincial here in the suburb that we believed it was a novelty in 2025.
The Old China dim sum hotbox has two strings. One end of each string is tied to a ring (covered with red strip in the right photo above). Hold the rings, pull out until the length of the strings are exposed and the heating mechanism at the bottom of the box gets activated.
The hotbox starts emitting steam and you just wait for the steam to dissipate before removing the cover. By that time, the food is piping hot. Solves the problem of dim sum geeting cold between the restaurant and our dining table at home. Pretty neat, really — for us deprived suburbanites anyway.
Did we finish all that in one sitting? No, we had the dimsum and noodles for lunch and dinner. We had chocolate cake and ensaymada (from my sister-in-law) in between.
