incessant rambling

the main counter, japanese carinderia, plastic tables and seats, affordable prices and great food all around! i did promise myself that i was going to go through the whole menu of Joed's Lutong Hapon and try to order everything in the list. so far i'm making rather quick progress as i end up going back to the place at least once a week. i was hoping to have lunch with Amale and Noy as he wanted to try out the place, kids and school got in the way so it was just me and Amale for lunch. that shouldn't be a spoiler for the good food we ordered. steamed mackerel sushi with ginger and parsley, surprisingly light and fresh! Amale got the steamed sushi mackerel that looked rather malansa (or fishy, i mean it IS a fish, it looked like it smelled like a fish, wait, i'm getting confused myself, you know what i mean). the dollop of grated ginger on top of each cube was probably added to take away that malansa aftertaste. surprisingly, it didn't taste mal...

frustration is a bad thing. in this case, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i was craving for this particular lasagna in bleep bleep (you'll understand why i can't name the resto in a bit) and decided to drop by the resto with santa's helpers after a rather drawn out meeting with our client. too bad, the lady told me they were out of stock, too bad that was my second attempt to drive all the way to that place just for that. it's that popular and the friggin funny thing is that it is supposed to be a COFFEE shop. well, if you know me well enough you'd understand that i'm not a coffee person. so there, i'm not going to promote the COFFEE shop just because it increases the probability they'd run out of the lasagna, again! santa's assitants, sweeter than the sweets?!?! we ended up in Fudge along A.S. Fortuna as Santa's assistants were craving for the cheesecake delight, apparently they loved the smooth combination of cheesecake ...

i had lunch with karen and anne in metro gourmet and in the middle of our animated conversation (yes, we wave our hands a lot and we do a lot of play acting to emphasize a point during our conversation) i heard someone say "hi excuse me..." i quickly glanced behind me and saw an old caucasian fellow looking at us, i turned around to motion for karen and anne that the guy probably wanted to talk to them. as it turned out, he was actually trying to get my attention. great, if i hear any annoying complaint about my two blabber mouth friends... as it turned out, he just wanted to strike a conversation and the first thing he said was: "are you from here?" that sort of confused me, didn't expect that. "uh, what do you mean if i'm from here?" "was just wondering if you're filipino, you don't look like a typical filipino." great, just my luck, that would have to be the dumbest pick up line. "i'm part filipin...

the metro gourmet, basement of metro ayala, ayala center, cebu city pag sosyal ka, you go to tinder box and order your deli choices, if you're sosyal and you want to look for a less obvious dining destination, you head to "the pantry" in "the gallery" to get your deli selection. if you are makamasa (in short, the proletariat) and still want deli deli, you head to the "metro gourmet" at the basement of Metro Ayala in Ayala Center, Cebu. me and a couple of proletariat friends waiting for our order, sosyal kami ano. that's anne on the left and karen . a counter displays cheeses, sausages, hams from the united nations. what most people don't know, you can actually order and have it grilled, pan fried, seared or quickly cooked and have the deli deli with your choice of bread or as the usual pinoys do, like me of course, you have your deli deli with rice. i had the canadian honeyed ham, perfect amount of fat and just a tinge of swe...

what's the best thing to do after a movie? duh, eat. i was rather ravenous after catching "A Mother's Story", o wag na umangal, e idol ko si pokwang eh. but i digress, back to my rumbling tummy. Uncle Noodles, One Mango i had the craving for crunchy crispy chicken isul, otherwise known as the fleshy protrusion at the base of the spine, aka chicken ass, butt and pwet. sunburst is closed late at night and the only other place that served chicken isul is the Orange Brutus branch in Fuente Circle.  parking, traffic, tourists and all things sinulog forced me to rethink my options and i ended up in Uncle Noodles in One Mango, which might be my second option but definitely turned out to be the better one. let me swerve a bit and talk about the Peranakan culture, a marriage of chinese and malay influences more commonly found in singapore and malaysia. a prime example of this would be the famous laksa noodle soup that fuses curry coconut soup with rice noodle...

butafa, spareribs in a slightly sweet soy sauce base so today i went to Joed's Lutong Hapon , nothing unusual except that I've been back to this place around five times in less than three weeks. I've taken a fascination with the Japanese Carinderia concept of affordable prices in moderately sized portions that allows me to order two to three dishes without having to feel like a glutton. garlic shrimp, buttered, fried and glazed mirin sauce served on top of crispy garlic, this one barely looked like the picture they posted on their website. they used shrimp for this one instead of the prawns in their set. my goal is to go through their menu and take a picture set for my personal album, didn't realize that a lot of people would be tracking my progress every time i post additional pictures in my facebook set. Just a disclaimer, I WILL NOT BE A REASON FOR YOUR WEIGHT GAIN. Joed's special Maki, sweet mangoes layered with maki using watermelons and chees...

2011 is done and the Rabbit literally jumped into the hole with an unprecedented disaster in Southern Philippines to end the year. The Golden Rabbit seem hell bent on introducing the Water Dragon with endless rain that soaked most of Christmas and fizzled numerous fireworks during New Year. According to the Chinese system, 2011 was supposed to be a "good" year.  I'm scared shitless over what a bad year is going to be compared to 2011. If that's not enough, the Mayans predicted that 2012 is the end of the world. That, or they just ran out of parchment or rock to record their calendar. Whatever happens in 2012, there's so much to be thankful for in 2011. As with most web chroniclers, here are some personal highlights for 2011: - it was a great year for a gastronomic trip with new restaurants added to my usual staple (Yaki Mix, SumoSam, Joed's, Everything Yummy, Fudge, Dong Juan, Hawker 101, Choi City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Don Merto, The Bee Farm, Pala Pala ...

spicy chili ebi the karinderia (pinoy side street restaurant) should not be mistaken for an establishment that serves street food common in most asian countries. whereas street food are stalls set up along the streets with nothing more than low stools to sit on while you enjoy your food, the karinderia is set up like a hole-in-the-wall type of establishment where food is generally prepared by batch and patrons choose their viand, the servings are small and prices are generally very reasonable. ebi furai - not to be mistaken for ebi tempura, furai literally means "fry" in japanese. shrimp coated in breadcrumb and fried to a crispy crunch Joed's Lutong Hapon is a bit confusing for a restaurant name as it would literally translate to "Joed's Afternoon Cooking" which would make one think that the food is only served and cooked during the mid afternoon. On the contrary, Hapon is the local term for Japanese and the place serves karinderia grade Jap...

Most fiestas in the Philippines has taken on a very commercial tone with pageants, diskoral, perya as standard activities on top of the usual novena, mass service and procession. A classic example is the Sinulog in Cebu City although the pre-parade activities are usually very solemn. I had the opportunity to join the sakay sakay (fluvial procession) in Naga to honor Mother Mary, it's an old story that i wrote about almost a year ago. nothing changed much, the Lady is taken from her home in Barangay Tuyan and brought to the sea where it boards a boat and sets off to the port of the Poblacion in Naga City where they go on a procession to the main church.  The reverse happens and they end up in Tuyan parish church where they also hold another procession. For those that are not familiar with the story, the image of the Lady was found on top of a floating plank off the coast of Tuyan where the natives brought it in and enshrined it in a small chapel. At one point, th...