Ramen Nagi

Monique is happiest eating in Ramen Nagi.  At the moment, it occupies the top spot in her list of favorite ramen shops.  No wonder; years ago, Anita raved eating at the Butao restaurant in Hong Kong, which apparently, is the progenitor of the Ramen Nagi chain.  We trooped to the SM MOA branch with the entire Callar family, and found ourselves wondering what to order.  Everything is made to your specs, and you have to choose noodle consistency, soup richness, spice levels by accomplishing a checklist, which to us beginners, looked so intricate to decipher!  Which one was better?

We wound up starting off with some gyoza, since not all of us were prepared to order.  It wasn't bad, but before I started to complain, the girls mentioned that the food was focused on the ramen, and everything else was just decor.

The basic broth was based on slow-cooked pork, which was delightful, sweet to the palate, even.  I ordered the black broth which was based on squid-ink, and this was very powerful indeed.  So rich, so full of flavor to the point that my senses were overpowered.  Yaya Rufina was bold and chose the spicy broth (mere level 1 out of 10 levels), while Vicky and Becca took the pesto ramen.   Yes, this was a touch of Italian cooking done with Japanese noodles, very different from what you may have encountered in traditional ramen places, even had parmesan cheese sprinkled on top!

We ate with a budget of around P450 per head.  Tummies were so full!  I've had too much ramen these past few weeks and it seems that I'll wait for another month before walking into a ramen shop.  Well, the kids don't have that mindset and will repeat the Ramen Nagi visit next week. That's how well-loved this is; it's not a mere craze, it's gonna be their fave joint for the next couple of years!

Red Buffalo

Red Buffalo is a nice place for the young ones to hang around in the Granada-Greenhills area. We tried three flavors of their chicken wings--parmesan-garlic, lemon-pepper and honey-bourbon.  The verdict?  All winners with plenty of flavor, served smoking hot right off the frying pan!  I must say I liked the lemon-pepper version best.

Pizza?  Naturally, we went for the crispy thin crust.  Tasty, gooey and quite delightful--four cheese, shrimp diablo and supreme.  What more can I ask for?  It's best to visit the place in a big group so that you can try the different flavors (there's ample parking space at the back). Prepare around P400 per head.

Toffifee

The girls brought home some gooey gooey sweet stuff... It's all about the ingredients and the flavor.  Storck's Toffifee has been around since the seventies, and even if these days I find it too sweet for my taste buds, I'm still drawn to it like moths to a flame.  Vicky is absolutely right--I am a chocolate junkie!

Summer Palace

The EDSA Shangrila Hotel is one of the better all around hotels in the city.  The location is pretty central, the rooms are well kept and the facilities are generally maintained properly. The food isn't bad, although a bit on the expensive side.  We had a trucker's meeting at the Summer Palace, and it was also the birthday celebration of one of our friends.  It was good that we arrived early at around 6pm that were given a table immediately (300 diners walked in that night, so the restaurant was jam-packed).

Nancy, the restaurant's Maitre d', recommended a complimentary collage of dishes.  We started off with some Bamboo Pith soup and shrimps with corn flakes to whet our appetites. This was followed by some fried cod (the batter was thin and delightfully crispy) and beef with asparagus (served Western style).  We also had some Lo Han Chay, pork crisps and the obligatory birthday noodles (for long life).  Dessert was something new to us--clear coconut juice with aloe vera gel shavings.  By the time we finished, we had smiles on our faces!

The restaurant is well-appointed and the service is quite excellent.  Just be aware that the average food check reaches around P2,500 per person, and this is just for regular menu items.  Of course, if you have shark fin soup, live lobster, fresh abalone and roasted goose, your bill can go up considerably higher.  Two thumbs up for dining in style!

Schimdt's

I was waiting for Monique to finish up with her dinner with friends at the El Pueblo Center, so I spent some time wandering about the Podium Mall.  It was almost 9pm, and I decided to have a snack at Shimdt's hotdog store.  As recommended by the charming lady at the counter, I got the popular favorite with Jalapeno peppers (yes, it had a bit of a bite to it), and meal set me back by around P300.  But it was loads of fun, enough to excite even the most skeptic gals--coats of cheese, chili con carne and onions, all atop a man-sized sausage (not one of those skinny red wieners that taste like cardboard)! Keep up the good work!

Writers Bar

It was my first time to visit the Raffles Hotel, and I was excited that a business associate asked for our meeting to be held at the Writers Bar.  Since the Manila Mandarin had closed, I have been looking around for a quiet spot for intimate discussions over mid-day tea, and this place was a wonderful alternative.  My love for pastrami overtook all sense of restraint, and I was quite happy with the taste, presentation and portioning of their Reuben sandwich (around P800).  Hemingway would have been pleased.

The original Raffles in Singapore has such a grand colonial history, and with this in mind, I stopped at the hotel's elevator landing to look at the painting shown below.  The hotel treats history with a certain reverence, and I was glad that the Philippine experience is brought to proper focus.  An exaltation is in order, Mabuhay!

Hanayo Grill

Andie's 13th birthday celebration with Lola Deedee and the rest of the family was held at Hanayo Grill along Scout Lozano St., very near the corner of Tomas Morato in Quezon City.  We were lucky that the restaurant was celebrating its first anniversary with a promotional offer, and thus for every 10 of us, one ate free!  It was a Sunday morning, and parking space was pretty easy.  We were warmly greeted by the Korean owners, who explained to us that the restaurant was recently ranked second in the list of top Korean buffets in Metro Manila (not bad at all for a restaurant with just a one year track record).

It was a simple home-cooked style buffet spread, quite reasonable for P580 per person. They had several appetizer items: Korean peanuts in honey glaze, kim chi veggies and boiled spinach, plus cross-over sushi rolls and sashimi.  I particularly liked the seaweed soup, the hot broth provided soothing warmth to my tummy while we waited for the guests to arrive. The kids, of course, made a beeline for the four cooked highlights--chap chae, beef stew, tempura shrimps and crispy fried chicken with sweet-spicy sauce.  The highlight of the meal, however, is cooked do-it-yourself style; each table has its own grill, and you choose thinly sliced meats from the freezer.  The ones on the left side of the freezer were marinated overnight, while the ones on the right side, were not marinated.

To cap the event, we all had fun with the Melona ice cream bars that were available at the dessert section (this comes with the buffet price).  Everyone wanted a second bar!  Happy Birthday, our sweet little angel!

Harabas

Driving along Otis St. over the weekend, I somehow trailed an old familiar silhouette from afar.  I managed to give chase and upon reaching the Quirino stoplight, my suspicions were delightfully confirmed--it was a Harabas Asian Utility Vehicle (AUV) which was released by General Motors in the early seventies.  This specific unit I saw is probably one of the last surviving (and running) vehicles of its kind.  The driver was kind enough to give me permission to take a photo, as I explained to him that during my student years, I was a struggling car salesman for GM & Isuzu. 

To give you a brief background, the Harabas was one of the first locally manufactured AUVs under the ASEAN car production program (the Ford Fiera and the DMG Sakbayan were the other two).   As an engineer, Kongkong was quite involved in the development and assembly of this vehicle.  Compared to the AUVs built today, it looks like small and crudely made, but then again, you have to consider that except for the engine and the drive train, the whole vehicle was locally designed and produced!  The second generation AUVs already included the Isuzu KC-20, the Toyota Tamaraw and the Chrysler Cimarron.  Over the years, the workmanship and the construction of the AUVs have evolved to what we have today (Mitsubishi Adventure, Isuzu Hi-Lander & Crosswind, Toyota Revo & Innova).

The phrase "pang Harabas" in the vernacular means that you will use something for rough and unglamorous (even reckless) usage.  This means that the product or material has to be able to adapt to tough environments and that it has to have a "cowboy" attitude--not needing polished refinery to uplift the ego.  The root of the lingo can be traced to the Kenkoy pre-war comic strip (Harabas was his family name), and the concept was solidified with the reputation of the Harabas AUV!  The vehicle was meant to be a workhorse.

If you look at it in the context of the local car industry, the Harabas was an experimental effort to get the jeepney into mainstream vehicle production.  Unfortunately, however, the AUVs today are mostly built in Thailand and Indonesia, because by the early eighties, the Philippines had lost its pole position as the ASEAN center of car manufacturing (in the sixties and early seventies, the manufacturing might of the Philippines was second only to that of Japan).  By the late eighties, the Malaysians had come up with the Proton, and today, the Chinese and the Indian car manufacturers are releasing new models that rival those of the Koreans and the Japanese.

Sayang!

Crazy Katsu

Monique had to stay late in school to listen to a talk by a famous Senator of the Republic.  I was supposed to arrive at 7pm to pick her up, but got there by 7:40pm instead; the traffic along Quezon Boulevard was horrible and I spent almost two and a half hours on the road. She was fighting a tiring bout with the sniffles; her clogged nose and teary eyes weighed heavily on her countenance.  She was hungry.  I suggested dinner at Trellis, but when we passed by the Crazy Katsu shop along Maginhawa St., there was a parking space right in front of the restaurant and we took the opportunity to try the place.  

The sukiyaki (P190) came in hot, just perfect to soothe her throat.  The bowl was big enough for the both of us.  The gyoza (P130) was stuffed generously and tasted quite authentic.  The katsu (P150) was not bad for the price; it wasn't the most tender katsu that we have tried, nor the most flavorful, but it was good bang for the buck.

It was a Friday night and the air-conditioned area was so full that we had to eat at the outdoor dining section.  I had thought that the crowd was indicative of the night time student life in the UP area, but I could see that several tables were taken by families and office buddies.  I would guess that our bill of around P300 per person can still be considered pretty high for students on a tight budget.  

Lucca

Monique and I had a late night craving for some sweet pastries, and we dropped by the UP Town Center to visit the Lucca Bakery (it's funny how name association plays out in my head; as I stepped in, I kept humming the 1987 Suzanne Vega song about domestic violence).  I thought that the establishment was about to close, but we made it in time and we were even lucky that some items were being sold at a 30% discount (commonly practiced by bakeries to keep inventory fresh).  We ordered a bundle of treats, around ten pieces of assorted pastries (brownies, lemon squares, cakes) all for under P500.  This became our midnight snack in the main house, with Anita, Gwammy ang Kong in full attendance.  I particularly liked the cinnamon rolls and the lemon squares!

Mister Delicious

If there's a hierarchy of fast food courts, I'd think Hole in the Wall at the Century Mall would be at the top of the list.  While the place is still in its infancy, I can see that there's a lot of potential for this up and coming gathering place for good eats.  I was lucky to have a meeting scheduled there, and we wound up ordering some sandwiches from Mister Delicious, which is operated by the vibrant Chef Jeremy (pictured above).

My pastrami sandwich was every bit of a luxurious treat.  Thin slices of tasty pastrami, layered thick on wheat bread, with just enough mustard to get the oomph going!  He also had camote chips on the side; I liked it, it was a good departure from the usual potato fries. We also tried a bottle of the store's in house brew--ginger ale!  Quite natural, obviously no artificial blend, great fizz and just the right level of sweetness for me.

Prepare some P400 per head to enjoy their artisan snacks.  I sure hope that Chef Jeremy will expand his repertoire, lots of good eating is probably in the works... Yum Yum!

Chia Te

My friend came back from a trip to Taipei and brought some Chia Te pineapple pastries back home for us to enjoy.  This bakeshop is extremely popular with the local tour guides and I was told that you have to brave the long lines just to purchase some of their pastries.  As I bit into the gooey cake, I was happy that it didn't crumble; just a bit on the sweet side, though.  

Big Daddy's

Monique and I fetched Ed and Korina at the airport, and it was almost 7pm when they got out of the terminal.  Their Cebu Pacific flight was almost an hour late.  Hungry from the long trip, we decided to have dinner near Gwammy's house, and we were lucky enough to find a parking slot at Big Daddy's along Kalayaan Avenue.

Parking was really tight, so it was strange to walk into the restaurant to find that there was only one other table taken.  No staff came to greet us at the door.  Apparently, the next door JayJ's Inasal was also owned by the same restaurant group (the restaurants share a connecting bathroom) and all the people parked outside were eating inasal.  It took some time for a food attendant to come to our table, and we figured that the establishment was quite undermanned.  The lady was pleasant though, and in about another twenty five minutes, she brought out our orders--cheese nacho, burgers and a porterhouse steak (for me).

Eating in the place was my idea, and I was lucky that the burgers weren't bad (or else Ed, Korina and Monique would have had a frown on their faces).  My steak looked good, but I'd have to say I've tried better meat elsewhere.  I should have asked for a sharper knife.

We spent something like P300 per head, but you can make do with a budget of P200 per head.  Totally inexpensive, just don't expect top grade quality.