The Red Panda Bistro in the Kapitolyo area isn't your usual Chinese restaurant. First they serve both Chinese food and European food. Second, the restaurant converts into a bar after 9pm, and the manager told me that the place is often booked for after dinner parties until the wee hours of the morning. Relaxing interiors, good ambiance. It was just after Christmas that Monique and I took the Callars for a fast dinner there--
We started off with some dimsum items, ha cao, siw mye and bean curd rolls. We also ordered some stir fried pork, oyster cake, kiam pung (this is a sticky rice dish cooked with pork humba as the flavor base) and beef tenderloin. For our Western-style food, we chose broccoli gratin, and seafood risotto which provided some contrast. To finish the meal, we chose beef ho fan (wide rice noodles) and pancit canton.
Portion sizes are a bit limited to 2 to maybe 3 people, so if you are in a big group you probably have to get two orders of each viand. Taste is pretty good, and orders come piping hot from the open kitchen. The only dish that I thought could use some improvement was the risotto, which was creamy but bland.
The challenging part about eating in the Kapitolyo neighborhood is that parking is hard to come by. You either have to arrived early, or make sure that your host sets aside a reserved slot for you. We were quite lucky to get to the last available slot right in front of the restaurant. Average spend would around P650 if you have a wide array of requests, but you can well do with say P450 if on a budget.
Honda's new HR-V has a peppy 1.8 liter engine and looks like a beauty to me. While it's just a 4-seater, its P1.2 million base price costs almost like the 7-seater SUVs of the competition. Ideal for trips within the city, and maybe for short provincial trips. Don't have feedback on handling and fuel economy yet, but I've already made up my mind. I want one!
Mikaela first broke the news about the launching of Diwata-1 to me. What sets this satellite apart from older Philippine satellites (Aguila & Mabuhay) is that Diwata-1 was built and assembled by Filipino scientists (as a update on the carcass of the Raijin-2 Japanese satellites). I understand that the older satellites were either bought while in orbit, or commissioned from scratch abroad. Truly, this is quite big feat by the DOST, considering the shoe-string budget that they are given. Kudos is definitely in order!
Lipovitan gets you going! That's what the TV ad campaign was all about when this energy drink was locally introduced by Taisho Pharmaceuticals in the early seventies. Since I had to drive to Mount Samat, Subic and back to Manila, I had to get my energy going--Lipovitan to the rescue! The product, which is essentially a caffeine boost, has been faced with several copycats, including Bacchus, Red Bull, Cobra and Sting, and I understand that recent sales have been sagging. In my case, I started with Lipovitan in the seventies, and I'm still a loyal fan, sticking to the original favorite!
I like the retro stations, obviously the songs they play are songs made popular in my generation. This morning I heard the Spinners song Then Came You on the radio, and I remembered the band. While the Spinners were formed in the early fifties, it was in the seventies that they gained international fame. That was when I learned more about their music. Songs like Could It Be I'm Falling in Love, I Don't Want to Lose You, I'll Be Around, Just As Long as We Have Love and Smile, We Have Each Other were staples on my cassette recorder. Nowadays, just hearing any of these songs played on the retro stations can make my day!
