Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Leave the chilli's to the professionals

The weekend was a culinary quest. Yes. The quest to make everything related to food taste good. Haha. Made paella last friday, and some oatmeal and sugar cookies, saturday was spent bonding with jed by making our own pizzas and sunday, I cooked the 'vegeman's ' spaghetti for sunday lunch. (frankie hesitated before eating the spaghetti because she saw something green in it Haha. She thought it was vegetables! It was only basil and oregano! )

Well, being jobless kind of makes you 'domesticated'. Haha. Parang animal lang ha. Wahaha. So, I spent the weekend like I said, cooking. Messing up the kitchen for cristy, and the house in general, for her. Well, I taught her how to bake too. I taught her to use the uber fab kitchen aid so when mom wants cookies, cristy can bake them herself! You see, mom loves cookies. She loved them so much she brought some along for karlo to naga, and when the following morning came, I was looking for my cookies. Cristy said mom had finished everything! And to think Karlo wasn't home, the cookies vanished anyway. Well, atleast they were well appreciated. Haha. My paella tasted good to according to pop so am happy about that one, my dad's pretty finicky about the way his food tastes. I say dealing with 1 piece of chili paid off. You see, I put 1 piece of chili in the paella for some spice. I was so brave I dealt with the red chili with my bare hands! I ripped the chili open to remove the veins and seeds, and then ripped them into little pieces and threw them in the paella. After a few mins my fingers were burning so I washed them lots of times. While dinner commenced, the area near my cuticles were burning. I was wondering home I could stand eating while my fingers stung like crazy! I soaked them in milk for 10mins. It was okay when I soaked them. But when I finally washed my hands, they still stung. Rawr. So I let them be for the meantime as I headed to jed's house, I figured he could do something about it (such a baby I am!). And so his mom told me to soak my fingers in icy water, which of course jed dutifully prepared for me. I didn't know my fingers were becoming numb until they were. Haha. It eased it a bit, luckily, the beer I drank when we headed to tonio's grill made me forget about it. So, I say, leave the chilli'ss to the professionals. Hahaha.

I love the fact that I finally got Jed to share my passion in the... Kitchen. Hahaha. Now, aside from the usual drinking, malling, travelling, dining out, we've found another commonground. Our love for food. We've made buffalo wings, cream cheese carbonara, pizzas and siomai so far. Stocked their kitchen with spices essential to making buffalo wings, our ultimate fave (also jed's older brothers fave, jim and bonx's)Which are cajun spices!! Cayenne , paprika and so and so. We're constantly thinking of food we want to cook, and the nice thing is when we cook at jed's house, everybody makes the effort not to miss it.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

1st year anniversary

We started our day much earlier than usual (the usual being uom, after lunch!). A quiet picnic at the sunken garden was how we started our day. We went to the shopping center, or as i fondly call it, dilimall, to buy tapsilog at Rodics. Yeah! Who doesn't love rodics? What's better than having rodic's for breakfast, at my alma mater, with the person I love? Luckily, Jed didn't mind Rodic's nor did he mind picnicking at sunken. After all, Ateneo has their own share of huge tracts of greens, but I gotta say, at UP, people don't give a rats ass if your picnicking on a monday morning... Or rather, people mind their own business.

After we had soaked up the morning sun, we headed to footloose, a massage place near new manila. It's actually along Tomas Morato but nearer the E. Rodriguez side than timog ave.
Well, it was about 12nn when we got to footloose. They had just opened so we were a tad bit too early. So... We decided to take our lunch nearby. We decided to try Nasi Lemak at Thompsons Square, along morato too. Finally we ate there! We agreed to eat there for the longest time and apparently, it's a singaporean resto. Tingtingting! Jed had wanted to relive our trip to Kota Kinabalu while I just wanted some singaporean fare. The Nasi lemak Jed ate at Kota was very simple. It was missing some elements which is why he wanted to try the "real" nasi lemak. I was looking for some nasi rendang but they didn't have it. I ordered the hainanese chicken, which is a staple of singaporean cuisine. You can find familiar singaporean dishes here like laksa, chilli crab, bakuteh, mee goreng, ice kachang, kway teow and of course, teh tarik or milk tea! Horay! Jed and i intend to return and sample the other dishes. Oooh and a lot of people actually eat at Nasi lemak, seems like there's a small following. Don't worry, you won't find noisy hs kids or college kids studying there, most people we saw were either office people or older people, I think we were the youngest there hahaha. It's a must try resto if you've got an adventurous palate, or if you want some singaporean fare.

After lunch we headed back to footloose. I'm not entirely sure what thai massage means but i take it that it involves stretching? Jed got a back and arm massage, i got a foot and back massage. Fell asleep during the foot massage. It's pricier than a whole body massage though, but the ambience will easily make you drift into lalaland, like yours truly. Haha.

After our very indulgent day, jed and i headed to his house to chill and use his wifi and do our online obligations together (eg facebook, ym, email, friendster, multiply etc)with our identical wifi-enabled phones. Their couch, which faces the tv, is our fave nap spot. There is something about that couch that makes one drowsy. Or lazy. Haha. So we just sit back and then sooner or later poooof! Zzzzzzz....

Jed and I spent the whole day together to celebrate our first anniv. In fact, he took a leave to spend the day with me. I wish though he could take tuesday off too, but that would just be demanding of me hahaha.

Time just goes by really fast, so better do what you can and not let special days be forgotten.... So you've got memories to share and look back on. Ü

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Back and Busy

Back from Singapore with 9kgs of overweight luggage. Haha. Deng, 135sgd down the drain. Haruuummmph.

Got back just in time to attend my mom's special awarding ceremony for ACES (award for continuing excellence in service) given by the metrobank foundation. This is a special awarding ceremony because: 1. The orig ceremony was last january. She didnt make it because she was busy giving a talk at the nat'l university of singapore. So, they created a separate awarding ceremony for her. 2. This award is given every 5 years only, and she is part of the 2nd batch. Plus, this award can only be given those who have already won the 'Metrobank outstanding teacher' award, or outstanding cop award etc. So, this award, according to metrobank foundation is the only award of its kind because it recognizes those people who have won the award and have continued to exhibit excellence in their respective fields. Hence, it's a very prestigious award.

So there I was, groggy as usual but extremely proud of my mom. So were all of her colleagues, from system officials to former students to her present students, everybody was so supportive, so supportive that her guestlist included big names in UP and awardees of the metrobank foundation as well.

Talk about living up to the Legasto/Patajo Legacy in UP. Btw, we were one of the families who won the 3 generations award given by UP during the centennial celeb. Now, all I have to do is live up to it.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Finale: Singapore Sojourn

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.... Hrawr! My bags are not packed yet!!!! Haha. Alas, farewell to my singapore adventures! I'm leaving tomorrow early morning so I have to finish packing by tonight.

I sipped my last store-bought iced tea tarik from the United Square foodcourt. I sipped it on the slow walk home. I took as much of the familiar scenery as I could, pretty soon when I get back and months have passed, I might not remember every single detail.

In the beginning of this fun-filled adventure, my sister Kaye gave me a notebook from Singapore's largest bookstore, Konikinuya (mahirap shang i-remember the first "times" around hahaha) to record my thoughts (Carissa said, to report my thoughts to my sister haha). Some-sort of diary. Everyday I write something. Anything. But usually, my entries are about the places I visited, and they were a lot. As in. From the museums (Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore Nat'l Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Philatelic Museum, Malay Heritage Museum, Chinatown Heritage Museum.... )to the malls (Paragon, Takashimaya, Far East, Vivo City, Suntec City, Explanade Mall, Wisma Atria, United Square, Novena Square, Velocity.... only a few out of the 250+malls in the city!!!)to other attractions (river cruise, singapore flyer, sentosa, botanical garden, bugis village, east coast...), I went to a lot of places!!!! Time well spent resulting to achey legs (as much as 20k steps per day!!!! c/o my pedometer). Kaye made a list of food I should try... I tried most of them... Chilli crab tops my list (from no signboard)!!! Laksa closely follows and then roti prata (Jaja!!! Roti Heaven!!!! You'll love this! Remember banana leaf curry? This one is much better!), chicken rice, satay etc.... Do you know they have a dish called carrot cake? But it's not dessert, nor is it made out of carrots. Haha. It's made out of radish with the texture of tofu. Very interesting. I didn't try the fish head curry... stuck with the regular curry, and of course, ate the japanese curry kaye made at home--- I loved it so much I ate it everyday. It's vegetarian curry, tuna and mushrooms and it tastes FAB!!!

Speaking about Kaye's curry. Ahah! I dub her vege curry dish-- Curry Kee. Haha. Kee kasi mahilig sila sa ganon spelling dito. Wee Nam. Mee Goreng. CURRY KEE! This goes out to you sister!!! For making this healthy curry!!! Btw, her REF/pantry is a hodgepodge of food cultures. And what's funny is it's kind of balanced. Lotsa healthy food, and lots of sinfully delightful food too. So + and - makes 0? Haha.

I don't know, maybe because when we were growing up we would eat any kind of food (even if we were tricked into eating it... eg. Kara's Wasabi experience: The wasabi was shaped into a leaf... or was that a flower, and I asked my dad what it was, he said it was candy... so what would little me do as a kid? Eat it of course!!!) and so we've got a diverse palate, one could say. She's got fresh fruits (strawberries are abundant in her ref, unless I finish it! And lemon is for the water... for detox or to put into sugar-free iced tea, which I do), lee kum kee XO sauce, Jack Daniel's Honey Mustard (Who knew Jack had a mustard line???), cheese slices, frozen dumplings, ben and jerry's chunky monkey ice cream (which I have been consuming in secret hahaha), royce chocolates, muesli, cheerios, milo (just like home, we always have milo), bottled tuyo in olive oil, betty crocker's muffin mixes, chicharon (which I brought for her hahaha and which I consumed... she's doing a lenten sacrifice by not eating meat and chocolates, if I did that... kill me, really), Friday's chips ( hidden away at the topmost shelf of her cabinet, and for a reason. I can't reach it, she prolly can, but she's gotta stretch. Hahahaha. Put temptation outta sight.), pasta sauces, buckwheat twirly pasta, bundaberg light ginger beer (which again I consumed), vege curry (which I finished too hahaha)... italian, filipino, american, singaporean, indian, chinese etc. Although there is a GREAT ABSENCE OF MEAT. Yes, she reminded, because it's lent. Oh yeah. Mah bad. Although she doesn't impose it on me, she makes me eat regular food when we eat out.

Everyday I set out with the following things:
1. Money. (Thank you Kaye!)
2. EZ link card, Top up card 128 (load for singtel), Park Infinia entry card, house key--- The Visitor's kit we call it
3. Bottle of water
4. Snacks
5. Cellphones (singtel and globe)/ camera
6. Alcohol!
7. Maps!!!!

So far, I survived doing tours alone. Once you get the hang of how the cool public transpo works, you're good. It was fun, going wherever, walking the streets, hanging around the bus stops, foodcourts, steps by the bay, although, only problem, i had to take a lot of pictures without me in it, if ever i was in it, it was either taken by another person or my head was strategically angled to include the attraction behind me. Haha. But it was amazing! For such a small country, they know how to showcase their history really well. And they magnify their attractions too. Very good marketing!

Singapore, the land of shopping malls, high-heels, pda couples, designer bags, fake eyelashes and chilli crab! I'll miss it dearly. But most especially, my sister. (nax.) She took care of me, just like an older sister would. Plus, she gave me this opportunity, she made me discover singapore on my own, with some guidance of course, hehe. Well, I'll be seeing her on April, as she'll be diving at Tubbataha (living aboard a boat in the middle of the palawan sea for 5 days!!!)and then of course, she'll be passing by manila too hahaha. But just a visit though, because she is of course based in Singapore, I call her the expat. Sounds like such a cool term. Haha.

As for the bisyos. Cigs and Booze are expensive here (and don't bring reams of cigs in, or out, it's illegal! They are eventually banning smoking here, scary...). In secret, unbeknownst to my sis, while touring sentosa, I stumbled upon CAFE DEL MAR (Head Kandi? sound familiar now?). I paid about 23sgd at cafe del mar (siloso beach, sentosa). Had 1 drink, 1 delicious drink--- my fave, mojito, with a lychee twist, one of their best sellers. And it was happy hour, so one-for-one (aka buy 1 take 1 hahahaha) and an order of fries (big secret!!! Haha. As Kaye tells me not to eat fast food, bk, kfc, mcdo, carls jr--yes, carls is alive here). That was my first and last encounter with booze. Unless, you count the light ginger beer I'm drinking right now as booze, then again, I just checked the bottle, there's no alcohol in it). Oh and as for the CIGS? Bummed from Gen (and it was lights pa, well, beggars can't be choosers hahaha). Hooked up with highschool classmates, Gen Mariano and Carissa Cristobal aka Coco Love, along orchard for some coffee at... STARBUCKS!!! It was fun reminiscing. Deng. We're old. Crap.(Kara takes a swig of her ginger beer, kunyari may alcohol nalang hahaha).

And so this blog ends, but the memories don't.

And yes, I've got tons of pasalubong. Haha.

Monday, March 02, 2009

First taste of Singapore

I arrived at the Changi airport really groggy and looking for a wi-fi connection, just so I could send a ym to jed. It's not exactly cheap to text or call via Singtel using your globe line. Fortunately, there was wi-fi in the airport and unfortunately I couldn't access my EQO (IM thingy Jed installed in my mobile) so I had to use the network. I sent the required "I just arrived here in Singapore" to Pop, Jed and Kaye (who of course was going to pick me up from the airport haha). While waiting for Kaye, I decided to go over to the vendo to see if I could actually get a drink. How come they've got cooler vendos anywhere but the phils.? Haha. Coffee, softdrinks, water, energy drink all in one vendo. Amanda gave me a 50c coin which she said I would use... my brain went ting tint ting!!! But alas! Kulang ako ng 10c to buy a drink hahaha. The vendo doesn't accept bills so where would I get coins? I decided to eat my Bo's Chicken BLT sandwich instead which I purchased in the airport back home. Like I said, I was asleep the whole flight. Lo and behold Kaye arrives, with bottled water!!! I am saved!

Kaye picked me up from the airport in her full suit... jogging suit that is complete with pedometer. Well, it's been a joke around the house that me going to singapore was going to be some sorta boot camp--- Kaye, who is training for a marathon and walks with a pedometer all day would drag me along with her. So seeing her in her full suit--- was this the symbol of things yet to come? Heehee.

Luckily, I was given a break. For now I suppose? Hardly got any rest. No I didn't exercise. We dropped off my stuff at her place (Park Infinia) which was fab. She has all the furniture I always wanted (I'll post the pictures when I get back to manila). Plus, I get my own room and bathroom. And she has a huge flat screen tv. Weeee!

I started my first taste of singapore life getting in a cab. Their cabs are equipped with GPS. Cool. Plus, their dial-a-cab services really work. I mean, they'll even tell you how many minutes before the cab picks you up! The transport services here are so efficient, you don't need a car! I tried the metro, the bus (which are mostly double deckers!) and the cabs. I was given an EZ Link (like a store value card) but you can use it for the bus and the metro.

First activity outta the house was going to mass at St. Theresa's Church. We road the 143 bus. This church is hightech too. They've got flat screen tv's every other pillar insaide the church where devotees can read the responsorial psalm to the hymns to the instructions for communion on it. And it's aircon. Another weeeee! Their mass was pretty long, they practically sang everything they could put into song... and there was this particular reader who looked very asian, but spoke with a british accent. Oh yeah, the colony. I loved his accent. Maybe I should start sporting one too? Hehe.

After mass--- sunday lunch at about 1:30pm (which is about the same time we eat sunday lunch back home anyway). Kaye brought me to Wisma Atria (one of the many malls located along the famous Orchard road)to their like food court, but a much better version of it. I saw the first stall, I was already hungry. We settled at I think the "Fortunate" resto. That's the name. Our table was sandwich between to places so we got hakaw from the Fortunate resto and delicious Shiok!!! from the adjacent jap resto. Shiok was just heavenly. Charcoal grilled eel wrapped with lightly roasted salmon= Shiok!!! Creamy, rich, smokey flavors just tickle your palate. Oh, and of course, I got my first taste of Laksa! It was good!No wonder it's my Mom's current addiction. She has Cristy cook Laksa at home too. Now, it's going to be better appreciated hehe.

What is singapore without shopping. That's practically all they do really. Plus, there's always a sale, according to Kaye. So I should look around first and figure out what I want to buy. Oh and Kaye bought me a new pair of rubber shoes, and a pedometer to match. Wee! I think I'm going to break 'em in today. She bought me a ticket to the Hop-on hopp-off tour bus too. Really cool. It's valid for 3 days and it starts tom., so I'm pretty excited although I have to study the maps here and bring one just in case. Everybbody in Singapore knows orchard road so whatever happens, I'll just take whatever transport that ttakes me to orchard road because from there I can get home.

Went home for a brief "siesta", a break for Kaye who totaled 20,000 something steps in one day. We had dinner at the East Coast, where No Signboard Restaurant is located. The best chili crabs in Singapore! I first saw this resto on the Asian Food Channel and from then on, I have been waiting for the day I'd get to taste it. Kaye ordered a 2Kilo crab and fried shrimp with cereals (raised an eyebrow at this one, turns out the cereals are good too, and it''s a diff. kind of cereals...) and of course, the fried bread which to dip in the chili sauce. Can you say- AMAZING!!! I couldn't get enough! Even my shirt was eating hahaha. So good. I ony stopped eating cos I got full. It's so addicting, right hint of spicyness and sweetness... myabe it's really made that way. So you keep coming back for more.

Anyhoot, have to bounce, gonna cook my "brunch" then head out to explore. I still have to read my maps and list down the nearby places I can go to. If I get lost--- Kaye armed me with a singtel cellphone too! Ciao! Am off to my next adventure!