a "little" night of ilocano flavour
(the waiting area at victorino's.)
quezon city, the city of the stars, and more specifically along and around the timog/morato (timorato) area is just bursting with surprises. i rarely venture out into the city -- which i also call city of the stars noting that major television and film companies have their headquarters there and sightings of actors, actresses, stars and starlets are quite common it's like being in los angeles -- because it's quite far from where i usually stay.
commuting in metro manila is so hazardous to health that i have learned to veer away from places that would require me to be stuck in a heart wrenching traffic for days!
but lately, because of commitments with a boy band and another showbiz-like project, i have been forced to leave the comforts of my squalid surroundings and venture into the sparklingly clean quezon city (it really is cleaner and the roads well-maintained compared to where i am staying at the moment) and found out that the timorato area is now a food heaven.
the few times that i went there lately, i was surprised by the variety of restaurants and bars along morato, timog and those streets that start with "scout" (i'll get back to that later). first and foremost, there are restaurants specializing on my all-time favourite filipino dishes (i am a big fan of almost all food filipino -- dinuguan, puto, pakbet, anything grilled, adobo and all its permutations, etc. again, the etc here is very important. although you can't force me to eat balut and kare-kare.)
there are also restaurants serving only japanese, italian, thai, vietnamese, chinese cuisines. almost everything is here, from popular fast food chains to high-end restaurants that cater only to a few rich ones, and those in between, including the pretentious and social climbers like moi!
there too are a lot of coffee shops and dessert houses other than the popular starbucks and figaro. there's a new favourite french cafe at the rembrandt hotel, la vie parisienne, owned by the lhuilliers (yes the family that owns the booming pawnshop chain around the country and where famous international fashion designer monique belongs to) of cebu.
i love the coffee shop's interiors, with a well-stocked wine library surrounding (on the side and above you) just a few small tables (great for intimate conversations like proposing a marriage). then the usual french sweets: macaroons, eclairs, croissants, among others. every time i go there, i would order chocolate croissants and cappuccino. what can i say? i am a creature of habit.
because of its limited tables, the french coffee shop also serves their food and drinks at the lobby of the rembrandt hotel. but it's not quite the same.
(i love the neatly stacked bottles of wines. they make me feel as though i am in a surreal dream, inside one of the paintings of salvador dali. no chos! or is it just the wine?)
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right across la vie parisienne......
lately, i have been dining at alex the third (this is an old restaurant by the way, already an institution, if i may say so) right across rembrandt hotel, because this is the favourite of rich patron who asked me to help promote a fledging boy band. the restaurant also serves all-time favourite filipino and spanish dishes such as chicken barbecue (so heavenly!), kare-kare, camaron rebosado (one of their best-tasting dish). they also have japanese food that i have yet to try.
the restaurant is quite spacious, so i don't feel constricted and suffocated. but it gets busy on weekends because it's a favourite place for family dinings.
also worth metioning are famous television star richard yap's wang fu chinese bistro along morato with its roomy interior and high-ceiling that serves delicious food, as well as cerchio, again for its lovely interiors and what else, food!
(aside from the food, i also like dining in places where the interiors are worthy of a piece on architectural digest or any respectable interior design magazines. i usually don't mind the prices as long as i am not paying. like in these cases, when rich patrons usually foot the bills. that's one of the upsides of being jobless for a long time. people who are usually tightfisted suddenly become generous. i don't mind, really, even if it's out of "pity" and not really coming from the "goodness of their hearts." haha)
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just when i thought i had seen all there is to see and taste in timorato, i had another pleasant surprise last night when another wealthy friend treated me to dinner at victorino's, owned by the politician husband of actress dina bonnevie. now, i usually avoid dining in places owned by celebrities (chefs, or otherwise) or associated with celebrities and movie stars. i am not being snobbish. i just don't!
but wealthy friend, who drove all the way to the city of the stars from manille while i dozed off at the passenger seat, was so persistent that i just have to say "oui!" without raising another eyebrow. he's paying, anyway. so there. if it was up to me, i'd rather dine at chowking along timog circle.
what caught my immediate attention was its interiors. it looks like an old, family house famous during the spanish occupation or what is popularly known as bahay na bato. with colourful tiles, wooden antique cabinets, sofas, chairs, tables, chests, baskets.
i love that when you open the door, a round center table full of plants and orchids will greet you, right below a chandelier. then right next to it are native bags, bed sheets, table runners, brooms, and other items from ilocos that you can take home at the right price.
the two-storey building is new, built, i think, just a few years ago. but it's styled like an old mansion that was famous during the spanish time. just like those still standing in vigan.
like an old house, it's airy, spacious, roomy, cool and refreshing. you won't be afraid that you might bump into someone else or knock out a table or a chair when you stand up and go to the toilet, which, by the way, is clean, smells nice, stocked with bathroom essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, soap. most importantly, there is water when you open the faucets. hahaha!
here are some photos of its interiors that really took my breath away. no kidding!
there are bags, trays, baskets, jars made of indigenous materials, bed sheets, table runners, place mats woven using abel iloco fabrics, and of course the fast disappearing mortar and pestle (i don't see them much in today's kitchens. we used to have one or two at home, at my mother's dirty kitchen (and my grandmother's before that), but when i went home a few years ago, they're all gone. sad!)
(please don't wonder why the place was nearly empty, except for us, because when we arrived there, the restaurant was already a few minutes closed. but since my rich friend is a regular customer, and there were only just the two of us, they graciously let us in. nearly an hour after, when we were already happily savouring and digesting our food, a famous actress came in with her mom and a manager. she was in tight jeans, shirt, well made-up and on the mobile phone talking with whoever. they were turned away. hahaha. i told my friend, my god, you are more powerful than that actress!)
on the way up, this is what will greet you, halfway through the second floor. nice no? i don't know whose butt, i mean bust is it, but i am betting he must be a famous ilocano. not that of former president and dictator marcos, i hope.
anther nice touch is this painting and right below it, a wooden chair styled in the spanish era on the side of the stairs.
upstairs, more tables and chairs. with shiny wooden floors.
there are rooms that can be closed for private events like a press conference (sorry, i am a reporter. so that's the first thing that always comes into mind whenever i think of private functions), or a birthday dinner, or any other special occasions among family and friends that require some or a little privacy.
i love the antique plates resting peacefully on wooden shelves and the wooden sala set (we used to have one when i was a kid. the sala set was made of banuyo wood, so each piece (chairs, coffee table, side tables) was so heavy, you need three muscled men to lift and move it every time you clean the living room. luckily, we used to live inside a military camp, so there were always men of all sizes and shapes that you could boss around. haha. but like all mysterious things from childhood, i don't know where they are now. the sala set, not the military men.)
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i fell in love with the well scrubbed, shiny wooden stairs that i can't resist asking the waiter -- who was busy clearing and cleaning up the second floor -- to please take my photo.
so dyaran!!! ang echoserang frogleta na pinagtaksilan ng tadhana!! cover your eyes please. hahaha
this is how the ground floor looks like upon descending the stairs.
the music, too, is ilocano. so the experience is complete. it's like going to ilocos minus the hassles of traveling and spending a lot.
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oh yes, i almost forget, the food.
since rich friend is a regular client and claims to be a friend of the chef (who resigned, by the way, days before we dined there last night), i let him order the food. while i busied myself taking photos.
since it was already past nine (traffic was that bad. it took us two hours to reach quezon city from manillle. by the way, in my book, manille is downtown, makati is uptown, ortigas is midtown and quezon city is out of town! areas outside of these towns are already out of the country!), and we were famished like prisoners who were not allowed to eat for three years, we decided to do away with the soup, salads and other starters and went straight to the main course.
so we had dinuguan, pinakbet and the naughty sounding dish -- puke puke (literally referring to a woman's sex organ. don't know why. uttered twice), which is an eggplant dish, by the way (so why didn't they call it using the filipino word for the men genetalia?).
the food, indeed, is tasty, to say the least. the dishes are all authentic ilocano, and they reminded me of my mother's (she is ilocano from tuguegarao, cagayan) cooking.
for dessert we had mango tart, recommended by the head waiter (it's our bestseller, his marketing pitch!), and brewed coffee.
at this point, my cheap camera had ran out of batteries. so no more photos. sorry. but the cake was ok (i am not a fan of sweets. in fact i didn't finish mine. i had it packed. it's still inside the fridge while i am writing this. if you want, you can come and finish it for me. then after that, i will devour you. hahahaha), and the coffee was divine!
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so now on those streets that start with "scouts."
actually, i love quezon city. as kids, we used to summer here and stay at our relatives' houses inside camps crame and aguinaldo, white plains, teacher's village (maginhawa street, if i am not mistaken; or was it magiting?) bf homes, fairview, and even in balara, near the up diliman campus. we had to move around because we were here for the entire summer and we didn't want to overstay our welcome with just one set of relative!
(we also came here during christmas to shop. but that's another story.)
we used to go to wildlife parks to "fish" on its man-made lake, bike around quezon memorial circle, shop for magnolia ice cream and chocolates (curly tops) at hi-tops supermarket along quezon avenue, ride the bump cars at ali mall, enjoy the christmas displays at c.o.d, shop for books and school supplies at national book store near rustan's in cubao or alemar's).
so going to quezon city, while arduous given today's torturous traffics, always brings out the wide-eyed child in me. (as if i had grown up since then. hahaha).
i also love the fact that some of its streets were named after the boy scouts who perished during a plane crash in the nineteen sixty's on the way to an international scouting event. all of them. so in their honour, the local government decided to call some streets after their names, that's why we have scout de guia, scout tuason, scout borromeo, and so on. so now you know!
that's all! sorry for this longish post. got carried away. have a lovely working week, fairies, bitches, witches, princesses, queens, pa-queens and wannabes!
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