No more PNY.

PNY means “Pwede na Yan.” It’s a term from the production and advertising industry that I learned about from a director friend. It means good enough, and strives for mediocre.

I feel that I have been saying PNY to many aspects of my life. I’m not getting any younger, and if I want to live a better life (I’m still figuring out what ‘better’ actually means), now’s a good time as any to start. I have a long list of things I want to change about myself, and if I made a list of them, I’d just be overwhelmed. So. One resolution, and that’s never to be satisfied with the mediocre in whatever I do, whether it be my life’s work, or doing nothing at all. Easier said than done, I know. But I’ll have 365 days to perfect it.

As 2011 comes to a close, I would like to wave goodbye to the year that was with the last meals I’ve had on some of my trips this year.

First is the puto and batchoy my friends and I ate while waiting for our plane at the Iloilo airport.

Batchoy at the Iloilo Airport

The Front, Iloilo Airport - Puto

Next is the lackluster coffee and Japanese cheesecake that tided me over while waiting for my flight to Manila in the Bacolod airport. Bacolod is normally one of the best places for food in the Philippines. This was not one of those times.

Bacolod Last Airport Meal

Last is the last meal I had before leaving Penang, Malayasia. I have no idea what it is, only that it was the best meal of the year. The lone restaurant beside the Penang Airport is basically a turo-turo (in Tagalog, it literally translates to point-point, refers to a cheap roadside restaurant where customers point to what they want) that lets customers assemble their own meals. Mine consisted of noodles, super hot curry something, and a fried egg, which I paired with milk tea. I still dream about this meal.

My best meal of the year.

Goodbye 2011!  You were quite interesting.

Glenn, the guy from the hostel who picked me up at the airport recommended Why Not, a Swiss restaurant that also served international dishes.

Why Not is located along the scenic Rizal Boulevard, with a beautiful view of the sea. They serve breakfast from 7 to 11am. Since I wasn’t in the mood for a Swiss, German or American breakfast, I ordered tapa, a Filipino favourite, knowing full well the irony of walking into a Swiss restaurant in the middle of a Filipino city and ordering a typical Filipino breakfast. At Php265, I also felt that the meal was overpriced, since you can get tapsilog for as low as Php50, depending where you eat. When the dish came, I had to eat my words.

The meat was more bistek than tapa, salty and savory, with an underlying sweetness. It had a flavour that was quite overwhelming on its own but paired with rice, was heavenly. Or maybe I was just hungry.

The breakfast meal came with coffee and fresh mango juice. The coffee was serviceable. The mango juice was actually a shake-thick and rich and not too sweet. Actually, I noticed that the shakes in Dumaguete tend not to be cloyingly sweet-something that most Manila fruit shakes should take a cue from.

And since it was on Rizal Boulevard, if you sat outside, you’d get this as a view:

All in all, an excellent way to spend the morning.

When I went to meet Dumaguete writer and good friend Ian Casocot, who was horrified that I had eaten brunch right before he was supposed to take me out to lunch.

He said that Why Not was geared more towards tourists than locals, and that it had excellent steak. Well, I’m more tourist than local, and I think that I should an another trip to Dumaguete soon to try the steak.

I have eaten in Breakthrough before. In fact, it is one of the few things I remember from my first trip to Iloilo city back in the 90s. I remember the native design, the availability of washing stations in the shape of clay pots with faucets near the bottom, and I remember the scallops, big and fat and juicy and forever spoiling me for other restaurant-served bivalves. I was pretty excited to be back.

Breakthrough didn’t fail in the food department. After making sure that we were to be charged according to the seafood we picked, plus labor for cooking, my friend set about ordering for all of us. We were a group of ten, so we were expecting to pay a lot. But seeing as this was Iloilo, where seafood was cheap and plentiful, and seeing that we had paid less than a thousand bucks the last time we were at a seafood grill, we didn’t expect it to be that expensive. We certainly didn’t expect to get charged prices that were higher than if we had eaten in Manila.

We had the baked scallops, of course. I wasn’t about to leave the restaurant without having those.

Breakthrough - Baked Scallops

And a tanigue steak, which I wasn’t too fond of because it was quite tough,

Breakthrough - Tangigue Steak

and kilawin, raw fish marinated in vinegar, coconut milk and chili, making the sauce a good combination of creamy and spicy and tart,

Breakthrough - Kinilaw

and grilled squid, this one almost as big as my arm.

Breakthrough - Grilled Squid

We also had sizzling crab, which was delicious, the herbs and margarine boosting the crab’s natural sweetness and adding another savory layer to the whole thing.

But wait! There’s more! We had baked talaba (oysters), sugpo (prawns) and a crab so big I broke out in a rash after eating it.

Breakthrough - Bakes Oysters

Breakthrough - Sugpo, two ways.

Breakthrough - Chili Crab

All of these were excellent. When the bill came, however, we were shocked to find out that we had been severely, blatantly overcharged. The amount they quoted us would have been enough for a decent meal for about five people in a  five star hotel. It cost as much as a good-sized fast food children’s party. When we asked for the breakdown, we were informed that we were charged per piece, not per kilo of seafood, and the charge for cooking labor was per piece or per kilo, not per dish as well. This means if we ordered a kilo of shrimp, we were charged for each piece, plus a cooking charge for each piece as well. For items like the crab, we were charged labor per kilo, as opposed to a flat rate for the whole crab.

What would have been a great meal became one that ended in anger and frustration. How could what is very well an institution blatantly overcharge customers, just because they don’t happen to live in the area? Do they think that just because they won’t be seeing these people again, it’s okay to steal their money? Do they think that said tourists won’t tell their friends? Did they think that cheating in the short term was going to bring them more business in the long run?

At first, we thought that maybe they really did raise their prices. At first, we figured maybe we didn’t ask the right questions, and that there was some sort of confusion when it came to communicating with the staff. But then our host returned the next month, this time accompanied by local relatives. Their group was a bit bigger than ours, and they ordered the same, if not more food than we did. Their bill came up to about half than ours. Later, our hosts American cousins told her that they experienced the same thing from the same restaurant earlier this year. That’s when we knew for sure that we had been overpriced, that Breakthrough’s management had blatantly inflated their computation. The food is good, but we are never going back there again.

Breakthrough
Why bother? They'll probably overcharge you anyway.

Our first course of action after touching down was to find something to eat, preferably fresh seafood, which the province is famous for. Our host directed us to Samurai Talabahan Seafood Talipapa, a large restaurant with a lot of customers, always a good sign. The restaurant’s interiors are a cross between native-inspired and carinderia-chic, the perfect ambiance for the type of food that they serve–no frills meat and seafood, the latter fat and freshly caught. We were ten people in the group. We were hungry. We ordered a lot.

First, most of us had mango shakes. Some of us would order another one during the course of the dinner. Iloilo and nearby Guimaras are known for their mangoes, which ar big and sweet and juicy and are said never to be found in the Philippines outside of their parent provinces because whatever leaves Iloilo and Guimaras are exported to other countries. The shakes cost Php30 a glass, and though the glass was small, the shakes were sweet and thick and creamy, leading some of us (me included) to order more than one over the course of dinner.

Mmmmango shake!

Other things that we ordered include the calamares (Php100), large squid rings fried in thick batter. Sorry about the blurry picture. My hands were trembling from hunger and from the excitement of seeing our first plate of food since leaving Manila.

Samurai Calamares and in the background, okra.

We also had baked talaba (oysters — Php75) and baked scallops (Php85), both plates filled with fat, juicy specimens covered with cheese and garlic and dripping margarine.

Samurai Baked Talaba

The only thing I remembered from my last trip to Iloilo was the scallops, which I remembered were the best I had ever tasted. I was glad to find that my memory wasn’t romanticizing the memory. Ilolilo really does have some of the best scallops you will ever taste in this country.

We also had to try the kinilaw, raw fish marinated in vinegar with ginger, onions and chili peppers. The kinilaw as quite good, the fish just about to cook in the vinegar, raw and soft and coated with a tangy sheen of sauce.

Samurai - Kinilaw

To balance the seafood, we had crispy pata and  lechon kawali. The crispy pata (Php295/365 for M/L) was crispy on the outside, the skin cracked like a golden shell. Its insides were soft and juicy, easily torn apart by fingers. I had a lot of it with the accompanying sauce and a lot of garlic rice.

Samurai Crispy Pata

Samurai Garlic Rice

The lechon kawali‘s (Php100) meat was tough, as lechon kawali is wont to be, with a large amount of crispy skin, and a considerable layer of fat between both.

Samurai Lechon Kawali

We capped the meal with halo halo, which I think costs around the same as the mango shake. It’s good, as far as halo-halo goes, and was the perfect way to end an already satisfying meal.

Samurai Halo Halo

At the end of it all, we paid less than a thousand pesos, a very good deal considering we ordered two, sometimes three of each dish. Delicious food, excellent prices. I think this was hands down our favorite restaurant during that visit to Iloilo City.

Samurai Talabahan
B. Aquino Ave.,
Diversion Road
Mandurriao, Iloilo City
+63 33 508-7230

My mother is the overprotective type, so when she found out that I was going to a city I had never been to by myself (I booked my flight before telling her so that she couldn’t say no), she immediately searched her contacts for anyone based there. She found someone: a family friend who was based in one of the universities there, and she texted him about my whereabouts before telling me about it (Now  know who I learned that tactic from!). Since he was a good friend who I hadn’t seen in ages, I was more than glad to meet up with him.

He had been in Bacolod for three years, and it was clear how much he loved his adopted city. He spoke Ilonggo fluently, to the point that when he did speak Tagalog, it was with a strong Ilonggo accent. He was the one who told me that “everything in Bacolod is five minutes away,” and that in Bacolod, you will never lack for good food, or good parties. He also took me to Felicia’s Pastry Cafe, a cute little place that serves cute little pastries. I don’t remember the exact names of the pastries that we ordered. Suffice it to say that we had a mini chocolate mousse, a giant mint macaron, a mini apple pie, a mini cheesecake, and for me, a cup of coffee.

Felicia's Chocolate Mousse

My favorite was the chocolate mousse. I think I fell silent after I put the first spoonful in my mouth. It was velvety, the layers of different textured and different intensities of chocolate blending into an explosion of cocoa and sweetness. It took great willpower not to snatch the whole cake away from the table and eat it myself.

Felicia's Chocolate Mousse Cross Section

I don’t remember anything about the cheesecake except that it was good, as was the apple pie. I think everything just faded into the background after that mousse.

Felicia Cheesecake

Felicia's Apple Pie

What I do remember though is the mint macaron. First of all, it was huge and green, flavored with enough mint so that it cut through the richness brought about by the other pastries. In Tagalog, nakakawala ng umay.

Felicia Mint Macaron

The pastries were a delight to eat with the coffee, which further helped cut through their richness. I think I ended up eating most of our afternoon snack.

Felicia's Brewed Coffee

My friend insisted on paying, saying that it’s only in Bacolod that he can afford to be this generous, as Bacolod has city food at provincial prices. Our total bill came up to less than Php350.

As we walked out, I noticed that the restaurant had an extension, and that on top of the door leading into the extension was the word “steak.” My friend explained that Felicia’s had just opened a steak room a few days ago. Reason, I think, for me to visit the restaurant again, though with a mousse like that, I don’t think I’ll need much persuading.

Felicia's Pastry Cafe and Steak Room
6th Lacson Street
DOLL Building
Bacolod City
+63 034 433-6586

And it did.

The problem with visiting Bacolod is that you can’t watch your waistline. It’s as if the City has declared a war on diets, with delicious, hearty food available in many places in the city, regardless of cuisine or price range. And Bacolod being sugar country, it is fitting that one of the best things about it are its desserts.

One of the first thing I did after arriving in Bacolod was look for Calea, which everyone–as in everyone–says makes the best cakes in the city. It’s not hard to find, being smack dab in the middle of Lacson Street across L’Fisher Hotel. The place is always full, as in a bustling kind of full, with people lining up, ordering and eating at all times of the day. It was full when I got there, around 9pm on a Friday.

The ordering procedure may be confusing at first glance. This is what you do. After securing a table, or if you are alone, asking a kind waitress to secure one for you, gather everyone’s orders and have a representative walk up to the cake display area. The cake display area is an impressive glass case filled with the most gorgeous confections this side of Negros, all of them oversized, all of them larger than life. You can get diabetes just by staring too long at it.

Once you have joined the line by the counter, a lady will come by to take your order. After that, you can sit down and wait for your cakes to come. I ordered an Espresso Cheesecake and a cup of coffee. The cake, when it arrived, was huge and dense, with just the right ratio of coffee flavor to cheese tartness.  It was great with black coffee.

Calea Espresso Cheesecake

The coffee was lovely. Smooth and smokey, with a hint of bitterness, just the thing to combat the ultra-sweetness of the cake.

Calea Brewed Coffee

Bacolod, as I have learned from the people who live there, is a city that prides itself on being larger than life. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. This applies to food, and it seems, especially to sweet things.

I didn’t get to visit Calea again during that trip. The thought of eating that much cake again daunted me, though it was one of the best I’ve ever had, and was well-priced, too, the whole thing costing me less than Php200, if I remember correctly. I do plan to visit again, and again, and again, until I have tried every cake in their inventory, provided I don’t get diabetes first.

Calea
Lourdes - C Bldg. Lacson St.
Bacolod City, Negros Occidental
Philippines
+63 34 433-8664

I don’t know Manokan Country’s exact address. I don’t know the contact numbers of any of the inasal establishments that comprise it. My friend and I found it by getting into a cab and telling the driver where we were headed.

The common saying is that “Everything in Bacolod is five minutes away.” The city is small, and almost everyone knows where any place you are looking for is. True enough, it took about five minutes to get from the hotel to Manukan Country. On the way, we asked the driver which restaurant he thought was best. He gave us two answers: Aida’s and Nena’s, though he said that he preferred Aida’s. So that’s where we went.

Aida’s actually has a Manila branch located in Makati Cinema Square. People who have eaten there will tell you that it is one of–if not the–best chicken inasal places in Metro Manila. We knew this, but wanted to try the original branch anyway. My friend and I ordered the same thing: one paa (thigh, as opposed to the more popular pecho) and regular Coke each, and one rice to share between us. When the orders arrived, we proceeded to eat with our hands.

Aida's Chicken Inasal and Rice

One of the best parts about eating chicken inasal, I believe, is eating it with your hands. You tear the chicken apart with your fingers, dip it in sauce which you have prepared yourself which may or may not be composed of sili (bird’s eye chili), calamansi, vinegar and soy sauce.

Paa (thigh) from Aida's Chicken Inasal

The chicken is eaten with rice, pinched with the dominant hand from the steaming mound topped with garlic and covered in chicken oil from the bottle found on the table. The chicken is soft, laced with a smokey, buttery flavor. There is great pride taken in the inasal marinade, with each restaurant, or family, adding their own spin to the basic recipe. I have been told that the best ones contain a certain brand of margarine.

Rice from Aida's--right before it gets drowned in chicken oil.

There is plain soup, as much as you want, to accompany the meal and warm the stomach, or if you are so inclined, to wet the rice. I also believe that the drink that goes best with chicken inasal–with almost any Filipino rice dish, actually–is regular Coke. Not Coke Light, not Coke Zero, not Sprite, not Royal, not Pepsi. Regular Coke. And no, I’m not a brand endorser (though my email address is on the website, just in case the good people from Coca Cola wish to remedy this), I just really think that it goes well with Filipino food.

The meal is finished when the chicken is picked clean, the bones almost gleaming; when there isn’t a morsel of rice left, the last grain licked off the side of your hand. There are ample washing stations equipped with strong, flowing water and enough soap to wash away the oil and grease from your hands, but not enough to wash away the faint smell of smoke and chicken, the souvenir that you take home, one that washes slowly away as the day or night goes on.

Different people have different tastes, but if you were to draw a Venn diagram of all the restaurants suggested, you will find a select few in the middle, where all opinions intersect. One of those restaurants will be 21 Restaurant, or simply, 21. And if you were to ask the same people to recommend dishes to try in 21 and drew a Venn diagram of that, the middle will contain bachoy and off to the side, fresh lumpia.

I was in Bacolod for a few days, not enough time to try all of the restaurants on my list, which was very long and took up quite a bit of luggage space–so much so that the airline requested that I check it in–but seeing as 21 was in the middle of my Venn diargam, I had to try it.

It’s easy to get to, being located along Lacson St., the City’s main thoroughfare. It isn’t a snack house anymore, but a sophisticated dining establishment filled with well-dressed diners who spoke in low tones. The menu was impressive, serving local, Asian and Western cuisine. My eyes lingered on the Thai Tilapia, then on the Tenderloin Steak. But I held my ground and ordered what I had specifically come here to order; the dish that made 21 famous: 21′s Original Batchoy.

21's Original Batchoy - One of the best you will ever have.

The Batchoy was served warm, the egg freshly cracked into the hot broth, broken white swaying like seaweed. The broth is a combination of hearty and sweet, but sweet in a way that only pork can be. The broth somehow complemented the noodles, the broth’s meaty sweetness and the noodles’ salty, faintly iron taste morphing into something different. Something that went beyond your regular batchoy. I understood how such a simple dish could turn a snack house into a snazzy restaurant. Here it is again, in close up:

Lookit that sweet, meaty goodness!

I also had the Fresh Lumpia, spring roll wrapper covering a mix of julienned heart of palm and bits of pork, garlic and spring onion and mixed with a creamy sauce. In other words, lumpiang ubod.

21 Restaurant's Fresh Lumpia

The lumpia is sold per piece, and is tiny, but excellent. It doesn’t taste like the lumpiang ubod that I am used to, which can be heavy, especially when eaten with sauce (and I tend to eat it with a lot of sauce). The lumpia is light, in a refreshing sort of way, its tiny size filling in the bits of hunger the batchoy didn’t cover, leaving me satisfied, but not overly full.

21 is a must-visit when in Bacolod City. I know I’m going back the next time I visit, though I don’t know if I can keep from ordering the same thing again.

21 Restaurant
21st Lacson St.,
Bacolod City, Negros Occidental

+63 34 4334096
+63 34 4353852

We started with Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Seafood (PhP488), the pumpkin underscored with a slight smokey flavor and the chopped fresh seafood at the bottom of the bowl a wonderful break in terms of flavor and texture. Honestly, before trying the dish, i wasn’t sure how pumpkin + seafood would work, but I’m glad that it did.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Seafood

We also had the Roast Duck “Hong Kong” Style, which, at PhP558, was pretty reasonable, as far as roast duck goes. This duck, by the way, was hailed #1 of Spot.Ph’s Top 10 Roast Duck in Manila(coincidentally, by one of the friends I was having dinner with). I have to say that it deserves its post, having slightly crisp skin and large chunks of soft meat, separated by a thin sliver of beautiful, tasty fat. Don’t balk, the flavor is in the fat, and what self-respecting duck wouldn’t have a good layer of it? Behold:

Roast Duck

We also has Slow-cooked Spare Ribs “Wuxi” Style (PhP398), which I didn’t eat but which everyone raved about. I’m posting a photo of it anyway, just in case you’re interested.

Slow-cooked Spare Ribs "Wuxi" Style

The ribs were eaten with Fried Rice “Yeung Chow” Style (PhP398)…

Fried Rice "Yeung Chow" Style

…which we also paired with Braised Assorted Fungus and Vegetables with Bamboo Pith (PhP400). I love this dish, the vegetables, er, fungi, er, grass (bamboo is a grass) crisp and refreshing. A good variation on an otherwise generic dish.

Braised Assorted Fungus and Vegetables with Bamboo Pith

For dessert, we had Glutinous Dumpling stuffed with White Chocolate and Tossed with Fine Peanut (PhP138), which tastes more awesome than it sounds (and it does sound quite awesome). In short, masachi stuffed with white chocolate. 

Glutinous Dumpling stuffed with White Chocolate and Tossed with Fine Peanut

The dessert is served warm, the chocolate inside still gooey, the taste of white chocolate enhanced by the peanuts and the dough which at the same time makes it less sweet. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:

Cross Section of gooey goodness

My favorite would have to be the Chilled Mango Pudding (PhP138), not only because I am a sucker for mango pudding, but also because I am a sucker for desserts that are assembled in front of you. I asked for both milk and fruit puree on top of mine. After pouring a generous amount of both, the dessert was topped with fresh dived mangoes and a sesame cookie.

Mango Pudding: Before

Mango pudding assembled to your taste right before your eyes!

Mango Pudding: After

Lili is a good place to have Cantonese cuisine that can either be traditional or modern, depending on your mood or taste. Whatever your preferences, It is sure to  be accommodated. Now where’s that other bowl of mango pudding?

Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila

1588 Pedro Gil cor M.H. del Pilar Sts.

Malate, Manila

Tel: +63 2 245 1234    

Fax: +63 2 247 1234