Chinese foot spa

Do you fancy trying the Chinese foot spa?

In most of Manila’s little beauty parlors (it has an overabundance of them, even the barangays deemed most in need of rice has at least three), the Chinese foot spa is one of the newest offerings heavily advertised on their shop windows. Swedish hot baths, Thai massages and French manicures are classic hits in the parlor scene; thinking that anything foreign defining a service is always going to pick up good, gay parlor owners have introduced the Chinese foot spa.

I don’t know what makes the Chinese foot spa different, and I don’t intend to try. To me, the “Chinese” in the foot spa makes it a little bit icky, even scary. Will they rub my feet with salt and tausi sauce? Will they crush star anise against my soles and soak them in Lee Kum Kee? Horrors, will they further kill the skin that make up my bullions and corns with formalin? Or worse, will they bind my size-ten feet in metal?

Pandolino committed the same mistake. To name its packed pieces of sweet bread, Pandolino just changed the first letter of a school-shoe brand and plastered the new, inventive mark on its food product. Do many buy Pandolino? Certainly not, because even when customers haven’t tried these yet they are sure that the breads would taste like boots.

How to Spot Pinoys in International Airports

I believe nothing can be more interesting than taking the flight back home to Manila. It’s not so hard to identify a Filipino among passengers weaving through Zaventem, Schipol, Heathrow or any other airport abroad. If a Pinoy sees somebody who looks Southeast Asian, he’d flash the latter a smile. If the latter smiles back, the Pinoy would ask, “Pare, saan ka?” Pinoys always find home in other Pinoys.

At the terminals assigned to flights bound to Paris, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, etc., it was usually quiet. Waiting passengers usually read, e-mailed on their mobile phones or laptops, or just sat still. When I reached the terminal for the flight bound to Manila, I felt that there was only sun and dust outside and no snow. Was I home already? (click on link to my travel blog to read more)

http://hapit-trip.blogspot.com/

Camote and the Rice Crisis

I bring packed lunch of sandwiches to work but with the rice crisis, I decided to put the wheat bread on hold. I may not be a heavy rice eater but I’m trying to include rice in all my meals now. At least, when the time comes that rice will already be boxed like breakfast cereals, and no longer a staple but a luxury, I can say, it’s okay, I’m past my rice phase. Marami na akong kinaing (nakaing?) bigas.

Boxed Rice like Kellogs
But really, should boxed rice happen, even the soggiest rice gruel could be at the mercy of a Michelin-rated chef and fed only to the richest of foodies. During this time, while the rich nibble the grains out of the rice husks (milling would also be very expensive), what then would our—the common tao’s—staple be?

Camote on Kalalaw?!!!
It would be very sad to stock the kitchen with camote. The kalalaw would have no use anymore but as a tray for more camote. I’m not quite ready yet to eat camote three times a day. Beyond starch, it doesn’t have a wee bit of a resemblance with rice! Not in its shape, size, taste, color, texture, or personality. Rice can be valenciana, paella, pilaf, morisquetta, risotto, jambalaya, yang chao. Even burnt rice tastes good. But camote? The best that camote can be is boiled and then buttered! Not even the camote cue is fun enough to eat. Street food vendors are just too kind, sympathetic and innovative to slice up the sugared bulky root crop julienne so that they’d look daintier, sweeter, more inviting. But please, camote is nothing more but something you go home to for planting when you don’t make any sense!

the world-class piaya is home

Walking around masa Manila, I have never found sugar-coated peanuts anywhere. I asked friends if these are available and peddled in the streets here, too. As far as I have asked, no one has seen anything like these. So only Bacolod has sugar-coated peanuts?

Oh how can I forget? Everything in Bacolod has sugar. Even the chicken inasal has at least a spoonful. =)

Five slurps better
But the best thing that has happened in Bacolod street food is piaya made on the spot along La Salle Avenue. It was clever of this Manong to reintroduce the piaya as a habit after classes, a culture on its own, and not just as ready pasalubong a Bacoleño mindlessly grabs off the shelves. Manong’s piayas too, taste five slurps better than those packed. They are always worth the wait.


The wait, even, is an experience on its own, as it shows you how this Bacoleño delicacy is made: Manong molds the dough mixture into small thick round mounds the size of the Eng Bee Tin hopia. On top of each mound he plops a generous scoop of haleyang ube (candied purple yam paste—churvah!). Then Manong gathers the edges together to enclose the ube, and he’d knead it into a flat disc which he would steam with a little oil.

crepes+pita+creme brulee
The result is a hot treat that marries worlds of mouth-watering epicurean elements. The piaya is thin and round like crepes; it is white and slightly charred light brown on the edges like pita; on its surface are irregular eruptions of craters as in the crème brulee; and biting into a piece, it is flaky and light as croissants. The ube filling, then, is the sweet, slightly chunky paste that drives you back home to sugarcane fields and sing-song tête-à-têtes.

Before, the piaya wasn’t something we, Bacoleños snacked on as much as we sent it to Manila and elsewhere. Thanks to Manong along La Salle Avenue, the piaya is home once more.

the maynila street food philosophy

Fry anything, everybody’s eating it. This is the philosophy behind street food that has been successful since post World War Manila. If they don’t, they perish and evaporate into merely just a memory. Sadly, the tongue has no initiative to recall flavors unaided.

Balut is said to be the King of Pinoy street food. But if you look around, a lot of streets have other snackables enthroned and not the balut. Penoy is arguably the new King of Pinoy street food. It has transformed from being a poor, bland second to an orange ball of deep-fried goodness called “Kwek-kwek.”

Following the success of the Penoy’s new image, every forgettable thing has been dressed and dunked in batter, and deep-fried. Quail’s eggs which used to be packed in tubes of ice candy wrappers are now shelled and made into baby kwek-kweks.

Grilled isaw is passé as these skewered chicken intestines are now also coated in batter and browned in vats of hot, frying oil. Classic pulutan favorites like chicken skin and calamares, too, have invaded the realm outside bars and beer places, this time, cheaper to survive the street food cartel. They are served in plastic cups with vinegar.

There is character in street food that dot pedestrian Manila despite the hazards that deep-frying poses to health. But oh well, who says you’re eating it everyday? If you want these street food to stay, have them fried and they’ll sell like hotcak--no--kwek kweks.

one day in the office at five o' clock, i was planning to finish required reading so i would have lesser to work on the next day.

my boss said, "are you sure you're bringing work at home?"

caught between making an impression as a new employee and risking misinterpretation if i would answer in the negative, i said, "uhhhh..."

discouraging me, my boss then went on telling about her friend. once at their office, the boss of this friend asked to finish her work at home, to which came the friend's winning rebuttal:

"Do you expect me to bring my laundry here?"

The Pope's red shoes

When the dailies flashed on front page the photo of Pope Benedict XVI's US visit this week, the first I noticed were the reddish-brown papal shoes. These gave a stark contrast to his white/cream habit. It also looked like he was wearing cream thermals instead of pants, so you wouldn't miss the shoes. They were that conspicuous. Seeing the photo that morning made my day at seven thirty a.m. at that.

The Papal Cobbler's business picking up

This morning, I passed by the newsstand and found on page one a closeup of the red papal shoes! It's amusing to hear that there's talk going around about it (well it somehow deserves to , unlike Hillary Clinton's cleavage a year ago, which was nothing much really). Some even speculated that the shoes were a Prada, but they were after all a tradition brought back, custom-made by the Pope's cobbler.

The cobbler, who knows, these days, this cobbler may no longer be an anonymous chap cutting leather. The shoes look like the stuff that frequents GQ recommends, and worn only by the most illustrious businessmen yachting in Monaco. This papal cobbler must be Italian, no doubt.

The shoes redefining the Pope

Donned by the Pope, I thought this was quite a secular sign which is more interesting than eyebrow-raising.

Especially in the early stages of his papacy, Pope Benedict has been regarded with skeptical eyes, being known as a stern cardinal, a German with the hostility of a Nazi threaded into his personal history. Inevitable, too, are the comparisons with his successor Pope John Paul II, amiable, sanguine as he was a thespian, and well-loved in the world over with his humor.

But for the first time, I see Pope Benedict as an endearing old grandpere, arms outstretched to scoop you in, and feet walking towards you excitedly in glistening red shoes.

I have limited resources and even fewer encounters with Pope Benedict's writings, but I am always as interested to read them. My reasons may be far from religious, but I have admiration for the intelligence of this man. From reading his teachings, I find him meek and submitting, as he is stern, and with a mind that's open and embracing, as he is rigidly Catholic.

Religious tradition or a possibly infallible addition to today's wardrobe, the red papal shoes may be a signal that we are on the cusp of redefining, and little by little, accepting Papa Ben.

payatas today

today i went to payatas. it was very surprising to see how even the kids' eyes glimmer at the sight of trash.

they don't look so austere, mind you. low-income, that's all. i'm sorry if i can't be politically correct, but... scavenging seems to be an inseparable part of their system. the very thing that killed their kin a few years back is the same thing that allows them what they could afford of a decent life.