rice cake confessional

Today’s post is a little bit about food and a lot about being Filipino.

The picture above was breakfast in my godparents’ bahay kubo this past weekend. This time around it was tinapang galunggong (smoked mackeral scad) and talong (eggplant, in this case boiled) served with a dipping sauce of toyo (soy sauce) and kalamansi (Filipino lime). Delicious. 

If you’re Filipino, a morning in a creaky bamboo house on stilts with a light breeze and a full belly is as content as you’ll ever get. 

If you’re Filipino, sometimes it really does taste better when you eat with your hands. 

If you’re Filipino, you have a high forgiveness threshold so even though Philippine Airlines treats you like crap you’ll ride them again anyway. (This time around though they won’t disappoint you. In fact, they’ll be really pleasant and terrific.)

If you’re Filipino, “labs” does not conjure pictures of chemistry sets. It makes you think of cheesy romantic comedies and lots of pink hearts.

If you’re Filipino, when you’re uncle passes you’ll sit outside the house where his remains wait for their final place and greet and feed the guests that pay their final respects. You’ll do this for however long it takes with whatever you time you have – 2 day, 3 days, 7 days, 40 days. You’ll cry a little but watch your cousins’ many kids run around playing the games you used to play and understand that tradition and family goes on. 

If you’re Filipino, you’re celebrating a little bit at the passing of the Stimulus Bill. On a few little lines, a 63 year old effort has finally been realized. Although imperfect, those lines finally give some justice to the Filipino veterans who served the United States during World War II. These men are 80-90 years old now and their numbers have dwindled from the original 400,000+ Filipinos who fought alongside Americans. Regardless, it brought smiles (and ok, a few tears) to learn that the JFAV (Justice for Filipino American Veterans) provision finally made it. 

This post is dedicated to my Amang Ponso who also served with the Americans, my Uncle Lito who had a phatty bahay kubo, and my Uncle Romy who I paid my last respects to this past weekend in Baliuag.  

More food pics and lighter fare to come… Thanks for indulging me in non-food ramblings.

Like the box? I think it’s pretty snazzy.

There are no less than 3 Phan Viet Deli’s between the office and Baguette. The last time Sarah and I went to Baguette Kevin and Joao came with. The story ends with Joao and Kevin being so immersed in conversation that they never make it to Baguette, lose us completely, and eat at Phan Viet instead. They gave it 2 thumbs up last time so I figured I’d give it a try myself.

The verdict? Not as good as Baguette but a decent alternative. The bread is soft but not freshly baked or toasted. The veggies are crisp but could have used more cilantro and pickled carrots – a poor supply of those means that the sandwich is teetering dangerously into not-Vietnamese territory. This isn’t a direct comparison since this is beef and the one I have at Baguette is chicken but the filling here is not well flavored. Again, not bad just not great. 

You know what is great though? Their spring rolls. Fresh veggies and bright shrimp, soft slightly sticky wrapper, and, the best part, not hopped up on mint to within an inch of it’s life. Even the fish sauce is better here. The spill is courtesy of Kitty who tipped the box over to get a peek. 

I’m gonna give the other fillings a try too but I would definitely go again. 

Phan Viet Deli: 112 Robinson Road #01-03 HB Robinson, Singapore

Dempsey House is right next to Tippling Club in the most annoying place in Singapore – Dempsey Hill. Sigh. Okay I’m exaggerating but oh how I enjoy the eateries up in this area but hate how hard it is to get to/from. If you’re wondering, yes, I plan on whining about that in every post made in reference to this area.

Anyway back to the story. Jay and I went to House to decompress after slogging through a crazy work week. It was supposed to be a gank-load (read: lots) of people going but that didn’t work out. We started our journey to Dempsey at 6:29pm because I threatened Jay’s life if I was still in the office at 6:31pm. When we arrived we saw MakatiJosh again who was diligently manning his post at the head of the stairs to the two restaurants. He remembered us! Lovely!

I like how House is decorated. Mismatched tables and chairs, wires hanging from the ceiling, different themed private rooms where you can book dinner parties (one of the rooms is a Kubrick room). The front of the House is the restaurant area (pictured above), followed by a hallway of the private rooms, and then a bar/lounge area in the back. For the multitaskers in the House there’s also a spa/massage place upstairs. Random.

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Blah. I’m a bit angry at the blog right now. I found out I can’t install Analytics on the darn thing and it has me feeling a bit like I want to give it the cold shoulder.  On the other hand, the food pictures are starting to pile up and the backlog needs some attention. I suppose that wins this time around. Although, this doesn’t mean I forgive you WordPress [insert a picture of me with my lips pursed and looking irritated].

I went to Bangkok last week for a few days for work. (I know, I’m such a jet setter. Not.) Our first meal in Bangkok was lunch at Terrace 61. I have no friggin’ clue where T61 is. It’s pretty far from the city center though as we were on the outskirts of Bangkok for the meeting we had pre-lunch. The Thai ladies did all of the ordering, obviously.

Dish 1 was the requisite tom yum.

It was mighty spicy and mighty red. It was good as tom yums go but I gotta admit that I’m a bit tired of tom yum and would not mind a Thai meal that was tom yum-less.

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