on films, books, food, restaurants, favorite haunts in Metro Manila (and now, Philadelphia)...
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| rants and raves on films, books, food, restaurants, favorite haunts in Metro Manila (and now, Philadelphia)... |
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Monday, March 31, 2003 RESTAURANT RAVE Davao Tuna-to-Go Last night I wanted to try something new, but cheap and I remembered that the Inquirer featured this not-so-new fish place called Davao Tuna-to-Go last Thursday. We went to the Boni Serrano branch, but they have branches pretty much all over the place. It was a pleasant surprise to see that the restaurant was air-conditioned with very clean interiors (and a John Mayer CD on perennial repeat mode playing). Ventilation was a bit of a problem though, because we smelled like a grill by the time we were done. We started with tuna kinilaw (P80) which was delicious, raw pieces of sashimi grade tuna with onions and other crunchy veggies seasoned with kalamansi. That was followed by a plate of piping hot tuna sisig topped with a raw egg (P150). Of course sisig is supposed to be bits of unidentifiable meat, but I really couldn’t believe everything was made from tuna because it didn’t have a fishy taste. We also ordered a 300g crispy buntot (P40/100g) which was sinfully deep fat fried, the skin tasted just like crispy pata skin, albeit slightly healthier. And finally we finished with a huge half kilo piece of grilled tuna belly (a bargain at P225). We washed everything down with a can of kalamansi soda (P25) and bottomless Roots Topical Zinger (P40), juice made from brown sugar, Philippine lemon and some super secret nutritious veggies. We ordered too much, as usual. We were only two, but we ordered enough for four people, and ended up taking a lot of food home. Other items on the menu: tuna bbq (P99/3pcs), tuna sashimi (P120/100g), tuna panga (P175-P315), tuna belly (P225-P405). Good food, great prices, pleasant service … enough to warrant a return visit for me. Davao Tuna-to-Go has several branches:
posted by wys | 4:26 PM 0 comments Sunday, March 30, 2003 RESTAURANT RAVE Carpaccio For my brother’s high school graduation today he didn’t really care where we had a celebratory lunch, as long as it was new, Italian, and had risotto on the menu. Being the resident foodie, no one else cared to make any recommendations so I just suggested Carpaccio, a moderately priced restaurant along Yakal St. (landmark: Makati Fire Station) owned by the same group that runs Santis Deli. I started with a tomato, basil and buffalo mozzarella salad seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper. Something I could have whipped up for myself in a heartbeat at home, but I appreciated the freshness of all the ingredients. I had spaghettini vongole (with clams and tomato sauce) which was pretty good, although the clams were served without shells so I suspect they may have come from a can. I finished with panna cota, topped with vanilla bean and served with fruits and a raspberry sauce. It was obvious they added gelatin to the mixture because it wasn’t to-die-for creamy, but it was still pretty good. It’s not a particularly fancy restaurant, no table cloths or cloth napkins here. Ambiance is nice, they have these colorful painted murals that are supposed to look like Italian streetside cafes. For a place with dishes priced between P200-500, it’s a generally enjoyable dining experience. I might go back, Saturday lunch has an Antipasto Buffet with all the olives, sundried tomatoes, lettuce, artichokes, cheese, carpaccio, cold cuts and so on you could want. Served with your choice of pasta with tomatoes or fish fillet, and a glass of white or red wine, the whole package goes for P490. Service was prompt all throughout, although my mum got miffed toward the end because it took some time to settle our bill. Carpaccio Ristorante Italiano is located at 7431 Yakal St., Makati City, and can be reached at 843.7286. posted by wys | 12:09 AM 0 comments Friday, March 28, 2003 On the menu tonight: · roasted white snapper with lemon and thyme · lapu-lapu fillets with white wine, basil and tomatoes · awful spiral macaroni from San Remo (I hate this brand) with putanesca sauce · mango torte (I didn’t make this, but mum says it’s easy so I’ll give it a try) · 2001 Hardys Shiraz Cabernet (from my December Hong Kong trip) Fishy Fridays during Lent mean no meat of any kind. Theory is, it’s a sacrifice to abstain from meat. But if I go out of my way to cook something special (and presumably nummy yummy), albeit seafood only, how much of a sacrifice is that for the diners of my house? posted by wys | 10:55 PM 0 comments Thursday, March 27, 2003 What is up with Filipinos and their messed up sense of time? It’s a vicious cycle of trying to second guess everyone else who, in our minds, probably aren’t going to be on time themselves anyway. I’m just a little moody because whenever I have a dinner party I tell people what time I want them to be there and I really plan my cooking so that all my dishes will be ready by the time I set. And of course an hour passes by before I get everyone to sit down for dinner and while food is still good (I like to pretend to myself that my cooking is always excellent) it’s not optimally hot-off-the-grill or straight-from-the-oven anymore. The last time I even resorted to specifically asking people to “please be on time.” I should learn to be more flexible. In the rest of the real world (outside the encapsulated bubble of my cooking, my tv shows, my life), Philippine time is pretty messed up as well. Masses never start on time, aerobics classes are always late, the malls never seem to open by 10am, and this last semester I had a professor that would without fail arrive 30 minutes after the supposed start of class. I suppose I myself am late when I know I can get away with it. And like I said, it’s the “no one else is going to be there anyway and I sure as hell don’t want to have to wait” mentality that is killing us all. What’s your excuse? posted by wys | 6:01 PM 0 comments Wednesday, March 26, 2003 Made for TV and straight-to video movies are the best way to spend one’s time when you have a lot of it to spare. Recent views: · The Diamond Hunters with a really cute Sean Patrick Flannery and Alyssa Milano. Lousy ending, but I like the soap operatic semi-incestuous angle they had going. · Some based on true events film with Angie Harmon about a couple that was visually raped by a perverse neighbor that secretly videotaped their bedroom and bathroom. Apparently, there are no US laws protecting people in cases like this. Only on television. · A feeling Serendipity film with David Hasselhoff about a couple that knew each other as children and who start reconsidering their own marriages to other people. In the end they adopt the meddling orphaned kid that pushed them together. Awww. · Flashfire with Billy Zane (who I’ve found a renewed interest in because of his hilarious recurring role in Boston Public). I only saw the tail end, but who needs to see these movies in their entirety anyway? · It Had to Be You with Alias cutie Michael Vartan and an ugly-ish Natasha Henstridge. I actually think this is a big studio release but no one’s ever heard of it so it might as well have been a straight to TV release. Man and woman meet as they are planning their own weddings, and fall for each other, blah blah. · The Battle of Mary Kay, now this is a made for TV flick but a really good one with 2003 Golden Globe nominated performances by Shirley Maclaine and Parker Posey. This is a really funny look into the psychotic world of the door-to-door cosmetic sales industry. Parker Posey is always hilarious as the uber bitch of any film. · The Disappearance of Christina with John Stamos. I think there was another John Stamos film on cable at the same time. A friend asked me: Is that legal? · This film where Kelli Martin is some goody goody dork that murders uber popular bitch Tori Spelling. Very weird, terrible pacing, too bad I missed the ending. And as a general rule, I would watch anything with Tori Spelling, Jenny Garth, Dean Cain, Judd Nelson, Tracey Gold … pretty much anyone that the hit TV series of the late 80s and early 90s spat out. What are your favorite made-for-TV movies? posted by wys | 8:55 PM 0 comments My 11-going-on-12 year old sister had a mini birthday celebration with her classmates from school last Saturday. She was going to treat them out to lunch at awful Don Henricos, games at Timezone, and swimming in the village clubhouse. She only invited 11 out of her 14 classmates so there were three poor girls feeling left out. On the last day of classes before school let out, one of the three outsiders gave my sister a birthday present, which she incidentally liked. But my sis and her friends started speculating that Ms. Outsider only gave her a present so that she would be invited to her birthday celebration, not an altogether farfetched suspicion. When my family heard about it my sibs and I were all lecturing my sister about how she should have been the bigger person and just invited Ms. Outsider (even if the invite was consuelo de bobo), she should do the Christian thing, blah blah. My other brother had the brilliant idea of returning the present. In any case I can only say—fifth grade cliquey girls can be so mean. posted by wys | 6:37 AM 0 comments Monday, March 24, 2003 As was expected, the RPN 9 telecast of the 75th Academy Awards stretched out into this 5-hour long monster. Ridiculous really. I tried to watch a little bit of the awards in the morning from 10 to 11 or so but I got tired of the million and one commercial breaks and decided to leave the house. When I got back at 2 it was just wrapping up. I know tv commercials pay for the show, but they didn’t have to squeeze in so many. And RPN’s video and audio is just terrible. I’m looking forward to watching the (award-less) Gangs of New York, which should prove fairly entertaining. I’m not sure if they’ll show The Pianist here though. Good thing I got to see Chicago and Adaptation beforehand. 1. Tonight I cooked rack of lamb, which I just threw in the oven after seasoning it with salt, pepper and thyme. It ended up pretty undercooked though, even though my recipe said it should have cooked in 30 minutes. And I had the hardest time carving it. Mental note, have the nice grocery people cut it up into chops next time. 2. I also threw together this ostrich salpicao, seasoned with soy sauce and a lotta garlic. Family thinks the meat is pretty tough, probably because it’s supposed to be lean and healthy. It’s more red meat-ish than poultry-ish though. 3. And I also tossed a salad balsamic vinaigrette. I’m sick of the same old dressing actually, but my mum likes it and says I should just stick to that. Blech. And I threw in random finds from the refrigerator: tomatoes, kesong puti, celery, sprouts, mandarin oranges, dill, grapes. posted by wys | 11:43 PM Saturday, March 22, 2003 On the menu tonight: · mixed greens tossed in a balsamic honey vinaigrette · spaghettini with tomato-basil sauce · roasted turkey breast (I looked in three different supermarkets for whole turkey and came up with nothing) · turkey sidings (stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potato) · candied yams (Pinoy style, using sweet potato/kamote) · apple pie with walnut crumble topping (in restrospect, people generally don't like nuts and I should have nixed them) In all my rush to cook all of this when I got home from the gym after lunch, I forgot to feed myself. I was planning to make myself some tuna sisig (my brother’s invention, a sort of tuna sisig fried to a crisp with garlic, onions, knorr, lemon/kalamansi) but I just started preparing all my ingredients. By the time I stopped to rest, it was 5pm. I could still have made myself some tuna sisig, but now it was too close to dinner. Ugh. Tomorrow I’ll be cooking rack of lamb, and maybe some ostrich steak. I bought this ostrich steak because my older brother said he wants to be reminded of his depressing days as a student in Cagayan de Oro (ostrich is all over the place there). I’m not sure what to do with the ostrich, probably just turn it into salpicao or something. posted by wys | 6:24 PM 0 comments Monday, March 17, 2003 RESTAURANT RAVE The New Bombay Canteen I have never particularly liked Indian food but a lively discussion on samosas and curry in one of my email groups these past weeks has left me with a strange desire for something unusually exotically Indian. And so we found ourselves in The New Bombay Canteen on a lazy Sunday afternoon. On clickthecity.com I came up with strange results for “Indian”: Banana Leaf Curry House (Malaysian really), Penang (blech), Raj (supposedly “pretentious” Indian). We started off with an order of samosas, empanada filled with potatoes, curry and a few other vegetables (4 pieces for P60). Then we had paneer cofta (P100), potatoes filled with cottage cheese in a curry sauce. This was my favorite among everything we ordered, it had an interesting spicy yet sweet taste to it. And our main course was mutton curry (P120), that managed to get the mutton really tender. As would be expected, everything was pretty strongly flavored. So to complement all the strong flavors we ordered a few variations of their flat bread—chapatti, traditional flat bread (P10); cheese paratha (P30), topped with cheese; naan (P25), thicker and stuffed with garlic upon request. Soda was a bargain at P20 a can, but that still wasn’t enough to wash everything down in the end. So to clear the flavors in the mouth we finished with a glass of clean refreshing lassi (P25), plain yogurt mixed with buttermilk. All in all an excellent meal, but not for the faint hearted. The New Bombay Canteen is open 7 days a week, 9.00am to 11.30pm and has two branches: G/F Sagittarius Bldg., Dela Costa St., Salcedo Village, Makati City (819.2892) and Stall 202, Buendia Shopping Plaza Gil Puyat Ave, Makati City (893.7506, 894.4176). posted by wys | 10:08 AM VIDEO RAVE The Good Girl (2002) The title of this movie kind of sounds like a cheesey horror flick doesn’t it? This is the movie that has been touted as the film that proves Jennifer Aniston can act. But I always knew she could act. The whole cast of Friends have to be good actors to be that consistently funny. We are introduced to Justine, poor Jennifer Aniston, looking at the world through her doleful gaze. She has a dead end job in the Retail Rodeo, a scaled down Texan Walmart or Kmart, and has to go home to loser husband Phil (John C. Reilly, the quintessential loser husband these days). One day Justine gazes into the sad eyes of the new cashier Holden, a pretentious literati played by Jake Glyenhall, and they soon hook up in the belief that they are the only ones that truly understand each other. The story moves along at a purposefully slow pace, attempting to capture the dreariness Justine and the rest of the Retail Rodeo’s crew feel about their unfulfilling lives in a backward community. The rest of the crew is actually an interesting assemblage of personalities—the hyper and uppity head of cosmetics who doesn’t have anything to be happy about but smiles through the day anyway, the Bible Study advocating security guard, the goth-type teenager that insults customers over the P.A. system without losing a beat. The film gives audiences an unexpected payoff in the end that leaves one wondering what happened, but nevertheless wishing the characters the best. posted by wys | 9:55 AM Thursday, March 13, 2003 Movies currently showing in Metro Manila cinemas: · Chicago – Saw it, loved it, plan on seeing it again · Cradle 2 The Grave – What’s with the 2 for To? · Final Destination 2 – Another teen slasher flick. The actors aren’t even cute. · Maid in Manhattan – Terrible way to waste one’s time · Ring 2 – I still have Sadako nightmares, six months after watching the first movie · Star Trek X: Nemesis – Picard will never be as cool as Kirk, but I still might check this out though · The Guru – My brother insists this is funny. Oh-kay. · You and Me Against the World – I actually kind of want to watch this. Support Philippine cinema! What are you planning to watch this week? posted by wys | 10:08 AM 0 comments Tuesday, March 11, 2003 I’m planning what to cook for dinner tonight. I’ll probably be able to start working next week (unless they find something weird in my medical exam) which means less time to cook, less time to simply do nothing. I bought this leg of lamb from Shopwise a few weeks ago (still good, I froze it). Every time I see some new exciting piece of meat I end up buying it even if I have no idea how I’m going to serve it later on. Two days ago I bought some fresh tarragon and thyme because groceries in these parts of town hardly ever have anything except maybe parsley. I figure I’ll use the tarragon and thyme with the lamb, and maybe a little pancetta (or bacon, who has pancetta in this country?). Hmmm, experimentation. My brothers will eat anything anyway. And a nice lovely salad, with greens from the Salad Station (a house in the village that sells hydroponically grown lettuce), some soft tofu, ricotta or maybe goat cheese, whatever other vegetables I dig up from the refrigerator later on … all tossed in a nice light citrus vinaigrette. Yum. posted by wys | 1:12 PM MOVIE RANT Maid in Manhattan (2003) Three words: awful, awful, awful. I knew this was going to be a lousy movie, but I didn’t expect it to be as lousy as it actually was. One of my brothers said it was like watching a Filipino film with great production values. So you get the same lousy storyline, but only with white people and sosy Manhattan (including Central Park and the Met) as the setting of the story. So J. Lo is some poor inner-city princess slaving away as a maid in a posh hotel. So Ralph Fiennes is a senatorial candidate wannabe with an uppity image to project. So J. Lo is caught trying on the clothes of a wealthy hotel guest, Ralph Fiennes mistakes her as being rich and he woos her. Hilarity ensues. At least it’s supposed to. The music was terrible, used the way it is in lousy local teen shows (Click, Berks, Gimmick, etc.) … when the protagonist is sad they’ll play something where the lyrics actually go “I’m sad." I used to think Ralph Fiennes was a good pick for any film role of a dashing debonair snob, but after his creepy turn in Red Dragon I couldn’t help but think that he would just go ballistic on J. Lo at any moment in the film. And given how annoying she is, that wouldn’t have at all been undeserved. J. Lo did a lot of whining about lifting herself out of the working class. Some of the class consciousness banter made sense, most of it didn’t. The only enjoyable moments of the movie were the ones with J. Lo’s son, played by Tyler Posey (real life son of indie-queen Parker Posey). Maid in Manhattan has been showing in Philippine movie theaters since March 5. posted by wys | 7:34 AM Friday, March 07, 2003 My FridayFive: 1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)? I reading magazines when I want something brainless to read. I read the newspaper every morning but mostly only the opinion and lifestyle pages. I like reading novels, but I also enjoy reading a lot of nonfiction (pop culture, world economy, current affairs), which I don’t think that many people are into. 2. What is your favorite novel? No real favorite novel, but favorite authors are Roald Dahl and Ayn Rand (a pretty pretentious pick, if I do say so myself). 3. Do you have a favorite poem? I was never into poetry. I never understood it. I never understood people who understood it. 4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read? I’d want to read the Economist more regularly, but my mum says we already have too many subscriptions in this house (Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Discover, Popular Science). 5. What are you currently reading? The Artist’s Way, Between Fires, Globalization and Its Discontents, Microserfs (boring!), PDI and Today, Philippine Star when I get to the gym (because I like to torture myself). What are your answers? posted by wys | 12:21 PM 0 comments Thursday, March 06, 2003 The following are excerpts from an interesting article I read on Salon.com about class consciousness: Inconspicuous consumption operates under the luxurious belief that consumption should occur in the context of noble ideals. One must consider quality, utility, longevity, ethical and/or environmental impact, safety and educational value. These are the qualities of good consumers and good citizens. The implication is that we are not choosing to consume to satisfy our egos, but to express our morality and good judgement. This college operated on an inverse relationship between household income and how well a person dressed. The affluent kids dressed in Bohemian chic: They wore faded jeans, sweaters with holes, T-shirts with environmental slogans and fabrics from Third World countries. The kids in Diesel jackets or color-coordinated Gap jeans and T-shirts, the kids who pointed out the fabric of their sweater or gave you a daily update on their classical CD collection were invariably the ones with class anxiety. The affluent kids claimed to be rabidly against any form of commercialism, materialism, exploitation of forests, farmworkers or factory workers. You would never see them in Nike tennis shoes, though Doc Martens, John Fluevogs and Birkenstocks were OK. Of course they were against materialism: They already had large houses, good food, trips to Europe and Latin America, a good education and intellectual sparring partners in their family's living rooms. Of course, one of the other truths is that kids in this class, kids who have been raised to inconspicuously consume, usually don't want to be investment bankers (in my experience, most of the people who went straight from college into some lucrative career were people who had never had money to begin with). They want to be artists or social workers or writers or book editors or professors. And this means that eventually, a good many of them will spend a few years in "respectable" poverty. Of course, some of these kids still have trust funds, but most of them don't. And most of the time, checks stop coming from parents, if they came at all, soon after college. Read the rest of the article here. I see class consciousness all around us. And I think it's so true that it's really the middle class/upper middle class that are really into their brand name clothes and items, while the rich ones are less obsessed about showing off their wealth. Do you agree? posted by wys | 4:11 PM 0 comments Wednesday, March 05, 2003 RESTAURANT RAVE Mario’s Restaurant St. Francis Square It’s great that the Mario’s in St. Francis Square is open again after a long period of renovation. They made themselves a lot smaller by giving up the second floor. I like the ambiance a lot better now, with recessed halogen lighting and white walls. The dimness of the old Mario’s was pretty depressing. I like to see my food when I eat, fancy restaurant or not. Food here is consistently good. And one of my dining companions is convinced they have the best Caesar’s Salad in town. I had the rack of lamb, which had an unusual but yummy peppered gravy sauce and mint jelly on the side. Desserts choices included: cheesecake, this overstuffed apple pie that looked like it was going to explode, coffee sans rival, and canonigo. Mario’s is one of the few reliable restaurants of my youth that’ll be around for a long time. Call Mario’s, St. Francis Square at 893.4116, 813.8627 posted by wys | 8:59 AM 0 comments Monday, March 03, 2003 VIDEO RANT Unfaithful (2002) Diane Lane’s performance in this movie was nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award, enough to pique my interest and excuse to tell myself that I was watching it to explore its artistic merits rather than its titillating ones. It’s no secret that this film shows a lot of skin, it is after all the tale of Diane Lane’s suburban housewife Connie Summers cheating on her husband Edward (Richard Gere) with annoying Frenchman Paul (Oliver Martinez). The complexity of the husband-wife relationship was well played out because while at the surface there’s nothing wrong with their relationship, it was shown how Connie had needs that just couldn’t be found in her marriage. It was a little frustrating how secondary characters in the movie served no real purpose but to impose their world views on the leads, it was all too obvious and easy. The filmmaker also had this annoying habit of focusing the frame on inanimate objects, like he was purposely trying force visual metaphors. The ending was terrible though, as if the writer had run out of ideas. I’m not sure how I would have wanted the movie to end, but the way it was played out in the film was not it. All in all, the movie was generally entertaining while I was watching it but deeply unsatisfying when it was done. posted by wys | 11:58 AM 0 comments Saturday, March 01, 2003 I read about this interesting new book called Bobos In Paradise by David Brooks. I'd buy it, but I don't think it's available here. His thesis? That this is the age of the bourgeois bohemian, or Bobos for short. They're an "elite based on brainpower" and merit rather than pedigree or lineage: "Dumb good-looking people with great parents have been displaced by smart, ambitious, educated, and antiestablishment people with scuffed shoes." I'd like to make a list of people in Philippine society that make up the Old and New Elite. I suppose the Old would be all the Young Star writers who actually think they're talented. New Elite ... can't think of any right now. Any suggestions? posted by wys | 4:44 PM 0 comments |
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