Tagaytay

© Joselito Briones

Less than an hour's drive from the house is this town called "Tagaytay", with a fantastic view of Taal volcano and the lake surrounding it.

My mom said she wanted to come here to try Josephine's, a traditional Filipino restaurant. So Josephine's we went, with Chris, Irma's eldest. The view from the deck is just awesome, and in itself worth the trip - and fortunately so, because this is all Josephine's has to offer. Although the receptionists were very courteous and friendly, the waiter assigned to us was downright rude. The food wasn't something to recommend to anybody else either. The only dish passable in quality among the ones we ordered is the char-grilled stuffed calamares. The sizzling gambas has this sickly red coloring that screams "artificial!". The "Kare Kare" was of unidentifiable slabs of beef fat and skin. The boneless "Inihaw na Bangus" was tough, and, in what ought to be classified as a crime, the "Kinilaw na Talaba" was a sheer waste of good oysters, which was indiscriminately drowned in nothing but vinegar.

Lesson learned: if you want to go to Tagaytay for the view, and your best option is Josephine's (I'm sure there are other places to see the spectacular view from), go straight to the coffee bar for a capuccino, then to the viewing deck. Skip the food.


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Free of Duty

© Joselito Briones

It’s sooo hot today. Even with the car airconditioning in full blast, driving through south expressway, we could still feel the heat from outside. We went to duty free shopping, mainly to get my Inay a new blender. The place, located close to the airport, was chaotic. And of course they had to impose this mess to everyone, by limiting the route of shoppers to one where everyone has to go through every section and every shop in the whole building. We also bought some whiskey for my Itay, his preferred alcohol.

I guess this frees us from our main christmas present requirements. The rest is a cinch. It's a good thing that the family politics is still well and alive. You take care of those high up in the pecking order, they take care of the rest. It's something so obviously still in place even with the kids. The younger ones listen to and look up to the older ones. With so many kids in the family, it's a relief that everything and everyone has, and knows, his own place, and responsibility is something left to trickle down the hierarchical chain. The danger, of course, if someone breaks the chain at any point.

© Joselito Briones

The pictures, top and above, are of the family house where we're staying.


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Filipino Food

© Joselito Briones

This is something I see everytime I go to my German class - a Siemens building, an annex to the tallest one in the neighborhood, that is used as company canteen. I always like to peep in to see what sort of things they cook there, there's always a few white-hatted employees visible from the street, busy preparing enormous amounts of food. I like the building's horizontality and openness, it reminds me of the pictures of modern buildings in architectural books that I used to browse through in uni.


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I was browsing through magazines when I saw this mention of a new cookbook, from one of my favorite restaurants in New York, "Cendrillon". The book is called "Memories of Philippine Kitchens" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). Can't wait to see the more than 100 recipes inside.


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Chaos Deity

© Joselito Briones

An old friend from high school in Biñan, Laguna, who goes by "Deity" in the blogworld, linked this photo in an entry in her and her man's joint blog, "Chaos Meets Deity."


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A reunion of some sort

©Eric Olivarez

Oi Jimbo, I thought I'd share this with you, an email from Eric, after he and Cyntch (also a dear old friend) visited my mom in Carmona:

"finally squeezed this one to my sked..and im glad i did it with cyntch around...it felt like we're back in lsei days when we used to hang out in ur crib, except this time it's a bigger, better and more modern haus u have i almost felt like im in a resort of sorts ...took us a while to pinpoint d precise location, haus # has changed from d original 049 to something like 111xx...

©Eric Olivarez

so many changes in the neighborhood and yet ur mom has managed to stay all the same, still very accomodating and nice to talk with, i dont remember talking to her with much substance as now it made me feel really mature (translation: matanda na) now...felt a lil disappointed that she turns out to be mildly allergic to photo shoot, hehehe! anyways, here are a few pics we took of her and ur haus...definitely not as good angles as u would have done but i hope u like it even just for the effort, lolz! pls say thanks to ur mom again next time u talk...."

©Eric Olivarez

Isn't he just the greatest? He's the one in green polo shirt, Cyntch is the one in white t-shirt, and the one in "USA" t-shirt is my eldest brother, Kuya Toto, and that's our house in Carmona, in the bottom picture.





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Windows to the Past

© Joselito Briones

I'm loving the picture windows in the new apartment. They're like ultra HD tv's and you can pan the picture by moving about in the room. The one in the bedroom frames this really tall tree behind the building. I lie in bed and look at it, I see the leaves swaying, I hear the rustling sound, and I get transported back to the Philippines of my childhood when, after a heavy lunch, playing in the sun, and getting forced to bathe by grown-ups who are against the smell of the sun on my skin ("amoy araw ka na", they'd say), I'd just lay on a bamboo mattress under a mango tree and take a nap, until it's time to have merienda and run around the neighborhood again.

Sigh...

The cow was a present from Nico.


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