Hotel Brasserie

© Joselito Briones

This one's just around the corner from the cafe that I showed you a couple of weeks ago.


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Open Cafe season

© Joselito Briones

Spring's here. The weather's beautiful and everybody's out and about. I took pictures of several cafe's in the city, all of them full in the early afternoon, and I'll show them to you in the next few days.

The one above is the Hotel Brasserie in the pedestrian zone, corner Henkestraße, next to it, left, is a small cinema. And no, the colors aren't like this naturally, naturally. I'm experimenting again on giving my pictures an old look.


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Long My

© Joselito Briones

Long My, the Asian grocery store that I usually go to for fresh ingredients when I cook Asian dishes, recently opened a small fast-food restaurant (photo, above), right around the corner from their grocery store, next to the Turkish grocery store (photo, below) where I usually buy fresh fish. It's a very basic, no-frills, Asian restaurant, and the entries on the menu are standard offering for any Asian restaurant here in Erlangen, or Germany, for that matter, but they do try to serve the best food that they could. As is my usual taste-test in such eastern-combo restaurant, I ordered Knusprige Ente, here available in three different kinds of sauce (I went for Hoi Sin sauce, recommended by the owner - #22 in the menu), and it didn't disappoint. The best thing about the restaurant though, just like the Asian grocery around the corner with the same name, are the owners - they're supper friendly.




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Is this mike on? (Jane's, after)

© Joselito Briones

After all of today's shopping, we met up in the evening with Eric and Jane, to have dinner at Krystal's Cafe also in Roosevelt Avenue (close to Renee's Kitchenette). It was easy to see that Eric and Jane enjoyed it more than our dinner from Cendrillon. I'd have enjoyed it more too, had it not for the karaoke thing that was ongoing when we arrived. Eric was shy to do a number himself, even as he boasts of always being the life of the party, the karaoke star, so he ended up bringing his magic phone to Jane's, where we all went back to after dinner, and sang his heart out there.

As promised, here's the "after" picture of Jane's living room. The mess is all mine and Mati's, of course. We didn't even have time to reconfigure the bed into a sofa to give Eric a proper performance space. I don't know what he's belting out when I took this photo, but yes, he could actually carry a tune.


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The end of the Affair

© Joselito Briones

By the time Jane, Mati and I walked towards Chinatown, it was already drizzling. It's a signal as good as any (there were a few) that this short holiday has ended. No complaints. I guess I can't really expect every thing to go smoothly. Everything else from now until we fly back to Germany (in 2 days), I'll just chuck together as extras.

From Bowery we walked south towards Soho, through Nolita, to Little italy, pass Canal Street towards the south end of Mott Street, to the default place we always go to whenever we go to Chinatown, Hop Kee. The place is newly renovated, and the staff a lot more friendlier than the last time we were there, the food was pretty much the same as before.


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Park Weather

© Joselito Briones

I thought we might have had been running out of luck, it was grey and cloudy in the morning, but early in the afternoon it started getting bright again. We decided to do the rest of the shopping that we needed to do, friends' requests from Germany. After having lunch at the Filipino place (Renee's Kitchenette in Queens: enormous squid grilled to perfection, king prawns in tamarind soup, grilled fish), we went to midtown, via Central Park South, to Bergdorf Goodman's to get the La Mer creams Arun asked us to get for his wife.


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Jackson Diner

© Joselito Briones

Conveniently located close to Jane's is the Jackson Heights locals' favorite, Jackson Diner. It's a buffet restaurant serving Indian food (I know... didn't I just have buffet food last night? But, hey! I'm on holiday.) They have an a la carte menu, of course, but we just wanted to try as many variety available. Food was good, the price cheap, and, as a bonus, this guy (photo, above) who was so nice to let me take his picture, will make fresh vegetable-filled dosa for you, included in the buffet! Yummm!


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Eating seafood like there's no tomorrow

© Joselito Briones

Am referring to myself, of course. After the drinks at Victor's Cafe, and walking through Times Square (photo, above), we ended up going to "Todai" (photo, below), the new reincarnation of "Minado", an old favorite, in Koreatown here in New York.


© Joselito Briones

The main attraction was the fresh oysters, shrimp cocktails, and fresh tuna sashimi. The crab legs were a bit too messy to deal with. Great seafood buffet. Everything else on the seemingly endless row of choices of sea food, plus the odd korean barbecue which in itself was a treat, was a plus.


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Free MoMA!

© Joselito Briones

We got in MoMA for free. That's a big deal, me being the cheapo that I am. I wanted to go there originally this Friday, having heard that entrance feee is waived from 4pm to 8pm Fridays, but what do you know, turned out that Jens now works for a museum (albeit in Boston) and he gets in most museums for free. Company included. How he got to be a museum's resident scientist from being a nano-physicist, I can only wonder. Actually no, I did ask him. He just happens to be one of those smart people who can do plenty of different things. He's taken up bust-portraiture (clay sculpture of heads) recently with impressive results.




The food in the museum cafeteria, "Cafe 2" isn't bad at all either. I had butternut squash ravioli in a very, very rich sauce, and lentl and portobello mushroom soup, both very good. I'd have preferred the ravioli with a simpler, subtler dressing though. The price was just slightly more expensive than the numerous cafe's scattered in the city.


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Farewell Drink

© Joselito Briones

I'm going back to Erlangen tomorrow, so I thought I'll do a last night walk in the vicinity of Picadilly Circus. I also took some pictures around the area.


© Joselito Briones

After some time I met up with Wil, then Ronnie joined us, for dinner in Kulu Kulu Sushi, a Japanese restaurant in Brewer Street. It's one of those conveyor belt places where coded plates of sushi continuously go around in a conveyor belt and you just grab whichever pleases you. I wonder why they haven't done this with dim sum? Not being able to converse in Cantonese, I am always reduced to chasing after those dim-sum-trolley-pushing-women to see what sort of goodies they have to offer. Maybe a transparent steaming basket need to be invented, because they need to be kept in such baskets to keep them warm, while they also need to be seen so diners know what they're grabbing. Am sure eventually someone will actually do it.


© Joselito Briones

After dinner, we decided to go for a drink in Village Bar, in Old Compton Street in SOHO. It might as well have been anywhere though, as the place isn't even half as crowded as it usually is, and we were just talking so much, like old friends do, about just about anything.


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Christmas

© Joselito Briones

Having distributed all the gifts last night, we took it easy today. It was the exact opposite of the frantic house-to-house trek of the kids, collecting money from relatives and Ninangs.

We decided to treat my parents to lunch today. We went to Tony Roma's in Alabang Town Center with Kuya Toto, and thankfully so. After several misses on restaurant choices, at least this one, albeit still formulaic chain restaurant fare, delivered the goods, at least with the baby back ribs. We ended up bringing back two extra racks, one for Kuya Toto and one for Ate Julie. My mom wanted to see if she can produce the same texture, if not the taste, so we passed by Makati Supermart to buy some frozen ribs, but the grocery was close today.


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P.S.
The image on top is actually a movie, a trial if it's worth putting flash movies here. It's probably too big a file if you're on a slow connection, but if you're using broadband, it should load smoothly.

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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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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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All-American

© Joselito Briones

As the California roadside landscape - some commanding one's full attention, some satisfied on providing a backdrop to one's thoughts, but all beautiful - pan through the car window, I realized something disturbing. Norie's voice was different. Her attitude too. She's more serious, and gone is her usual playfulness. I'd have normally attributed it to (dare I say it?) getting older, but I thought most probably it's caused by her adjusting to her only child, Kevin, moving out (Do moms ever get over it?). It turned out that even as Kevin was a part of it, there was something else. A revelation, to which I made a vow not to repeat to anyone, has been on her mind. It didn't feel right, that I have been sucking all the luck from the people around me. I've had it easy, more or less, on most anything, most of my life. But the things some members of my family are going through, it scares me.

© Joselito Briones

We went to Carmel today. Dave, Norie's husband, drove (as has become the usual when there's a family outing), with Norie next to him (photo, above). Noel and Itay sat at the third row, at the back. We all fitted in the Chevy Tahoe. There was nothing we could do to persuade Kevin Karl (Ate Uding's son) to join us, much as we hated to leave him alone in the house. The other Kevin, Norie's, wasn't even interested at all to venture out of his apartment. Both Kevins were never expected to be in the same city at some length of time, hence their moms thought it OK to give them the same name. Kevin Karl (little Kevin to us), I guess, was expected to stay in the Philippines.

I might have had been a bit selfish throughout the drive. I enjoyed the view from my seat and kept mostly to myself: plains, hills, valleys; the colors - alternating greens and ochres, punctuated by beetroot reds and shades of gold; and objects - bright yellow artesian well in the middle of a field dominated by crouching trees, surrendering total authority to the wind, a car from a few decades back (a "roach", to Norie's Kevin), parked next to massive tractor, and drums upon drums of I don't know what. We reached our destination in less than a couple of hours.

© Joselito Briones

The place was beautiful, albeit not what I expected. I foresaw something more rural, dry, dust blown by the wind. Small town. Their claim to fame, after all, before being beautiful, was having Clint Eastwood as their mayor for several years. Norie and Dave always referred to it as "Mount Carmel", so I was expecting a western town like in the movies. Clint Eastwood movies to be precise. What I saw was a beautifully manicured town, who afforded to provide every nook and any visible crevices the most beautiful blooms that grow in the region. The more accurate name of the place is "Carmel-by-the-Sea". Instead of a mountain, I found myself looking at the Pacific Ocean.

We had lunch at "Flaherty's". The food, save the calamaris, wasn't worth the long wait for a table.

© Joselito Briones

Another All-American classic? Outlet shops. We went to Gilroy Premium Outlets, on the way back from Carmel-by-the-Sea. The place is big, with shops divided into three long buildings. After being spoiled for choices by New York's Century21 though, this place was just not very interesting at all.

To cap the day with yet another All-American classic, we did a drive-through at "In N' Out". Any hot-blooded meat-loving American knows this is the best quickie hamburger there is, no question about it. Too bad it's only available in the west coast. We all had a double-double. I had mine with roasted onions.

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Farewell, Hell's Kitchen

© Joselito Briones

I spent most of the morning doing all the tedious things I'd really rather not do, but had to. Phoned a lot of people, and companies. Arranged for roll over of 401(k), cancelled fax account, photocopied documents, mailed Norie's pins, mailed documents for the rollover, mailed application for renewal of license, bought train tickets to South Norwalk, took train schedule booklets from Grand Central.

After all these, I walked around my old neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen and took pictures: the restaurants I frequented, the ones I frequently called to have food delivered to me, the cafe' I used to go to for breakfast on weekends, the heavenly cupcakes, the fish market, the video store, the grocery. I'd show you all the photos, but there's so much there's no space here, so let me just show you this one, from Cupcake Cafe.


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Cowgirls' night out tonight

© Joselito Briones

Jane and I went out tonight. She picked me up from Eric's. First stop was Cowgirl. We found a parking space close enough. As i already had dinner, I just ordered dessert. Brownie a la mode. Warmed up. Very good. And latte. Jane had chicken quesadilla and strawberry flavored frozen martini. Their nachos and beans dip was really good too, considering it's a free starter.

After dinner, we grabbed a couple of magazines and sat on a sidewalk bench nearby to see where we can go. While browsing through them on a bench on the street, Natalie Portman passed by, with two gay boys and a girl in tow. I guess now that she has a movie out, she has to keep a high profile. Her hair is now longer than in her movie "V" and she wore a headband. Btw, why are people giving so much hoopla over her allegedly naked photos in Vanity Fair Magazine, when she's not really showing anything?



We decided to go to Henrietta Hudson's. Only, they wouldn't let us in, because they said they only allow a guy in if he's accompanied by at least 2 girls. WTF??? Jane and I decided to go somewhere else, only we couldn't decide where, and it was possible most of the other bars she wants to go to will have the same door policy. We decided to split up. I left her at Ruby Fruit's, and I walked around.

I just walked around West Village and Greenwich Village. When I got tired of it I walked around the Meat Packing District. Great night to go strolling. The area is full of clubs with long lines of impossibly beautiful people outside waiting to get in. After an hour I went back to Ruby Fruit's. Turns out they don't have the same door policy, they even let me in without the cover charge. The place is nice and cosy, the crowd was very mixed. Had a beer there. After a while we decided to go somewhere else, so we drove a little and ended up at Cubby Hole. The crowd here was more mixed. More relaxed. Another beer.

After this, Jane suggested we go to Grand Central to get the info on trains going to Connecticut. The place was closed. This was 3:45am. Then she suggested we get some hot noodle soup at Republic, in Union Square. It was already closed when we got there. We went to Chinatown instead. Where else but Hop Kee's. We had chicken and wonton soup, deep friend won ton, and steamed dumplings. They're all basically the same. The place was yet again full of Filipinos. The crowd this early in the morning was young though. It was already 4:30am when we left.

It was already 5am when Jane dropped me in front of Eric's building.


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I guess all the waiting is over.

© Joselito Briones

I had to book a hotel in Garden City last night, as I had to be there at 7am, and the earliest LIRR train that goes there before that time leaves Jamaica at 5am. It meant I'd have had to take the subway at 4am, which meant I'd have had to wake up 3am the latest. So no go.

It's a crappy hotel, "Wingate Inn" and the receptionist was rude. She was talking to me, telling me what I should know about staying in the hotel, but all the time looking at and working on her computer. I called her to it and she apologized, but she obviously didn't mean it. I checked in at about 3pm. I didn't feel like going out so I just ordered in and just waited until it was late enough to go to bed. Watched the finale of "Project Runway".

Today, I woke up before 6am, showered, had breakfast downstairs, went up again to get my things, then checked out after arranging for shuttle service to the train station. There was already a line formed outside the USNIS building when I got there. I waited for a bit, but the exam itself was very easy and went quite fast. There was a bit of chit chat which I'm not sure if part of the exam, but after that the examiner told me that I passed and that I'll have to attend the oath taking ceremony on Saturday. But first I had to wait for the appointment. I waited 3 hours.

I went back to the hotel to get the shuttle service. When I got to the train station I missed the train, so I had to wait for about an hour.

Tonight Eric and I went to Union Square, then the east village. While walking around we saw a film crew shooting a scene for the TV show "Rescue Me" with Denis Leary. He looked a lot shorter in real life. The scene had one guy being kicked out of a restaurant, then a lot of running, the same guy followed by a group, a lot of shouting, and all. There was a long pause between takes, and we didn't want to wait too much, so we left after two tries.

We had dinner at "Sapporo East" restaurant. Didn't have to wait long. Food was good. Enjoyed "uni" (sea urchin sushi) the most.

The photo on the left is a billboard in Times Square advertising Bill Paxton´s new show "Big Love", capitalizing on his allegedly enormous thingy (fingers).


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I'm back!!!

© Joselito Briones

Plane landed at 4pm in JFK. Other than minor turbulances and the shocked reaction from the girl sitted beside me when she saw me put my vanilla ice cream dessert in my coffee, the flight was pretty much uneventful. I even snuck in a few much-needed naps. Are you happy to see me?

The ever reliable Jane picked me up from the airport. In the car, she updated me on what she's been up to. She's really strong. She had more a resigned exasperation than anger or mad confusion, which is how what she's been through lately would've affected me. Or maybe she's just relieved that everything is over.

On the way to Jane's, we went to a Thai restaurant that she suggested. I guess she's now converted by deep-fried soft-shell crabs which before today she'd never touch no matter how much I tell her that they're yummy. And now that's the first thing she suggested we order. Either she really likes it now or she just likes this restaurant because of the good looking staff.

There was a moment in the restaurant when I was a bit disoriented as to where I was. Was I in Manila? the clothes of the people, and the people themselves, don't seem to fit in. Was I in New York? I looked outside and it didn't help much. Of course I was in Queens. Where else could I be. Maybe for a just a moment, when in my mind "I was home" because that's why I was flying today, that I was either expecting my neighborhood in Hell's Kitchen, or any of the places I know in the Philippines. And pretty soon I'll have a new home. New confusion.

Eric joined us in the restaurant. I'm extremely fortunate to have such good friends as Eric and Jane. We decided we were gonna watch Oscar's at Jane after dinner, then to Eric's, where I'll be staying.

I hope the weather lets up. I don't want my most recent experiences of New York to be cold and gloomy.


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These are currently my favorite coffee companions...

© Joselito Briones

I bought this almond crunch (I don't know how exactly they call it, it doesn't say so in the label) from "Paul", and it's just sooooo good. I bought a pack and almost finished it in one sitting. It's crunchy sweet buttery almond heaven. A bit pricey but definitely worth it.

Another favorite for sometime now is the cantucci al cioccolato from "Carluccio's". Not much when eaten on its own, but when dipped in coffee.... HMMMMM MMMN. Wil once brought a pack when he joined us for dinner sometime ago, and now we've been getting some regularly.

Wil dropped by last night to collect the keys to his apartment. He left them to me last weekend when he went to Berlin to see the Liza Minelli concert, because I had to show the flat to a prospective builder to do the rennovation. I was supposed to make rack of lamb for dinner, but realized i didn't have enough lamb for three, so decided on oxtail soup instead. I followed the recipe from Pam's restaurant in Hell's Kitchen. I think I put twice as much star anise as I was supposed to, but otherwise it was fine.


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Chocolate with Wasabi, anyone?

© Joselito Briones

Not a very good combination. I tried this dessert at "Wagamama". The chocolate part of it was good and heavy, but the after-taste of wasabi in every bite was just too weird.


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