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Saturday, May 02, 2015

2015 So Far - April

Like those that came before it, this year's April has been brutal. The heat, the work-related stress and the general lack of vacation time made the month seem longer than it should.

Working on Sundays, after all, is bad. Never work on a Sunday - I'll probably tell that to young folks who ask for work-related advice. I didn't say it's a good piece of advice in a modern world - but it would certainly make life a bit better.



Maybe that's how we made it back to Maginhawa looking for a temporary reprieve. It's been more than a year since I last stepped foot in Teacher's Village.

A lot of things can change in a year - road maintenance was finally completed, a lot more shops have opened up and 55 Maginhawa seems to have been closed down for good (taking Tomato Kick and 55 Tinta along with it - Bookay Ukay opened up shop just across the road).

Hence, we finally got to try Crazy Katsu (which has become a Maginhawa staple in itself). The food can certainly hold its own (at such a low price). I got myself the curry while the Girlfriend chose the regular katsu. Truth be told, I should have chosen the same dish as her (because I'm such a sucker for spicy food).


The search for dessert led us to Caffera, a quaint photography-themed cafe (presumably) owned by UST students.


Again, nothing out of the ordinary (although I wanted to try out their coffee, which was served in mugs that look like those fancy DSLR lenses). The place's design is something else, though.


The place is just begging to be part of a photoblog entry. I'm not much of a photographer (or a "photographer", for that matter), so I'm just leaving this here.


Meanwhile, Makati is a surprising place for people looking for secret places to eat. Perea has a bunch of these, such as Pamana - a Filipino-themed restaurant that serves dishes made from heirloom recipes. We had a lot of seafood for dinner that evening - aligue (crab roe) rice, seafood cooked in lemon butter and sinigang sa mangga (tamarind soup with mangos).


Speaking of seafood, Timog houses one of the best places around. The Girlfriend and I are in agreement when we say that the best meal we had when we went to Boracay last year was the one we had at a dampa (seafood market). Such a meal would heavily dent anyone's wallet in Manila, so we were lucky to stumble upon Seafood Shack's offering at a coupon site.


Crabs, clams, mussels and shrimp cooked in a rich, tangy sauce and served in a bag. It's not exactly the healthiest of meals, but it was good and there's little room for regrets on this particular meal.

I do have to eat a bit healthier though. Maybe just so I could eat more of these stuff (and it doesn't hurt to be fit).

So, yeah. That's it for now. There are more than a few bits of news I'm waiting for in May, but I'll keep mum about those for now.

Later!

3 comments:

  1. Is Pamana the one near Ministop Valero? The place where people greet you in Filipino?

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    Replies
    1. Ah, this one is in Perea, across the road from Balkan.

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  2. I miss Maginhawa! I used to hang out there a lot when I lived in Anonas. :(

    ReplyDelete