From June to August is the rainy season in the Philippines. It doesn't rain all day but rather storm clouds would quickly form and in the blink of an eye, you're in a squall.
And just as abruptly, the rain stops and all is well again. You might even get treated to a rainbow!
A friend commented: "What else is there to do in Manila but catch up with friends and family over good food?"
Well, there was one more thing to do....shopping!
Manila is awash with malls...and rain doesn't matter when you're inside one.
Guess which was our favourite store... :-)
We also found an ice skating rink in the mall...complete with blue lines and face-off circles.
Quite ironic to come all the way from Canada only to skate in tropical Manila! But my 8-year old was enthusiastically showing off her recently acquired skating skills! :-) I was even more surprised to see some hockey practice! Have the NHL scouts caught on to this yet? he! he! By the way, this was where Filipino Olympic skater, Michael Christian Martinez, started skating. He was the first skater from Southeast Asia to qualify for the Olympics!
In super hot and humid Manila, the malls are really where people go to chill and relax.
Some more random pics....
I guess some rules were made to be broken?
"Why would somebody name a restaurant after the Klan?" you might wonder. In the Philippines, "KKK" is a good acronym. It stands for "Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangan Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan". Now there's a mouthful, even for Filipinos! English translation: "Supreme and Most Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation". That was the name of the revolutionary group formed in 1892 to fight for independence against Spanish rule. They were a band of heroes. Nothing at all to do with the Ku Klux Klan!
Live music. :-) Thursday night is 70's & 80's music night at Strumm's.
One last bit of trivia... In the Philippines, people refer to the washroom as the "comfort room" or "CR" for short. Don't ask me why. Just use your imagination. :-)
Oh yes, there was one other place we could go to despite the rain... the pool!
We visited many restaurants whilst in Manila.
After Filipino cuisine, the next food group we consumed most was Chinese. Mind you, in Manila's Chinese restaurants, nobody would know what egg foo young, chow mein or the chicken dish named after some Chinese general are!
Some of those roasted items ended up in this cold cuts dish. The noodle-like item in the middle was jellyfish, by the way.
Peking duck. The prized part is the crispy, flavourful skin. The meat is second fiddle.
Put a slice (or two) of duck on the thin steamed bread. Add some fresh scallions and hoisin sauce. Wrap it up and chow down!
The fishes had to be fresh or else....
...the steamed lapu lapu (grouper) would not taste as good.
Spicy crab.
Spicy garlic fish fillets in a clay pot.
And the hands down winner for dessert among the kids was the buchi--glutinous rice balls with sesame seeds outside and sweet bean paste inside.
OK, I admit...my daughter liked this one too. (Chocolate inside!) :-)
We were also fortunate to eat some very good tonkatsu--Japanese breaded pork chop.
The best tonkatsu outside of Japan could be had at the Ginza Bairin...a branch of the original Ginza Bairin in Ginza, Tokyo! I kid you not.
It was not difficult to find little bits of Japan in Manila. :-)
I was especially elated to find Mochi Cream! This got popular in Japan after we had already moved to Halifax. Now, I found it Manila! Mochi cream is o-mochi (pounded sticky rice) with ice cream inside.
At the Todd English Food Hall: "Never trust a round pizza." Catchy but really? I'd assume heat would spread more uniformly (and thus cook more evenly) on a round object rather than on a quadrilateral with four pesky corners. :-) Any thermodynamic physicists out there?
But food there was great....like this seared tuna.
I had a hamburger...with bacon! Sort of missed Halifax after all that Asian food. :-)
Oh, we had lots of crêpes!
Special ones too! (This one from Café Breton.)
...and Taiwanese bubble tea.
I finish this post with a little foodie humour. :-)
I arrived in Manila hungry. I just couldn't wait to eat all the food I could not find in Halifax. So the first thing I looked for was a fast-food hamburger...the Jollibee Champ! I've been eating this burger since high school (early 80's) and the attachment is forever! :-)
Our food choices naturally gravitated to Filipino and Chinese...and a bit of Japanese too.
Like in the rest of Asia, people in the Philippines show their affection by plying you with food. Any kind of meeting is almost always done with a meal. And we met with many friends and relatives!
Apologies to vegan sensibilities... This is called a lechon...a roasted suckling pig usually served at Filipino celebrations.
The famous chicken barbecue of Aristocrat Restaurant, complete with Java rice and achara (pickled green papaya). By the way, I don't think "Java rice" actually originated from Indonesia. Maybe it was the Filipino imitation of nasi goreng...but I am guessing!
I stayed at my sister's house. Home cooking was good. Ingredients like these...
...turn into soups like this. This is sinigang, a sour (tamarind or guava based) soup.
More Filipino delicacies... Pinakbet--mixed vegetables cooked in shrimp paste called bagoong (pronounce BAH-goh-ong).
Bistek Tagalog. "Bistek" is the bastardization of "beef steak". Thinly sliced beef cooked in soy sauce and calamansi (Philippine lemon). Garlic rice goes very well with it.
This is what calamansi looks like, by the way. They make a great lemonade too!
Crispy pata. These are pig trotters. First boiled in spices to make tender, then deep fried into crispiness. Dip it in a soy+vinegar sauce.
Kare Kare. Stewed ox tail, tripe and vegetables in a peanut-based sauce. On the side, the aforementioned bagoong goes very well with this dish!
Sigarilyas sa gata. The vegetable "sigarilyas" is called the "winged bean" in English. My theory is that this vegetable is long and looks like a cigar so it got called after the Spanish "cigarillo", the thinner version of the cigar. It is cooked in creamy coconut milk. "Gata" means "coconut milk" and a lot of Filipino food and desserts make use of this ingredient.
For breakfast, arroz caldo is tops! It is a rice porridge cooked in chicken broth...with bits of chicken. Top with roasted garlic, green onions and hard-boiled egg. Squeeze in a bit of calamansi juice!
Chicharon bulaklak. A favourite Filipino pulutan or "beer food". Crispy deep fried pork intestines...not for the faint of heart, i.e. not recommended for people with hypertension and cholesterol problems!
For dessert, halo halo. A mix of fruit, sweetened beans, jelly and flan, packed in with shaved ice. Pour a bit of evaporated milk and add a dollop of ice cream if you like! Typically this is served in a tall parfait glass but in this pic, the restaurant served it in their own style!
To drink, sago at gulaman (tapioca balls and agar jelly)...a cool, sweet drink for the hot days. And fresh coconut juice. The young coconut (called buko) is simply cut open. Stick a straw in and drink! The coconut has to be young so that it will be full of juice. The more mature coconuts will have more white flesh and less juice. The coconut flesh is what is shredded and squeezed to make coconut milk.
Coconut is abundant in the Philippines.
But you don't need to climb the trees to get them. :-) They are sold in the streets of Manila like this.
