Vietnamese Restaurant

     My husband keeps hoping the Thai neighbor will open a Thai restaurant in the area.  She cooks her Thai food at home so well, but is not inclined to selling it. She is in fact, returning to Thailand, back to a career put on hold by her husband's posting here.  A big loss, we will miss her cooking...oh, more than that, the pleasure of her company, of course.

     Attention, restaurateurs....there is NO Thai restaurant here. None that we know of anyway.  We are happy with places like Songkran Thai street food in BF Paranaque. That's the sort of place we seek.  We are certain we are not the only ones.

     There is also, strangely, just one Korean restaurant in Paseo de Santa Rosa. And none in the surrounding areas. We like Umni, a nook hidden in Paseo.  On our most recent time there (last night), the two ladies who wait tables, cook and roll kimbap ,greeted us happily.  Oh, they know us already!  A comfort, in this time of "growth" in the city.  

    Just the other day, the Rustan's express cashier also greeted me cheerfully, asking about my family.  Where has your husband been?! She asked. He was there so frequently before.  Well...of course, I replied, it's that other place at the corner...(the big South Supermarket).  Rustan's is far being the "little bookshop" of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks' "You've got Mail". But it still is the little neighborhood sari-sari store that's lost customers to the big guys.  Not for long, though...Shopwise is happening soon.

    ARG, INSERT LOST PHOTO OF LAGUNA CENTRAL/SHOPWISE CONSTRUCTION HERE!


     Back to the subject. In Alabang Town Center and in BF Paranaque, there is Xoi Vietnamese Kitchen.  Again, I am no food blogger. I will just say, we enjoyed the food. It was delicious. You know, in the way that my first bite's transported me to "Asia".  It's when the flavor's essences (lemongrass, hoisin, peanut, fish sauce...) sort of travel through my nose and I remember random times and places in Southeast Asia.  Plus I have been drinking black G7 Vietnamese coffee for breakfast everyday for a couple of months now..so I was happy with Iced coffee (with condensed milk). 

     We also tried it for the first time. It was dinner, and for lunch I had wanted pho in Pho hoa Ayala Triangle. The last time I was there was last Christmas. It was packed, there was a wait list. Today I saw it had closed down, covered with a tarpaulin sign saying Bread Talk will open there soon.

sky



yet another sky-over-solenad2-photo. can you blame me? I spent 6 years in Makati wishing I could see more blue sky and less wires, concrete and gray haze.

Also, I grew up practically living in the QUAD and the glorietta when it had no roof over it.  We saw shows and movies in Rizal Theater, where the Shangri-la hotel now stands.  SM was a small one floor Shoemart, and we ate burgers at the Automat.  Oh and let's not forget the Happy Feet bakya store in the same "arcade" as the suki film developer/print shop.

That area, by Makati Supermarket, or was it Rustan's, had water fountains and open-air parking spaces.

The above Solenad is my child's "Quad" now.  She just may end up reminiscing about the sol and sky here, Bgy. Sto. Domingo, Sta. Rosa, Laguna, like I am about Makati, Metro Manila.   



at Ming's Garden in Silang-Tagaytay along the national road.
tres marias with paperback, cellphone, tablet

croc at Ming's Garden

Shopping in Makati first time in 2 years

   So, here's the only reason I had to go to Rustan's Makati.

   Rustan's ATC had no booster car seat for the 3 year old (15kg) and above, and the sales lady wasn't interested in helping further after finding zero stock in the stockroom. After all, everything they had was for infants. Phone calls to SM Megamall and the Landmark, Mothercare Shangri-la and Greenbelt, and desperately, to the distributor Europlay, Inc/Richwell brought me back to my 7th pregnancy month of "Graco Pack and Play" adventures. Apparently, the car seat choices I Googled are not available anymore and even the distributors are never sure what they're gonna get/when the next shipment will be.  

  An hour later, after dining at the Via Mare Landmark (where I was surprised/comforted? to find the same tall waiter Larry still serving), I saw the same model upstairs.  But since nobody was interested in selling it to me there, in contrast to Jerome and Vincent of Rustan's, I went back to Rustan's for it.  Well, okay also because that's where we parked.  Anyway, I was led to Rustan's Makati after calling and having Jerome confirm that Chicco Ultrafit was gone a long time ago; that I might be interested in the Graco Logico LX Comfort.   

  Ay, wait.  This doesn't belong in THIS blog. I have yet to start posting on my other one, Manila Older Mother.  I am sooo delayed.  Well, will move to that one and say more there...about my initial preference for Britax or Chicco; and this one being a good quality low to mid-priced option. Yada yada yada.

  I do have a lot to talk about there; and I am certain there are pregnant women or first-time mothers just Googling away for info.  I know many blogging mothers have helped me with their posts.  I'm giving back! Soon! I've started the mom blog...

Makiling versus Makati

   I hate to be redundant...but today was one of those achingly bright, blue, sunny, beautiful days.  And as with many photo-perfect days, I did not have a better camera with me than the phone's. This view from Kingbee is still, thankfully there. But for how long? If you can ignore the power post and lines, and try to imagine what the camera could not capture, there is Makiling, ridges visible, and the mountain verdant. verde. green.
   It was around 3pm but the usual line up of vehicles coming down from Tagaytay was to arrive around an hour later.

   I spent the past week, day and night, in Paranaque City.  I went to the Glorietta mall in Makati on Thursday, and I have to say, I was overwhelmed.  By the stuffy, crowded air, the crowds, period, and the "noise and haste".  You see, I had not been there in two years.  Prior to that, the place was like a second home, being ten-fifteen minutes from home.  I could navigate its confusing zones, knew by heart which streets in Salcedo and Legaspi Villages were "One Way" only. 

   I knew Glorietta when it was still the center open 'stage' area of the QUAD arcade.  As a child in the '70s, I shopped in the first, small, shoes-only Shoemart (SM).  Our suki ice cream parlor and its coiffed owners were comfort places, and we watched movies in the Rizal Theater (now where the Shangri-la hotel stands).  There's more, I can go on...

   But I'll just say--not being OA ha, it's for real--I felt like a true probinsiyana or country bumpkin emerging from Rustan's Supermarket to face a solid mall building I confused with..6750? What on earth was here before? Where's the Starbucks?  My mother helped shake my brain...that was the parking lot, between here and The Intercontinental! The rush of cars and people; wind from moving cars and not from grassy fields just screamed CITY. As in New York City (for some reason); the gray new building, Singapore, maybe. OA, I know.  Just try it though...live in Santa Rosa for two years without ever going to the Makati Commercial Area.  Then go one day. Things can happen to you like,

   Having sensory overload from all the shopping choices.  We have SM, we have Alabang, but really, the pickings are slim in these parts, of many non-essentials. Nice to haves, like toys, clothes, shoes!

   Catching a cold, getting dirty toenails and skin from the pollution there. 

   Possibly wanting things you can live without again.

   Realizing how much you have not really missed, how few are the things you actually need to live.

Crafts fest in Sta. Rosa

     Crafts Fest is the name of a small corner inside the MI department store in Waltermart Santa Rosa.  When we arrived two years ago, there was no South Supermarket (see old post), and Rustan's was (still is) a mini-grocery.  SM Sta. Rosa was too far and really, the cashier lanes took too long.  We tried grocery shopping at Waltermart and it wasn't a pleasant experience.  The store is old, tired, small. The vegetables weren't fresh, and generally shopping there was such a chore.  We appreciated the small Booksale branch, and Robinson's Handyman. Next to the Japan Home Store was the Value Shop, which was a department store filled with cheap, poor quality goods. 

  We then stopped shopping at Waltermart and opted for SM, Rustan's, and whenever we could, South Supermarket in Alabang.

  I returned to Waltermart only for specific things, like the plastic sheets outside the Value Shop. There were rolls of sheets meant for use as table cloths, and sold by the yard.  There were floral designs, clear ones printed with designs, various colors, lace designs.  They were cheap. I got some for outdoor tables, I got some to catch the baby's mess on the floor as she dined.  I had just started to play with these sheets, when they disappeared. The Value Shop became MI Department Store, with slightly better-quality goods, but very very loud booming noisy music blaring. 

  I still like to go there once in awhile---because of the small corner with the sign CRAFTS FEST at the top, at the Expressions store within the store.  They have scrapbooking doodads--ribbons, trim, shapes, stickers, many cute things. They have Korean stationery, assorted beads sold by the cup, cute novelty pens.  These are things many women of all ages still love collecting, using, or just looking at.  Eye candy.

  Running a search just a few minutes ago, I found that another blogger from the area posted about this place.  She took photos too, better ones.  Why do we love these little things so?

  The ribbon and trim cases say Momotaro. I had no clue these existed. So cute.

    Then I remembered a set of trimmings I got there last year. They were branded Momotaro too. Check out the site and drool! http://www.momotaro.com
Then I realized I have a wallet in the same seafoam green color, a Venzi notebook with the same seafoam green.  Really, little things like matchy-matchy small statio things do make many women like me...happy even in our forties. We are that simple.  More complex is my desire to own/run a Momotaro store! haha.

    About that Venzi notebook...we got that in National Bookstore last year, along with other colors.  Check out http://victoria.com.hk/html_files/products.html

     These are two Korean notebooks my sister and I picked up at Php49.50 each.  I had dragged her to Waltermart to show her this cute little corner, and separately we both were attracted to the notebook on the left. While cursing me for making her spend on little things like the bookmark set and sticky notes shown below, she was undecided on the notebook (which she didn't really need).  I check the pile of 4 pieces, and found the one on the right at the bottom and flashed it to her.  Then it was a no-brainer. 

    My frustration with many 'cute little things' in this country is that they are of limited inventory. I asked the salesgirls when delivery of new trim will arrive, and they didn't even know.  There is never any guarantee of having the same item available.   Even that Venzi notebook from National Bookstore seemed a one-time deal.

    So now I don't even know when a trip to this Expressions for new stock will be worthwhile.  Sigh...I do miss Carolina's at Market!Market!, and it's been ages since I last went to Divisoria. 

South Supermarket

  Standing next to the Caltex station at the corner of Laguna blvd. and the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay national highway, the South Supermarket looks as if it has always been there.  It just opened in time for the Christmas holidays last year, and the neighborhood is there all the time. I run into someone I know each time I'm there, and that's nearly every week.  The staff knows many of us by face, in the same way the old Rustan's Express staff down the boulevard beside the St. John Bosco parish does.  Perhaps sadly (?) for Rustan's, many of our faces are...missed.  However, I'm sure it remains a destination for after-work, after-school and after-mass.

  There are still a few items South Supermarket does not carry, that Rustan's stocks up on, though. Things like Likas Papaya soap, and Antonio Pueo Excellente Chocolate tableas.  So I have been back to Rustan's occasionally for these. One of those times, the manager happily (and reassuringly, it seems, to her subordinate) reported to me that Shopwise is soon opening in Nuvali.

  Many Filipinos in the neighborhood are Alabang folk, and previously made the drive to the Alabang branch of South Super for their groceries. When we moved to Sta. Rosa and took the long route to the SM Sta. Rosa--via the bayan--we saw the old South Super Sta. Rosa along the way. It was "out of the way" for this side of Sta. Rosa, and the parking lot was EMPTY. So it was not surprising to hear they had closed down. Opening on this side, and smack in the middle of the busy intersection of Paseo and Laguna blvd, is, if I were a competitor, extremely enviable.  It is not only an after-work, after-school, after-play destination, it is also a stop for those traveling further to Tagaytay or Batangas.

  My own history with South Supermarket goes way back to my childhood in the Pasay-Paranaque border.  It was also the neighborhood store, very homey with red brick walls.  We would stop by South Super for groceries after school, or for supplies for school projects, or for a quick snack. There was a soft-serve ice cream machine, where a very kind gay man cheerfully served up twists of bland, creamy vanilla and chocolate twists of ice cream.  She/he knew us all as well, and if you were as kind to him/her, you could get an extra tall serving.  He/she later had to man an ICEE slushie machine as well. Remember that slushie drink with the Polar bear logo, and flavors colored ice blue, brown for cola, and red?  I later realized he/she watched many of us grow up, as I had a college friend from the same neighborhood who claimed he was a favorite of this server.  I wonder where he/she is now.  I wonder what happened to the ICEE brand.

   In South Supermarket Sta. Rosa, the barbecue kiosk lady who now knows us by face is fast becoming my kid's version of my ice cream vendor.  Now that I think about it...she looks familiar because she looks like that ice cream vendor. Or at least that is his/her smile I remember.  How uncanny.