Socrates' Secret

I do want this place to remain...secret.

Just because it is an ideal place for me to enjoy, in peace.  It is spacious enough for busy dining hours, but I like it spare, like this.

The interiors are very pretty, blue and teal walls...not exactly the usual Greece blue, but just as attractive; various owls in many shapes and forms; comfortable seating,  lovely lamps, interesting curios. Most of all, an inviting children's corner with wood furniture.

moussaka...there is also a vegetarian variant. They serve whole wheat pita 

The food! So delicious, so rich in flavor and scent. Ingredients are obviously not scrimped on. Portions are just-right to generous servings and picture-pretty presentation.  
I was told the chef was trained by a Greek chef.

lamb gyro

The design draws one in, and it's a really good thing the food equals the care put into the decor details. They even have board games for guests to play with...but really, the food is enough for me to come back.  I see this place as perfect for ladies getting together; and apparently, some faculty members of a nearby school have been coming over for the same reasons I would...the calm ambience, and the dishes, of course.

Okay, it is in the Laguna Central Mall...below Shopwise. At the corner of Laguna blvd. and the Tagaytay-Sta. Rosa Highway.It is next to...what happened to...Kenji's Steamboat? Where I enjoyed the Bak kut teh? Sayang...


These next two photos were taken at Ble, in BF Homes, Paranaque...

This was actually the only dining space (plus a table outside) they had.  As of a few weeks ago, they have a new branch on another street also in BF.

Oh, Socrates' menu has a good selection of popular Mediterranean favorites, except maybe for seafood like calamari...which Ble, pictured above, serves.  Ble is in Aguirre St., BF Homes, Paranaque, and from a tiny, 12 or so-seater nook, now has a branch on another street. It is owned by a Greek couple.  There are equally pretty pendant lamps but again, my photo fails to capture them.  Again, love the blues, but they are a bonus for the actual attraction---the food.  

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.

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.