Federico's (or where to get your laing fix)

One noon time I saw a sign at the Laguna Technopark Gate 1, advertising a "Laguna Technopark Square" (or was it really a "square"), with restaurants as Paotsin, Aline Nene's, Potdog, and more.

Turns out its location is just outside Gate 3, which can be accessed from inside the technopark if an insider, or along the Laguna blvd, crossing the bridge to the Binan side, along Don Bosco, Ayala's Santa Rosa Village and San Jose Villages, De La Salle, Westgrove, Beacon Academy, and out on the road that leads towards  Palma Real, Dalta, and Verdana Mamplasan.  

The place also houses TBS The Blue Corner, which may be a branch of the place at the Paseo Market.  At the end of the building, I found Federico's, which has the most friendly and warm staff, and an equally accommodating owner. As she is Bicolano, the specialty of the house is actually LAING with anything. Laing with fried tilapia, laing with chicken, laing with bopis...

There are many Bicolanos in the Sta. Rosa-Silang area, and while they can probably cook up their own native food...I am nowhere near being from Albay so I am happy to have found them.  Their food is good, and as I said, they are so very nice.

They also specialize in "Boodle Fights", they lay out the banana leaves and you can choose to put together your own Boodle Fight menu.  

I'm sorry my photos are or poor quality, and I am sorry it was a Saturday night, which means there were no employees enjoying Boodle Fights, which means, no banana leaves spread on the tables...  
but here I will show you their really delicious and bestselling Mango Graham Shake, served in a corked bottle:

Back in the Neighborhood

     Just realized reports said Janet Napoles lived in Binan, Laguna before.  So now she's simply going back to this province...

     So this is probably the photo our new helper saw on television last night.  No wonder she told me "but it is surrounded by tall grass"..after I told her that the fort is actually within the barangay sto. domingo also in our city; that this barangay is also full of residents, that the street to the entrance gate is actually surrounded by residents.  She had imagined it to be an isolated grassy area.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/478255/court-okays-napoles-transfer-to-laguna-fort

      There are those trees...very Silang-Sta. Rosa. 

    Maybe just my imagination, but sometime ago when I first heard the initials JLN,  I kept recalling seeing vehicles with JLN license plates. It must have been a regular sighting around here; I remember correcting myself, thinking JIL?  And yes, it is because I have a weird fascination or curiosity about license plate numbers.  This is rooted in my childhood when I would read license plate numbers on the drive to and from school. Plus of course sometimes they can be cryptic.  They can also get irritating, such as when they are composed of only the number 8 and happen to be luxurious; happen to be the latest model Hummer, Lexus or what not...happen to speed, weave, with blinking lights and a convoy of goons in lesser suv's.  Stand along the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay highway on weekends and you will get to see all these.   Not that I do that. 

   Until recently I would notice all these license plates around here all the way to Tagaytay----plates with NBI, or PNP. And many times, these were the cars of Koreans.  How nice they are to celebrate with their police friends, with those commemorative license plates.

   Anyway, I don't have a point...except maybe when we see these luxury vehicles, with special plates and convoys that attract attention...I mean, really, many of them come from new wealth or wealth that is "ill-gotten". New wealth is not wrong.  I'm just saying, that it seems many of them are from government. Truly "old rich" do have more class and go about in simpler, unmarked vehicles.  Take the case of one of the handsome owners and developers of the "neighborhood"...you wouldn't know it but he used to get on his motorbike, stop for coffee in these parts...      

    

Brazil in Binan

    Two years ago I  blogged about a palo china carpentry shop in Bgy. Platero, Binan, Laguna.  

    

 Yesterday I went on another shopping errand and didn't realize until a parade began that I was standing across that palo china shop.  This is right at the border of Binan and Tagapo Sta Rosa.

    As I arrived there were men, well not really men, you know, bodies painted in glittery gold, silver, yellow...large peacock, golden, auras attached to their behinds and stretching up and  out.  Carnival in Rio style, you can imagine.  They were sitting in front of the Banahaw Heals Spa, waiting.  They were not very many, just around a dozen or so, so I was confident I would not be caught in a jam.

    Anyway, as the band played, the shopkeeper told me it was actually the barangays fiesta day.  So this was a "Karakol"...the procession started and at first I saw children and adults at the lead, holding small Sto. Nino statues, waving them a la Cebu Sinulog.

     It was cheerful all around, as having the costumed ones is often a guaranteed fun and happy time.  The drum beats and music were also moving...but I asked aloud "why Gangnam style" in the beginning.

        Again, sorry to comment on my religion's practices...but really, here again is a sort of "young" and "animistic, childish" ritual of faith...I myself have a Sto. Nino image and am a devotee, but I don't get this kind of Rio-type parade coupled with outfitting the Christ-child's image in equally sparkly costumes and dancing around with it.  Well, just plain fun, I guess, and especially important for children, I suppose.  Other cultures have their seemingly quirky rituals. To each his own.  I like ati-atihan anyway.  For as long as the beat is our own...not Gangnam. Then again, somewhat apt considering the large Korean population in these parts!  

Beacon Academy

 

 

 

    Ahh! So conducive to learning!  Set against a mountain, this high school is.  And as with many of the new, good schools adding a ''branch" or relocating South (of Metro Manila), this one is never really far from where people live. In this area of Santa Rosa, that is.  When I say "not far" I actually mean the drives are pleasant.  No traffic jams, no smog, greens along the road...various bird species on the trees (and well, okay, the wires). 

 

    I hope these children know how fortunate they are.  When I hear of others trapped in EDSA or C5 or wherever, going from school in Makati to home in Quezon City or vice versa,  I feel sorry. Even sitting as passengers in private cars, their daily travel to and from school can be a stressor.  And then the kids and teens focus on tablets sitting in traffic in the car...

 

   That is another story, maybe for the Mother blog where I talk about how now the kid dislikes flavored milk "because it's too sweet for my tongue". Among other things natural, unrefined, pure and maybe organic... 

 



A Lonely Road

     Let's mosey on over (MOSEY? who talks like that anymore? here?) to another border.  We've already posted about the Silang-Sta. Rosa border.  The same road on my title photo above, bears the sign "Welcome to Binan, Laguna" on the opposite side of the road. That's where we are headed on this post.  Well, not quite to the main area of Binan, but to Barangay Binan, where a phase of San Jose Village is located (if I'm not mistaken there are 6 phases. The last one is a very quite location full of trees).

 

 

 



 



    This way leads to another gate of Ayala Westgrove and the Laguna Technopark Inc. annex.  At the corner is the Metrobank, and a phase of San Jose Village.  Under construction are Avida Shophouses.  With plans for a 7-11 in one of those, I'm assuming this area is going to be a busy place, and this road not very lonely for long.

 

 

    At the moment it gives my father the heebie-jeebies (okay, first mosey now this...)  After all, it is bordered by nothing but cogon for a stretch. It's the kind of road which in the Southern Philippines screams "ambush! ambush!" to a soldier.  Yes he was a soldier (an officer), that is why such an empty road frightens him.   (And with this pardon my detour as I pay my respects to those who were massacred in Maguindanao this month three years ago. Clearly, the roads were paved, the hills verdant, more beautiful than this...but the incident horrific). It sure looks and feels like the boondocks, but I assure him, it's still a part of Ayala Land and the technopark.

   I'm sure at night it can be scary.

   But following my mantra, I mean to enjoy this loneliness, these bare fields, while I can.  A brief stop at the grocery in the shopping area with its Sunday crowd and artificial lights afterwards jarred my head again. I need the fields, plains and green mountains to relax me.  Oh, the sound of birds, and the sight of them here! 

    The weather was mild too.  Very sunny, yet cool. And this is Binan, Laguna, not even Tagaytay.

  
    Visible from this spot (facing the other way, down to the city), is the De La Salle Science and Technology complex. I still am wondering why it used to be called De La Salle Canlubang, when the borders I see around belong to Sta. Rosa, Silang, and Binan...I enjoy looking at maps and would like to know why.  Can somebody enlighten me please?

Palochina in Binan

     I'm showing the bookshelf, not the books.  It is very simple, straightforward, made of palochina.  I don't know exactly what the name translates to, or if it is even supposed to be one or two words. Palo could mean like a strip of wood (please, somebody, help?), while china would mean that it is wood from China?

     Anyway, palochina used for furniture, usually beds, is sourced from shipping crates.  Carpenters source the crates from the port area in Manila, but I also heard they buy the crates in Santa Rosa. I just don't know where.  I am also not sure how sustainably-produced the wood is, but at least it is recycled from cargo.  These days, the price of palochina is up, owing to low supply of good quality crates.   I suppose it is also due to a decrease in imports?

    I remember palochina being something of a fad in the late '70s to early '80s, or at least I thought it might be when as a child I kept hearing about it from a neighbor in our middle class neighborhood.  She had a 'bar' made (a well-stocked liquor bar set with stools is, I reckon, another fad from the era. I don't think it's as standard an area as it was then. Correct me again here, please?) I digress.

    By the time I wanted furniture made myself, I turned to palochina, as it was affordable, had the Swedish pinewood appearance, and there was a community carpenter whose specialty was the palochina bed.  I had him make little stools for children.  Later I ordered a bed from one of the palochina guys along the Service Road toward Bicutan and across the United Paranaque Subdivision (United Hills).  I have since ordered store shelves and cabinets from a guy named Jose, who has since disappeared from Sucat Rd., and wardrobes from the group on Santolan Ave. across Camp Aguinaldo.  
This bookshelf above, is from my latest palochina carpenters in Binan, Laguna. 

   Trivia:  all these guys are from Isabela in the north. Just ask them. They are all cousins, they say, including the ones along Commonwealth Ave (are they still there?). They must have learned from one great master carpenter, then.  I tend to believe them, too, except maybe the latest, most professional one so far.  Why? Well, no matter how "industrial" your preferred design, meaning all straight lines, they will insist on adding their "curved" border.

    Honestly, I can't even remember whether I drew the curve for them to follow. Then again, I think my sample photo was from an IKEA catalogue and it didn't have the curve. At any rate, it has grown on me, and I concede that straight lines would make the piece too boring and box-like.  These guys, are after all, craftsmen. It's just that, if you aren't really going for the "country cottage" look, make sure you have your design clear. 

   Through the years, the varnish the carpenters use has evolved.  My first orders yellowed due to the finish, my sister's one order turned dirty because she refused varnish, hoping to keep a natural finish. Now, they have achieved the natural finish with a new kind of varnish.  The wood doesn't turn yellow.

   Since our previous bedroom furniture already consisted of palochina, I chose it again for the book and toy shelves. JOVIMAR Palochina along the national highway in Binan, toward SM Sta. Rosa and just before the fork to Sta. Rosa, is a good shop. They did not charge for delivery, either, and have their own van for it. 
   I have observed that many Korean families here (and there are many), opt for palochina tables and beds. Double deck beds made of palochina are popular in the country.  It is quite practical, inexpensive and clean-looking. I recommend Jovimar for their on-time and even early delivery, and for how they try their best to get the design right by thorough discussion.  Jovimar's number is 09263449312.  They don't need advertising, and I get nothing from them for this. They don't even know.  Wait, this again assumes someone's out there reading this. Let me know?