BLOGGERS’ MEET-UP: About Meeting Place, Of Food, Of Fun, and Of Awesome Bonding - PART 2

Me, Senyor (Christian), Pao, Mecoy & Bino

I'm pretty sure you're kind of "bitin" sa first part ng meet up namin. You might be guessing, thinking, assuming there's more of it. Well, yeah there is  and here’s the second part of our meet-up last February 9.

Just a bit of info - most of these bloggers hailed from the South of Manila except for the rose among the thorns - Senyor who happens to be from Pasig. I came from Carmona, Cavite, though I got a place in GMA Kamuning too, Pao from Calamba, Mecoy from Cavite City and Bino is from Alabang. 

Wonder where we headed-off after the Fish and Co. experience? The photo on the upper left was the teaser - actually 'the proof'.

BLOGGERS’ MEET-UP: About Meeting Place, Of Food, Of Fun, and Of Awesome Bonding - PART 1

Pao, Me, the famed blogger 'Bino' of Damuhan, and Mecoy

If you pursue blogging, one must (in my opinion) be ready to the idea of meet-ups with fellow bloggers. It's hard to exist as a blogger if you're not open to such things. 

Well, for anonymous bloggers it may  sounds threatening to them. For anonymous ones, it's like unmasking their anonymity and so I presume that they aren't really into "meet-ups" which is clearly logical. 

Meeting up strangers that only exists in the online world somehow gives us qualms and misgivings right?

There are “what” and “if” that haunts us occasionally. Pretty normal right? 

But on the other end of the rope, there is this certain amount of excitement that pushes us to go and to get to know them in real time and real world. And that's what had happened to us  last February 09, 2013 when we finally had our chance of seeing each other in person.

About Restaurant Hopping, Of Unexpected Moments, Of Disappointments, Of Long Roads, and Of Every Road Led Us To Fushi Again: The Second FUSHI Encounter

I was late! That’s it. No further explanation. LoLs!

No! wait I need to explain. I was late because I took a nap and the nap almost turned out to be an uninterrupted sleep. Just woke up when my phone alarm rang that disturbed my comfy sleep.  So, I rose up rushing to the bathroom for a quick bath. Consumed 5 minutes, yes it's 5 minutes shower and went out to fix myself up. Looking at the clock, it's 7:04PM already, the agreed time was 730pm. I was running late. Dammam was like a 15-20 minutes drive going to Rakkah where my good friend Bong was waiting. But what added more to the dilemma was the lack of taxis around my area. It seemed though that they connived with time to prolong my delay. Such a crap! I hate being late. Apology guys!

About Sinarsa, Budbud, Siniguelas, and “Bago Leaves”: Top 12 Foodies I Miss in Sibuyan Island

When you're far away from home, there are moments when out of nowhere you just miss the food that you used to eat during childhood days and growing up.

And as a regular guy who grew up in a remote island of Sibuyan, moments like such always sink in. As a result, your mind will once again transport back to those early years of your life where simplicity reign, where food is simple and out of culinary standards - in short "native preparation" - hahaha!

Perhaps calling it remote now isn't appropriate already since there were several changes that had occurred during my decade's absence. Somehow, internet access is kind of available already. Well, I say kind of because it’s not that fast in terms of speed of downloading and of availing its services. Blame it also to the fluctuating signal of network providers.

On the other side, it still fall under the category of "remote" for me since presence of malls and shopping centers are nowhere to be found. We still have the basics of the basic. The only major changes that had impacted to me is my former school upon which from a simple technical courses being offered before it had earned few years  back a status of a university.

It has been around 12 years of me being gone in my home town.

Okay, here's the deal, since food is the topic, I will give you a run down of the different (exotic to some extent I guess) that are used to be served on top of our wooden table, or every household or in town in general. Eto yung tinatawag na sariling atin, sariling gawa (sariling imbento - hik! hik!).

About Spot on Moments, Laughter, and Rolls: "The FUSHI Experience"

November 6, 2012

Unplanned! Yes, this is the exact word for it. None of us knew that it would happen but it did. And we had fun, great fun. Nothing can beat the idea of an unplanned meet up because it's spot on and friends available just converged with us that night. I won't elaborate on how we ended up in Fushi but I'll try to divert your attention highlighting my raw and unofficial food review. I'll briefly chronicle in the later part about how the unexpected meet up was.

I am a neophyte cook and perhaps my review won't be at par with those whose knowledge about culinary and food are to vow for. This is just an attempt of how I find this new found restaurant so far. New for me since it was my first visit..

I had been in several oriental restaurants in Manila particularly those which caters Korean and Chinese food. I'm a lover of Korean food - a thing which has been introduced to me when I tutored two Korean students in BF Homes in Paranaque way back 2006 until late of 2007. As far back as I can remember, the only Japanese restaurant that I frequent to is the all accessible TOKYO, TOKYO which you can find anywhere in the metro. None in my wildest fancy will I ever encounter one Japanese inspired resto that caters mostly Japanese food. Let alone here in the Mideast - KSA in particular. Though I'm not sure if all are authentic Japanese cuisines since nowadays, food fusion abounds everywhere. I presume they serve a variety of Asian dishes that makes it more of an Asian cuisine and not purely Japanese. Oriental cuisine fusion so to speak. 

Before we went straight inside this fancy restaurant, I was caught in awe of its exterior design, the blending of colors make it more attractive that anyone who passes by would easily generate interest taking a peek inside and eventually dine in. 

The entrance area. - it's flashy in lavender and neon green color

The Neophyte Cook # 3: "Binagoongang Manok"

The Neophyte Cook - this segment in my blog will feature my cooking apprenticeship without the formal culinary lessons, shy of cooking standards, and is done out-of-passion in cooking. Recipes will vary from various cuisine's dishes as long as I can modestly prepare and my guts tell me to do so.


If you've been following this blog, you're probably oriented that I have this blog segment called "The Neophyte Cook" and the description is written above. In cooking, if you really have the talent it will surely show-up even though you're short of having formal culinary lessons. And this talent if properly develop will evolve into a passion. For it to become a passion you need to have a natural inclination and an intense & pure love of the craft.


Cooking runs in the family. In fact, I have an Uncle who's been so successful in the field of culinary arts. He is based in Sheraton Hotel in Guam and had devised & designed his own "Cuisines of the Suns Culinary Program". He's been traveling to different colleges and universities within the country to conduct this program. Basically, giving lectures and seminars to college students pursuing the field of culinary arts and hotel and restaurant management. And countable from my cousins are pursuing the same passion. So, you might not wonder if one of these days, I may be joining their ranks and you'll just see new posts here which are at par to cooking standards or has leveled-up in a very near future.


Like what I've said, I only cook if I have free time, which in my case fall under weekend. Today, I am featuring a original Filipino dish and perhaps most of you are familiar with. Or I may be wrong too. Maybe some of you aren't used to seeing or hearing "Binagoongang Manok" since when we speak of binagoongan, pork comes first into our mind as its main ingredient. To add a twist in it, I have deviated the recipe into chicken. Just for the taste of it and a detour from the normal course so to speak. And here's my third entry for this segment. I cooked it for our dinner.

Binagoongang Manok

Preparing this menu is more enjoyable when you're being assisted by your wife. She's like my "sous chef" - a second in command and direct assistant of the chef. Well, I pretended to be the master chef..LoLs. And when cooking session is being done with smiles both in your faces it'll surely result to a palatable finish product. Plus the constant goofing around adds a lightly cool mood into the relatively hot atmosphere in our kitchen.

The Neophyte Cook # 2: "Tinolang Manok sa Pakwan"

The Neophyte Cook - this segment in my blog will feature my cooking apprenticeship without the formal culinary lessons, shy of cooking standards, and is done out-of-passion in cooking. Recipes will vary from various cuisine's dishes as long as I can modestly prepare and my guts tell me to do so.


For the record this is the second entry I have in my blog segment "The Neophyte Cook". I only cook if I have ample time and if ingredients are readily available in our refrigerator. LoLs.. I'm aiming to have more recipes to be cooked. (Crossing fingers with matching closed eyes..LoLs) 


Tinolang Manok sa Pakwan? Whooah! I never thought there is a certain recipe as this. Not until I found it out one day. And how did I find it out?


It’s funny how this idea (cooking it) came up. It was one late Tuesday morning of June 19 when I was tagged in a wall post by my good friend Ryan making me envious of his version of it. I really thought I’d be invited for a lunch that day (nag-expect lang si Spidey lols!). Normally, we usually take our lunch together with the rest of our group (Satt, Jimmy, &Remwell) almost everyday. It’s either we dine out or he’ll cook in his flat. But since these past few months I’ve been so occupied in the office I humbly begged-off from joining our lunch group until my bulk tasks in the office finishes. Seriously, I missed these guys. The normal cracking of funny jokes while having our lunch adds up to the "I miss them" part.

Now, back to what pushed me to cook my own version. I was just tagged for his purpose of maybe letting my envy runs in my blood and probably just to make me drool. And he was successful indeed because I almost got out of my office and rode a taxicab to head fast to his flat. But it was too late since when I read again his post it said they’re done with lunch already. I was frowning and a bit sad—hahaha!. I was hungry then and I thought it’d be perfect since I didn’t prepare my lunch that day. You’re such a poor guy spidey! LoLs! hahaha.

As a reply to his post, I did my own wall post tagging him by telling that I’ll be cooking my own version comes weekend too -my way of easing-out my slight irate that day.

And so here it is, my simple version of “Tinolang Manok sa Pakwan”. Initially, my wife and I planned to cook it for lunch but since when we checked out the nearby “Farm ” supermarket we didn’t find any sliced watermelon from the stands. Instead, we find one whole watermelon unsliced. The store attendant told us that the sliced one will be ready comes late afternoon. Having heard that we just decided to cook it for dinner.

I have the recipe saved in my Samsung Galaxy Note so we had to check it out and read the instructions. Honestly, I’ve read it twice already but my poor memory always makes me in trouble. I can’t memorize the way I used to before. So, we had to read again while preparing the ingredients.

To cut the story short, I successfully cooked my own version of “Tinolang Manok sa Pakwan”. I was laughing hard while we’re about to put some into a bowl since I told my wife that it should be presented well. So she got two tablecloth napkins and a clean white Corell bowl. To add to its aesthetic element we topped it with pechay leaves. And here’s what we’ve got.

Tinolang Manok sa Pakwan