Manila - Week 2 of Food

My second week in the Philippines went by in a blur of working and eating. The girls I was working with took me out to lunch every day, and I got to experience some very tasty food. First they took me to a place called "Army Navy", which reminded me a little bit of Chipotle, but they had a wider range of food. While Chipotle only does burritos, bowls and quesadillas, Army Navy does burgers, hot dogs and cheese steaks too.


Lhen, Kathleen and I waited at a table for our food to be ready.
I was going to order a burrito so I could do a Chipotle comparison, but they were having a Tuesday Taco special, so I ordered their chicken tacos, "freedom fries" and "LiberTea" (their own house blend tea). I did go back for dinner later that week too to try the burrito though. The food was AMAZING! Whatever seasoning they use in their meat is delicious, their fries are crispy and also delicious. Even their house blended tea was great. I know it's almost blasphemous to say, but I would pick Army Navy over Chipotle. If I ever go back to the Philippines I'll have to try their burger.


The next day for lunch they took me to a place called Dave's Tea House, which was a Chinese restaurant. I was a little wary after my experience at Big Buddha, but this place was really good. We ordered a beef stew type dish that Phil's family usually orders when we eat out in Chinatown, NY, wonton noodle soup, and dumplings. I have to say this restaurant could have held its own in NY Chinatown. I don't even think it was run by a Chinese person either, which was extra impressive. Lhen and I are getting ready to enjoy some good Chinese food.

Another day they took me to a Filipino restaurant (I don't remember the name). We ordered a dish called Sisig, which is beef, eggs and some other things served on a sizzling hot plate, and we also ordered a soup dish.


On my last day there we ventured outside of the mall-filled bubble around the office, and I discovered once you leave that part of town there are actually a lot of office buildings surrounding the area. It figures it would take me until my last day to venture outside the labyrinth of malls. We headed to a popular lunch destination called the Ayala Triangle. It's basically a triangular park area that has a row of restaurants along one side. It gets pretty crowded actually, and every restaurant has at least a 30 minute wait. Good thing the Filipino's are so laid back about time. We went to another Chinese restaurant for lunch this time - it wasn't as good as David's Tea House, but still pretty tasty (still better than Big Buddha!). I was too busy eating I forgot to take pictures of the food, so all you get is a picture of me and Kathleen on the edge of Ayala Triangle.

Manila - Day 7 (Concert at Greenbelt)

Om Sunday I went back to Greenbelt in the evening to try one of their many restaurants. I had passed by one called "Big Buddha" that looked like it might be good.


The place was a little empty, but I was a little early for dinner. A few more of the tables started to fill up as I was eating, but I should have taken it as a sign....


The food was Chinese style. I ordered one of their noodle soups, but it was a little disappointing...I actually enjoyed the sticky chips they had for appetizers more than the actual meal O__o

There was a concert in the middle of Greenbelt Park. The performers seemed to be a Filipino band, and I was trying to figure out who was performing, but the sign in the back just said Chuck Hughes in big letters - not exactly something that sounds like a band name or a Filipino name for that matter.

It turns out Chuck Hughes is one of the Iron Chefs. The band was accompanying him while he cooked, which I thought was weird, but I found out that Chuck Hughes used to be a rocker or something like that so I guess that's why the band in the background. That brings the number of Iron Chefs I've met to two - the first was Masaharu Morimoto back in college. I have to say Masaharu Morimoto was more exciting in my opinion.

Manila - Day 6 (Greenbelt and Shangri-La)

Over the weekend I was on my own - my coworker, Daichi, had left after work on Friday. I mainly stayed in the nearby area. I debated venturing out to Manila, but hadn't really planned much in advance so I decided to just relax and do some walking and window shopping instead. My brother-in-law, Tam, had suggested I check out a hotel called Shangri La that was in my area. He said it was supposed to be really amazing. It was very pretty, but I'm not really sure what all the hype was about...
The front entrance was definitely grand though.
Out of the many malls in the area, the one I hadn't had a chance to venture out to was called Greenbelt. There are actually 5 different malls interconnected - Greenbelts 1 through 5. A lot of the mall is actually open to the outside which was nice. This is a view of one of the main entrances to Greenbelt Mall and the Greenbelt Park (the little park inside the center of all 5 malls). This was taken on outdoor walkway that connects Greenbelt to another mall across the road. Like I said before, lots of malls...
The walkway was very long to cross over the major road below.
Greenbelt Park was very nice. Lots of trees and little walkways.

There's even an open church where they hold services in the middle of Greenbelt Park. Several people from the office that we were working at actually went there during the day last week for mass.
On the ground level, there were a lot of restaurants, eateries and coffee places. Perfect for ordering a coffee or a frozen yogurt, sitting and just enjoying the nice weather ^__^



I finally ended up trying food from Jollibee, the local fast food chain. Their chicken sandwich was decent, but their flavored fries were very good - crispy, cheesy and delicious. I was a little bummed though. They had a hash brown sandwich - a burger with hash browns instead of buns - but they were all out. That would have been interesting to try.

Manila - Day 3 (Giligan's)

On our third day Daichi and I went to a restaurant called Giligan's. The restaurant had traditional Filipino food, but it was completely pirate themed. All the wait staff was wearing bandanas on their heads. We ordered a beef dish, something that was similar to the Kare Kare (I think it was the vegetarian version), and coconut rice.



They had a beer special, so Daichi ordered some of the local beer called San Miguel. Looks like he really likes the beer!

The food was really good, but when I was eating the vegetarian Kare Kare I bit into something that looked like a jagged piece of clear plastic. We called over the manager who went in back to investigate and he came back telling us it was "naturium" (not sure if I'm spelling that right). According to Daichi that's the same word they use in Japanese for NaCl, which is salt...That definitely was not salt. But then someone at the office explained it's a hard part that is sometime found in a fish's gills. Who knew?

Manila - Day 1

A project came up for work, and my boss sent me to the Philippines for 2 weeks. I was staying in Makati, which is like the financial district, just outside of Manila. I was pretty excited because I'd never been to the Philippines before, but 2 weeks away from Calvin was also pretty rough (for the both of us).

When I arrived the first thing I noticed is that eveyone is extremely polite. I don't think I've been called m'am that many times in my entire life. By the time I reached the hotel it was 1 in the morning on Monday, but I still managed to get a few pictures of the room.

I only got a few hours of sleep, but the next day I was off to the office with one of my coworkers to start on our project. The area of the city that we were in was surrounded by malls, that were all connected on the inside. So you could walk from one end of the city to the other almost without ever stepping outside.


This is the office where I spent my 2 weeks. It turns out it was the only office building in that area. We had to go to the other side of the ring of malls to get to any other office buildings. The location definitely made it easy to find places to eat for lunch though.


The first place we went to eat for lunch was a place called Max's. Their specialty is chicken, but somehow we ended up not ordering a single chicken dish...The food was really good though. This dish was a stir-fry veggie type of dish.

This dish was like the Chinese pork belly, but Filipino style. Pork belly pretty much just means pork fat...

The other dish we ordered was called Kare Kare, which is oxtail with various vegetables in some kind of peanut-based sauce and shrimp paste. It was actually really good. I think Phil would have liked the oxtail.

After work I headed out with my coworker to explore one of the many malls near the hotel. While we were in the mall we passed a Jollibee, which is a local fast food chain, similar to a McDonald's. Their mascot is the Jolly Bee. They are actually a customer of my company, so I had to take a picture with the Jolly Bee.


For dinner we ended up eating at an Italian restaurant. I think it was called Italiani, or something like that.

We ordered a chicken mango salad. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting...I could have eaten it as my entire meal!

I ordered their thin crust pizza special, which basically had 3 different pizza types/toppings. The pizza was extremely thin. It was less like pizza and more like some kind of thin crisp cracker, especially since there was no tomato sauce, but I liked it. It was just way too much food.

On top of the fact that my coworker, Daichi, ordered his own pasta too. We definitely ordered too much food...That huge smile on Daichi's face is the "I can't believe we ordered this much food/There's no way we're finishing this" laugh of hysteria. ^__^

Gymboree

There are a lot of places where you can take your baby in for some playtime so they can interact with other kids - kind of like daycare, except with parents, and it's usually only for an hour or two. One of those places is called Gymboree, which is in fact associated with the babies clothing store. They let you have a free trial class, so Mandy and I signed Calvin and Maddy up for a free class together at the Gymboree by my house. Phil's mom was around so we brought her along. Calvin looks so sharp in his collared shirt.


The first thing Calvin and Maddy got to do when we arrived in the class was play with some bubbles. They'd never seen bubbles before so they were completely fascinated. I should remember to get some bubbles next time I need to distract Calvin.


The class had some semi-structured playtime, but Calvin had a tendency to run off on his own and do his own thing. Of course he immediately found a ball lying around and started playing with it. He kept trying to throw it up one of the slides they had.


It was hula hoop time, but Calvin was just standing around doing his own thing.


Clearly plastic traffic cones are more fun...

What's in here?

They had this little mini obstacle course for babies, but the only way we could get Calvin to go on it was to roll the ball in front of him so he would follow it. He got very upset when another kid grabbed the ball and threw it away.


Peek-a-boo Maddy!

Overall I think Calvin had a good time, but the classes are a little expensive in my opinion. I'd rather just arrange a play date at a park or something. Though in general not a bad experience. Definitely a good way to meet other parents and kids.