On Malatapay

We drove to Zamboangita which is south of Dumaguete. Wednesday is market day. It's the one day of the week that hawkers, farmers and anyone who has anything to sell converge on the street leading to the resort of Malatapay. The street was packed with stalls with pirated DVDs, local vegetables, meat and everything else. The was a huge corral with livestock for sale. Live carabaos and cows included!

We weren't in the market for any of those though. Our destination was at the end of the busy thoroughfare, at the beach. There, makeshift stalls cooked fresh catch. Lechon cebu is available at PhP250/kilo. The skin is crispy, the meat tasty and is brought to your table with a dipping sauce of local vinegar and soy sauce. Yummy!

We were lucky to get the last of the lechon. The remaining 100 grams was thrown in, not counting the skin we had already started munching on. Normally, when we're unsure where to eat, we go to the place with the most people. We figure that most people can't be wrong:) But all the places were packed, and it was way past lunch! We took the first available table under a tree.

I was brought to several coolers with HUGE fish to choose from. There was tanigue available, but if you don't cook it right, it tends to get tough. Feeling adventurous, I decided on barracuda which was highly recommended. Two kilos was enough for 4 people, they said. It cost 250 per kilo, including ingredients and cooking fees.

We tried the famous "sutikil", or cooked three ways. It includes "sugba" which means grilled, "tinola" which here is fish boiled with salt, ginger, tomatoes and siling haba. Finally the "kilawin" which is fresh cubed fillet of fish marinated in calamansi juice, salt, ginger, onions and chili peppers. Visayans know their kinilaw like nobody's business!

Fresh, yummy food... a shady place to sit... the ocean breeze... being with people you love... LIFE IS GOOD!!

On Boston Market

s I mentioned in a previous post, I do so love to feed other people. When I have to nourish myself, I usually end up buying instant noodles or street food. While driving, I head for the nearest drive-thru. I don't discriminate, I just pick the closest one. This is when I'm in Manila and these places abound, some of them open 24/7.

I've been in Dumaguete since last month however, and there is only one drive-thru in the whole city! Burgers and fries from this place were coming out of my ears. The girl manning the window knows me and switches to English or Tagalog when taking my order. (They speak Cebuano here). It was becoming obvious that I needed just one decent meal from somewhere else. Then I could revert back to my old ways.

A few days later, I found myself downtown with a few hours to spare. It was way past lunch and I was starving! I remembered eating in a quaint Italian restaurant earlier in the year and wanted to go back. This Italian place was called, can you believe, Boston Market!? I've never been to Boston, much less their markets. Yet it's hard to imagine how this establishment could bear a semblance to its namesake.

I called my sister up and asked her to join me. The waitress took our orders then served my drink. I decided on calamari to start then a pasta (I forget which). The service took too long, but then that's another story.

Near the end of my meal, I noticed something in my dish. It was silver, stiff and a few millimeters long. I just knew it was a staple wire which could have done some serious damage to my gums!! (This was in hindsight though). Funny, but the thing running through my mind at the moment was that the kitchen didn't make anything from scratch. I imagined them opening stapled packets of spice or something to add to their sauces.

I showed it to my sister who, true to form, freaked out. It's not that I don't complain, but I just can't complain in Cebuano. She called the waitress and asked, in Tagalog but of course, what that thing was and what it was doing in my dish. The waitress inspected the specimen then said it must have been a sliver from a CAN! Again I was thinking, they use canned tomatoes??

Not satisfied with her explanation, my sister demanded that it be shown to the manager and that said manager be summoned. How it came to be is beyond me, but the waitress ended up showing the "nasty thing" to the kitchen staff!! She returned with a smug smile on her face when she returned. No, she declared, "it" was neither a staple wire or a piece of can. It was STEEL WOOL! I could have fainted, seriously.

This is a picture of steel wool uploaded from istockphoto.com. Can you imagine used particles of this in your food!? Well okay, it was a single particle. But one is just too much.

Anyway, as the waitress ceremoniously handed "it" back to us, I had an idea. I asked my sister to take pictures with her camera phone.

This was Dumaguete after all, the City of Gentle People. I didn't want to stir things up and be the bitch from Manila. I did, however, expect an apology from management or from the waitress at least. (It didn't happen). Was that asking too much? It would have been pushing it to expect free dessert or a discount. It just doesn't happen here.

Retaliation is not on my mind, though I would never eat there again. I just wanted to rant in the appropriate forum read: my blog.

Here is one more picture for posterity. Do you see it?

There! I got it off my chest. Finally.