Breaking fast with friends

Sharing your joy through food is one of the best part in friendships. You explore, taste and bond together for another exploration and tasting and bonding. It never ends, a delicious cycle.

This explorations led me to a carenderia somewhere in Guadalupe, the name of which escaped from our minds. I asked everyone of us who went there but they too could not remember a name. It is just "one of those" carenderias near the Crown Regency hotel in that part of Cebu City. All we could remember were the great food they served and how cheap they were. Cheap here means less on the price and generous on the servings.

Most carenderias in the country may be serving anything and everything with pork. There, you have a lot of choices. They even served my favorite inun-unan nga isda (fish paksiw) with veggies on the side!

A plus (or minus on some of you) on eating there is you get to mingle with tattooed expats who criticized their governments loudly and some English-speaking call center agents and trying-hard students.

Tapsilogan

Our explorations also led me to a tapsilogan (tapsilog, a breakfast menu consisting of the usual tapa [cured beef], sinangag [fried rice] and itlog [fried egg]) somewhere in Banilad just across the Gaisano Countrymall and back of the University of Cebu. It was called Tapsilogan ni Gian.

I don't really like these tapsilogan eateries because of the greasy food but since friends wanted to explore, so I did. The tapsilogan has come a long way in the country. They now offer different combination meals that some of them has become a joke among Filipinos. 

The Tapsilogan ni Gian is one of the eateries that lined up in this side of Banilad. They offer very cheap food combinations starting at 38 to 48 pesos. Cheap, indeed! But what can you expect from a 38 pesos meal? Greasy, greasy food! Aside from the stationary electric fans that did not cool down the place, the eatery has only two fluorescent lamps in the ceiling that you might mistook the place as the tambayan for mischiefs of the law. I hate dim-lighted restaurants. Makes you wonder why.

Good beef

After a not-so-good encounter with beef at Jollibee, it is quite amazing that a fastfood chain could offer a better and more palatable beef version.

Chowking newly introduced their Tender Beef with Broccoli Meal at 99 pesos only, drink included. The beef is exceptional to my taste and lived up to its name. You would imagine beef that would came off from the bones without the slight provocation, only there were no bones around. My lola would have liked this meal. 

However, the broccoli was too dry and gummy despite the sauce, an indication that it was not fresh at all. But still.

Friendship matters

With all these food trips to both the familiar and the unfamiliar restaurants, we have come to know each other personally. And this knowledge has bonded us together for another day of explorations.

It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him. ~Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author