Just Don't Talk With Your Mouth Full

Don't talk with your mouth full was something my siblings and I heard a lot as kids. After some years that changed for me to Hurry up and finish your food. I'm a slow eater.

I talk a lot during a meal. And if I don't talk with my mouth full it's obviously going to take a while longer to eat.

I could be anti-social and starve, too.

Here's just a few meals I've had over the past month that may have kept others waiting at the table:

July 20th in Bulacan:
Chicken, potatoes, and carrots.

Fresh bread and fish.

Spaghetti, shrimps, and marinara sauce.

After that meal we drove into town to buy chicharon (pork rinds):
A chicharon store.

Another chicharon store. Gee, she doesn't look too busy. Let's not buy any here. Wouldn't want to wake her!

How about here?

You readers may be interested to know all three of these shops are on one part of a small, mostly residential street full of nothing but shops selling chicharon. I took pictures of just these three because there was only enough room for eighty-six more shots on the memory card and I didn't want to run out. ^_^

That last shop had the doors open to their kitchen. So this is what it looks like when chicharon is being cooked.

As much as everybody that day loved chicharon, it is a snack mostly lost on me. I did eat some, and freshly prepared chicharon is better than pork rinds you buy in a bag in the grocery store that have been there for who-knows how long; but I'll never be addicted to it.

When our dear friend Opal was here for five weeks we went out to eat with her a lot.

And I mean a lot.

That isn't all we did, but that was most of it!

Thanks to my swimming laps most days and Opal doing the same every day, we have no titanic tummies to show for our meals, but we do have pictures to remember them by. August 7th:
Here's Opal at Sala, in Greenbelt.

Great food. It better be. Our meal was one third what some people in the Philippines earn in a month.

After dinner we went to a place owned by one of our friends (it is also in Greenbelt), Classic Confections.
Here's just to prove we were all there.

We recently discovered a new place in Greenbelt called Flapjacks. As the name implies, they specialize in breakfasts.

I'm a big fan of breakfasts at non-breakfast hours. A lot of restaurants don't understand that mentality here, especially when it comes to western ideas of breakfast foods.

Pancakes and waffles.

Sausage and bacon.

Eggs done any way you like.

(Aren't you hungry just reading this???)

We were pleased to add Flapjacks to our short list of places to go for a good breakfast meal. It was August 11th, the last opportunity we'd have to see Opal for a long time, and she was excited to try it as well!
Tastes as good as it looks, folks!

This last weekend we had dinner with some of Edson's friends from his student days at UP. This time we strayed from Greenbelt to Serendra, in Ft. Bonifacio, and dined at Tatami.

As is obvious from the name, it is a Japanese restaurant. It's quite good, too. We'll be back for several reasons:

1. Unlike many of their neighboring restaurants, they don't seem to charge extra just because they're located in "Ft. Bonifacio Global City". Their prices are on par with other better Japanese restaurants.

2. Edson got a Japanese curry dish that reminded him of those served at our favorite restaurant in Ithaca, NY.

3. My zaru soba noodle dish (lower left in photo below) was served over a bed of ice, which kept the noodles nicely chilled.
I did find it unusual that the music playing in the restaurant was all by Enya.

Culture clash you're thinking?

It actually reminded me of my first time in Japan, back in 1993. My friend Hideaki's girlfriend liked to be lulled to sleep by Enya at night.

Oh, there's actually a 4th reason to go back to Tatami: to give us a reason to get us out of Makati once in a while!