Market Manila

“Good God Damn!” was the unabashed and spontaneous reaction of an American tourist clad in a stereotypical plaid shirt. He had just stepped up to a massive “halter,” the “star” of the utterly stunning collection of pre-colonial gold that has ever so quietly opened to the public at the Ayala Museum. I will explain why his comment was a good one, and not intended to be blasphemous at all…

I was privileged and extremely grateful to have been invited to, and given what was tantamount to the finest private tour of the new exhibit : “Gold of Ancestors,” Pre-colonial Treasures of the Philippines. But this wasn’t supposed to be any special treatment whatsoever; a casual text invitation, a holiday lunch with friends, no formality in dress, then we slipped anonymously into the exhibit that had officially opened to the public just hours before. There were just 3-4 other visitors in the gallery at that point. It just so happens that the friends who gave me the tour, are members of the family that collected the artifacts and who have now permanently placed the pieces in a museum, available for the public to view. And while we were there, I was introduced to the curator of the exhibit and one of the authors of an upcoming book on the collection. Let me tell you, I had goosebumps for an hour, maybe more. It is rare that I would feel so incredibly proud to be Filipino, to think that many of these pieces were crafted and had come from an area geographically so close to where my own ancestors called home, (who were probably drying fish on the shores of Bohol and Cebu) unaware of the wonderful pieces that were being crafted and worn in Northern Mindanao, out of a yellow metal that spewed out of mountainsides and were panned for in pristine rivers in and around Butuan and Surigao.

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Last year, I thought the best meal we had outside a private home in the Philippines was at Antonio’s in Tagaytay (see here and here). We had a superbly executed meal in a delightful setting with attentive and efficient staff. This year we had several very good meals between Mrs. MM, The Kid and myself. The new Sala at the Locsin Building received some great reviews within the family, we had a superb, albeit totally private meal at Old Manila at The Peninsula, and we continued to enjoy delicious meals at all of Margarita Fores’ outlets (including the catered dinner she did for my birthday), not to mention an occasional drive to our “favorite fried bangus hole in the wall place” in Silang, Cavite called LZM. We ate regularly at our fall-back restaurants like Milky Way for Pinoy food, Azumaya for noodles and it’s neighbor upstairs Tsukiji. We were pleasantly surprised by several meals on the island of Boracay. I enjoyed several reef-fresh and utterly memorable seafood meals in Coron, Palawan. But as all of you know, we don’t really eat out all that often, since we cook so much at home… so while we may try new places once in a while, we definitely don’t return if we don’t like the food. But before I detail why we had such a wonderful meal at Mamou a few weeks ago, let me ponder for a bit what constitutes a truly superb and memorable restaurant meal…

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We all have incredible personal food biases. We are partial to that which is familiar or have previously experienced. We are partial to flavors, textures and combinations of foods we know or think we know. We mostly tend to order from a menu as though we were familiar with it, usually choosing things we know how they should taste. So I am always THRILLED when “locals” or at least long time “local residents” offer to take us out to dinner when we are in a foreign city, and I always try to let them do the ordering. Our friends know we love food, so they do go out of their way to try and find interesting places for us to dine in… On our second night in Hong Kong recently, friends decided to take us to a Shanghainese style restaurant in Wanchai. When one thinks of Chinese food as a foreigner, we tend to lump it all together, or at least into mild and spicy… but actually, the cuisines of each major Chinese city or area or province varies dramatically, and in many ways, needs to be treated as different cuisines… We were told that for Shanghainese cooking, there is a strong influence from the region’s vinegars, and while some dishes strike one’s palate as being blander, the vinegar never fails to perk things up… The restaurant, Old Shanghainese, is located in the basement of The Novotel Century Hotel at 283 Jaffe Road, HK. I believe that is in Wanchai, a few minutes walk from that massive electronics/computer mall, from where we had just spent hours… We arrived for dinner at 7:30 and were greeted by a stunning selection of hairy crabs, in the photo up top. Hairy crab season is a BIG DEAL in Hong Kong, but surprisingly our hosts opted not to order any, saying the chili crabs and garlic crabs that we do in Batangas or Manila taste better and are meatier and more succulent so we passed on the hairy crabs… besides, they seemed to be WICKED pricey for very small specimens…

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Fishpan alert. Skip this post if you are offended by single-use silver implements. You were forewarned.

I lived and worked in Indonesia for several years in the early 1990’s and continued to visit the country frequently until a few years ago. Based in Jakarta during the week, we (Mrs. MM and I, no kid yet) headed out of the city on weekends, either back home to our permanent residence in Singapore, or fairly frequently, to the enchanting island of Bali. Mrs. MM and I loved our brief stays on the island, and we must have visited nearly two dozen times in all. We had our favorite haunts back then, but really it was more about getting away from a very hectic job and simply relaxing in some over-the-top hotel for a couple of nights at a time. And the Balinese are such wonderful people, so gentle, so spiritual, so accommodating to tourists. On one of our visits, we picked up this gorgeous sterling silver magnifying glass. I am blind as a bat without my eyeglasses, so that seemed like a good enough reason to buy a magnifying glass… but no, what really attracted us to this piece is that it was handcrafted by local artisans, using a traditional method of hammering silver discs.

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Please read my previous post on an article on budbud kabog in the November issue of the Mabuhay Magazine of Philippine Airlines before you continue reading this post.

I received this very prompt response from Ms. Ira Inquimboy to an email I sent her this morning and the previous post that I wrote on the same matter, and I quote:

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One of my readers once aptly described Marketman as a “jerk magnet.” I think this was a reaction to one of my outrageous service rants, and frankly, I absolutely ADORE the moniker. In fact, I am thinking of having a t-shirt custom made with the saying, then wearing it in public frequently, as if taunting more jerks to be attracted to my space. Ever since I moved back to Manila, and occasionally when I lived in various Asian cities prior to that, I always felt indignant when something unfair or totally unacceptable from a service standpoint occurred. And more often than not, I let management of the offending company know about it, partially to let them know I wasn’t happy with the situation, partially to provide feedback to help them improve their services and partially just because I felt that if no one spoke up, the same thing would keep on happening again and again. I have also spoken up when the issue of intellectual property rights or plagiarism or lack of attribution crops up; for example, when someone “stole” my photo of yemas (here and here) and it was published in the Inquirer newspaper a couple of years ago, when I alerted Sassy Lawyer over at Pinoy Cook that a recipe of hers seemed to have been plagiarized in a Manila Bulletin article, and recently, when I pointed out some potential plagiarism issues in a Reggie Aspiras article in Inquirer (here, here, here and here!)…

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This is just a little random observation, with very little to do with food. For years, I have been trying to figure out why Pinoys are so gosh-darned enamored with all of the above. And the best explanation I can think of, is that DESPITE being the most Catholic (and therefor, thou shall not steal, or so I would think) nation in the region, we have some of the HIGHEST rates of pilferage in retail environments (read: folks steal stuff). So as a defense for this awful fact (or is it?), retailers have taken to some bizarre and outrageous steps to prevent pilferage. I wonder if anyone has done a study if all of this really works and if the net benefit really is positive…

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THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED AS WELL. WINNERS HAVE BEEN SELECTED AND WILL BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL.

This is contest number 2 for Marketmanila’s 3rd Anniversary weeklong celebration. I am beginning to sound like a Kris Aquino franchise of game shows. In this post, you will have a chance to win one of two November 2007 issues of Yummy Magazine which is a TERRIFIC issue featuring tons of desserts and sweets for the holidays. It also has a feature on food bloggers and yours truly is in it, along with lots of my other favorites, like Joey at 80 breakfasts, Connie at Pinoycook, Filet Minion and Bogchief et al at bogchinoypi, Franco, Stitch and Salamia at table for three, Anton of Awesome Planet and Toni, at Wifely Steps. I would happily autograph the prize, unless you think that simply messes up the reading…hahaha. At any rate, if you win, the magazine can be picked up this Saturday at the t-shirt and tote pick up point to be announced later today. Winners will be notified by email.

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