In Manila

First time in Manila was a pleasant experience. I went there on business and stayed at Anders and Angelica's place. Anders and I studied together at Linköping years ago and he has been living abroad since graduation, in the US and in the Philippines, now working for ADB, traveling all over South East Asia. Their apartment is very nice, on the 32nd floor in a building in an area called Tagui, conveniently enough only five minutes walking from the office I visited. You see all of Manila from their apartment. Below is a golf course, I did not see many golfers though, could it be due to high price levels or the hot, unforgiving sun?

My first impressions, that still remain, of Manila were that there is a very strong latino flavor to the whole city. There is the tropical climate, hot and humid with a lot of palm trees, green shrubbery and flowers all over the concrete and asphalt. There is incredible wealth just next to extreme poverty; luxurious shopping malls with air conditioned fashion botiques just a copule of minutes away from sheds with handpainted signs offering coconuts to bypassers. There is the people, the philippinos seem to be as happy and extrovert as they are poor drivers, haha. Angelica actually told me that the Filippinos are the latins of South East Asia so I am not alone doing this comparison.

The food in Manila is very good, this is my lasting impression and it has clearly been impacted by Anders and Angelica who took me to some of their best places. The Spaniards left an imprint in the Philippino kitchen but so did many other cultures over the years and in a city with 12 million habitants it is of course possible to find most food items on the menues. I believe that A&A's favourite restaurante is the French La Cabane where I had Boeuf Bourgoigne. In the words of Borat, "verri niiice!". I choose between that and a goat ragú, the beef was wonderful but now I do not know what the goat tastes like. A reason to return to Manila I gather.

At Sentro 1771 wearing a cool Bali shirt I got as a gift from Anders. A cigarr and some shades would make the mafioso image complete...

At Sentro 1771 I had Pinoy Osso Buco, which Angelica argued was very Philippino, even though my Italian colleague Iwan showed a lot of scepticism when I mentioned this to him in the office the day after. Anders and I ended up at La Havana after the dinner, a place with live latino music (note, another link to Latin America). The Osso Buco was so good I decided to have lamb shanks for dinner the next day, it showed to be a great decision. The restaurant is called The Terrace At Fifth and is placed in an area called Greenbelt, a gigantic shopping mall filled with great restaurants and bars. Anders went for beef but hesitated, would it be a Gentleman's Cut of 700 grams or a Lady´s Cut of 350? If you eat almost one kilo of meat you get kind of doozy when the congestion process kicks in and that is not good if you are going out afterwards. On the other hand, what real man orders a lady's cut? Anyhow, Anders swallowed his pride and ordered the sissy cut with his mind on the partying to come. Angelica ordered a fried pig's belly that turned out to be fantastic. My lamb shanks were great but I regretted not having ordered the belly.

At Josephine's in Tagaytay

Angelica and myself

On the Saturday we went on a road trip outside Manila, we went south to Tagaytay. The first bit consisted of a four-lane highway and the traffic was moving fast but as the road became more narrow and bumpy after a while the speed was reduced. We passed pineapple fields that stretched into the horizon. Interesting to having seen those straight rows of spiny shrubs, first time for me. Tagaytay is a small village that resides over a big lake with an active volcano in the middle of it. Anders often comes here during the weekends to sail hobie cats (that is masculine and compensates for eating Lady's Cut). It takes about six hours to go around the volcano. At Josephine's we ate lunch, I had a crispy, fried chicken with plain rice. Very Philippino, very good and very latino!

The volcano in the middle of Taygatay lake

Pineapple field

Next day we had lunch at Shangri-La Hotel, next to Ander's job at ADB. The buffé was not cheap but amazingly good. What an offer; Filippino, French, Indian, Japaneese and some other countries. I did not have time to eat through the whole menu though because it was time to bullfight our way through the dense traffic to get to the airport and my continued trip to Bangladesh. What do you eat in Bangladesh? When do I return to Manila?

Traditional Philippino lamps

The strangest bumper sticker ever?