Surviving Manila: Ang mga kainan

[February 2, 2012] As we landed in Manila, we already felt the necessity to eat somewhere. Yeah, I was already hungry back then. As I shared in my previous post [click here], we took our lunch at Kenny Rogers. But that was just the start of our "eating life" in Manila. I'll now be sharing our eating experiences in Manila! Yehey! Hopefully, I'll be able to compose a katakamtakam post. One that will make YOUR mouth watery. Ew!

Our lunch at Kenny Rogers (NAIA)

In the afternoon, we were already at the UP Diliman Campus. We attended the welcome dinner for the provincial participants of the 5th Chemical Engineering Students Summit. We arrived at the venue at aroung 6:30pm. We just walked from The Oblation to their Engineering something Center (I'm not actually sure what the place is called), so as expected we were already starving when we arrived. And guess what, the dinner was actually served at around 8:00pm! Wualllaaaa! Pasmo much?! lol. Sa makasabot lang. Maygiiid.

Early the next morning, we decided to call the famous 8700 Jollibee delivery hotline and just have our breakfast be delivered. Luckily, the place where we stayed at (Dangay Suites) let us use their phone to call the said hotline. An operator answered our call and said she would just forward our orders to the Jollibee fastfood nearest to us. We ordered a total of 14 jolly breakfast with matching hot choco! Yeah! A few seconds after, we were informed by the tenant that Jollibee is on the phone waiting for us to reconfirm our orders. Oh diba, bongga!! They promised to deliver our orders in 45 minutes. Hahuh! We actually started timing them.

Around 50 minutes after, our orders were delivered door-to-door. The Jollibee delivery boy was kind enough to take our orders to the second floor, where we are staying. He asked to be excused if there was a little delay in the delivery. The nearest Jollibee merchandise to us (I think it's in SM North Edsa) was still close and only Jollibee Araneta was open so it took him more time to deliver, he explained.

Without further ado, we started digging into our breakfast. Oh! And I actually enjoyed my hot choco! Oh yeah!!

We actually skipped one summit-related activity that day (Feb 3), but it wasn't deliberate (please believe me). We were able to read their facebook announcement about the said activity that morning nah, and we we're all ready to go to divisoria!! Yes it's Divisoria!! We took the LRT from the Roosevelt station to the Doroteo Jose station. We took a jeepney and walked our way to the 999 mall. We arrived at the mall around 10:30am. Sadly, because we were running out of time (there's a scheduled activity at 1pm), we were just allowed by our bantay to shop for 1 hour. Well, within that one hour, I was able to buy skirts (take note, plural), blouses (plural also), mga pasalubong, and a swimwear (bwahahaha, I bought a pair but now that I look at it, I actually don't like it nah). I decided to buy a new bag because i realized the stuffs I bought won't fit in the bag I brought from CDO.

I think I'm getting away from my title already... Haha. I should be writing about foods only! Wait.. Wait.. Wait..

So it's like this, to make the long story short, we went back via LRT again (Ooh! But this time all the girls went in the all-girls cab of the LRT and it was quite spacey!) and decided to take our lunch at the LRT Roosevelt station only because we are about to be late already. There were siomai stalls, korean stalls, burger stalls, and etc. I went for the chicken burger and got a buko pandan drinks from the other stall..

This is unfortunately the only picture of me during the said lunch at the LRT station
(me and Poloy)

Jecca eating her pugo kwek-kwek or itlog na pogi as she calls it

We were lucky enough to be just on time. After the activity, Sir Marco introduced us to the world class taho (as he claimed it to be). I bought a cup for P10.00. It tasted fine but not good enough to be called "world-class". Si sir talaga, oveeer kung maka-describe!

The group decided to go to the UP shop where all UP collectibles and memorabilias can be bought. Sir Marco again brought us to a Tapsilog shop where according to him, the "world's best Tapsilog" can be found. Hmmm. I wouldn't call it "world's best" but I admit it was really delicious! I was able to taste it thanks to Dean! Haha. I ate it for free XD. One of the staffs of that Tapsilog house was also a Bisaya! I was shocked when he talked to us in Bisaya! Haha. The world is indeed small.

We were then brought to the Isawan sa UP. Courtesy of Sir Marco, I was able to taste UP's version of Isaw. Honestly, I found the Isaw here in CDO more delicious. It made me miss Proben and Kwek-kwek.

Isawan sa UP. Sir Marco holding sweet isaw sauce

Guess what, few minutes after this Isaw experience, I had feet cramps! My gosh! Of all things, of all places, and of all times!!! Singit lang po.

Now back to the topic (food). In the evening, the group decided to go to Trinoma. I went with Rickey and ate at Burger King. It was also my first time eating at Burger King! My gosh! A lot of First times already!! Happy happy! Since I still can't trust my feet, I just stayed there the whole time, while the others are happily roaming around Trinoma. I felt sad then. I felt that I was really missing something really big. I felt very left out! But the sad thing is, I can't blame anyone else but myself! Arrrgh! Why me? Of all people, why should these weak feet belong to me? Hahaii. [I wrote quite a long one there, but I deleted them anyway. I think I might just compose another post regarding my disappointments during the trip, but for now positive thoughts muna]. I apologize for the negative thought I inserted. Now, for my pictures from Burger King,

I wasn't able to finish that burger though. Consumed 3/4 of it only

For the breakfast the next morning, we ordered hot choco again from Jollibee but this time around we just ate the things we brought from CDO. We went straight to UP for the whole day activity. The activity in the morning ended around 1pm. The marshals distributed our packed lunch and let us follow them to the Eng'g building where we will consume our food. As in we had to walk pa talaga para makapaglunch! I wasn't able to take a picture of us taking lunch so we will now be skipping to our dinner experience!

Me, Mannah, and Sugar decided to go with Diana and meet her sister at SM North Edsa and just take our dinner there. We were dropped at the foot bridge to SM North while the others went straight back to UP to attend the Culminating night. Before we were dropped, there was a little tension (well at least from my point of view), bakit daw di kami sumama sa UP, sayang daw. I didn't like how those lines were delivered. It's like I'm about to commit a grave mistake. Anyhow, as we entered SM North, we found the Kangaroo Jack restaurant right away (left side of the entrance). It was a good thing that after ordering, we were able to see the sign: exclusive of 10% service charge.

I loved everything I ordered, from the fries, to the carbonara, and the steak! The dressing for the Mango Kani salad was not to my liking though. I think a wine was mixed in it. Didn't like the taste at all. XD But overall, our Kangaroo Jack was great. I enjoyed the food, and also my company. I knew I was with people who at least thought of my condition and really chose a restaurant near the entrance gate (for me not to walk a long way). I was able to meet Diana's sister also. She was not as snob as I thought she would be. I actually enjoyed our conversations. ^^

The next morning, since we still had plenty of foods left, we just had those as our breakfast. I had Nesvita and a couple of sandwiches. Then we went straight to MOA via MRT (from North Avenue - Taft Station).

We decided to take our lunch at the food court at MOA. After peeking at all the displays in the different talls, I decided to buy the Inihaw something. Courtesy of Russel, I was able to taste shark's fin. Although I pitied the shark the fin was from, it actually tasted good. Aw, now I feel bad again.. I won't eat shark's fin again!