Collective curiosity

A bright sunny Saturday (a break from all the rain!) and curiosity for a vegetarian ramen place brought me to the Collective.

What used to be a warehouse along Malugay Street in the business district of Makati and transformed a couple of years ago is now a low-rent space where it seems many of the young and creatively-inclined set in the area have opened several shops and restaurants.

Being a resident of Quezon City (which isn’t exactly close to Makati especially when you consider traffic-congested EDSA in between), I hardly venture to Makati unless it’s for work or it’s a place easily accessible by the MRT (hello, Buendia and Ayala Stations!). When I heard of the Collective years ago from some friends, I’ve always been curious to see the place. How was it similar and/or different from Quezon City’s Cubao X?

For fellow not-too-hip folks who are also late to the party, don’t expect the Collective to be anything like the usual shiny malls of Makati. It used to be an industrial space and remnants of that are still visible–at least what’s not covered in striking, colorful graffiti, some curious boutiques, or interesting restaurants.

Aside from the hip and artsy stores, what it has in common with Cubao X when the QC haunt came alive almost a decade ago (has it been that long?) is that you could tell it’s the kind of place that also comes alive in the evening. So when we get there at lunch time, everything is quiet. Save for a fashion shoot happening. Most of the activity are found within the restaurants by the entrance of the compound. And an hour later a crew would start setting up in the middle of the space for an after-party of an indie movie in the evening. I imagine the place would be substantially less quiet and more crowded by then.

The Collective gets ready for a party in the evening

The walls of the Collective don’t seem to have met a graffiti they didn’t like

Satisfying a craving for ginisang monggo and eating around QC

One of the most viewed posts in this little blog is the story on two restaurants along Maginhawa Street in Quezon City. That stretch in the district of Diliman remains a popular dining destination, although nearby streets and districts have their fair share of good restaurants for different budgets and cravings.

Recently, I met up with two friends, A and JK, for lunch at Tatung’s Garden Cafe . I first heard of Chef Tatung, who’s a big supporter of using local and sustainable ingredients, when I was researching on organic farming in the country for a magazine feature. The restaurant is in a house with a little garden in a quiet residential street and it serves local dishes–which gives the atmosphere that you’re simply having a nice meal at your parents’ home. Our spread included Tatung’s Favorite Fried Rice, Inihaw na Pusit (grilled squid), Chicken Sisig Lettuce Wraps, ginisang monggo soup, the Warm Tsoknut Chocolate Cake and a cold bowl of halo-halo. (Our meal came to a total of around P1,100+)

Our small spread of fried rice…

Loved the monggo soup the best–probably because I’ve been craving for it for quite some time. It’s a simple Filipino soup made of mung beans with the salty taste of smoked fish bits and bitter melon leaves, something you can find in most humble neighborhood eateries. It was a good starter, while the chocolate cake and halo-halo ended the meal and the conversation on a happy, we-should-do-this-again-soon mood.

Address: 17 Matipid St., Sikatuna Village, Diliman; phone: (632) 352-6121

Here are five other neighborhood restaurants in the Diliman and Katipunan area worth a visit should you find yourself in this part of Metro Manila, where you can satisfy cravings for Filipino food, vegetarian dishes, pizza, and even cheap Japanese food.

On the last day of 2011

Before my family and I got started on a day of cooking and eating to welcome the New Year (yes, this post is nine days overdue), my husband and I decided to walk around Quezon Memorial Circle on the morning of December 31. It’s a national park located along the Elliptical Road in Quezon City, where the 66-meter tall Quezon Memorial Shrine stands. Inside the shrine is a small museum and mausoleum with the remains of the Philippines’ second president, Manuel Quezon.

I think I was in elementary school when I first set foot in the shrine for an educational outing. Most people though go to the circle for the park grounds. It comes alive in the mornings when joggers run around the perimeter (there’s even a running clinic every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 am, Saturdays at 7 am, and Sunday at 5:30 am). On weekends, families bring their kids to the playground, fly some kites, ride a paddle boat or an aqua bike in the teeny man-made pond, and during the holidays, go the the carnival for some merry-go-round and Ferris wheel action. There’s also vegetable market, a zip line, a sad-looking soccer pitch (it looked like it needed some major work) and even a fish spa (dip feet in a water tank filled with fish and let the fish do the work.)

Should those activities make you hungry, you can also grab some grub afterward. People have breakfast in one of the many modest stalls and restaurants selling mostly Filipino food–breakfast favorites of various silog (fried rice with egg and meat of choice), lugaw or congee, champorado (chocolate rice porridge), all varieties of kakanin (rice cakes), barbecued meats, and so much more. Since it was December, there were the Filipino Christmas staples of bibingka (a type of rice cake made with coconut milk) and puto bumbong (a distinctly purple rice cake  traditionally cooked in bamboo). I prefer the salty, sweet taste and the fluffy cake texture of the bibingka, but bought some puto bumbong as well before heading home for my brother who recently discovered he loved it. There’s also the beloved ‘dirty’ ice cream. If you’re not familiar with Filipino food, it’s the cheaper and street food version of ice cream. ‘Dirty’ because it’s peddled on the street and street food typically doesn’t really score high in proper sanitation.  Never got sick from it when I was a kid though.

Quezon Memorial Shrine. Look up and you’ll see the statues of three angels holding sampaguita wreaths on top of the three vertical pylons

Pick a balloon–Dora, Spongebob, or an Angry Bird

Mang Sorbetero or the dirty ice cream man. Local flavors include cheese, mango, ube and langka (jackfruit)

Bibingka being cooked with charcoal underneath and that tray of charcoal goes on top.

The Quezon Memorial Circle is the nearest open space from our house (closer than UP Diliman), but unfortunately P and I rarely go there. I suggested that we should spend more mornings there this year–to run, to eat, to just take a break from the usual mall-movie-restaurant weekend outings.

An impending new year always brings thoughts of what you want to start doing. A few changes you know would be good for you. To go outdoors more. Write more. Get distracted less. Keep running. Keep hoping. Save more. Bring an extra bag every time I go out. Cut down on plastic bags. Cut down on water bottles. Cut down on the Internet. Read more books. Be braver.

How to survive the morning rush hour in the MRT

This is supposedly a morning rush hour in Tokyo (which was one of the few things I made sure to miss out when I got a chance to visit). It is not Manila. But it could very well be–minus the guards pushing the passengers into the train. We, Filipinos, are only too capable of pushing ourselves into very crowded trains, and too eager even that more often than not the logic/courtesy of waiting for other the passengers to get off the train before getting on it seem to escape most Pinoy commuters.

I do think of the above scenario every time I ride the MRT in the morning rush hour. Something which I started to do, twice a week for the past few months for year-long project. Of course, it’s crowded like most commuter trains in big cities, but I still get a bit surprised every time I see the platform at eight in the morning, thick with people. And I think, Okay, you can do this. Time to put on your ‘train face’ and not get pushed around. Oh, how naive I am.

While I often wax poetic about riding trains on vacation and having a big idiotic grin plastered across my face, when I ride the train at home during rush hour, the grin is long gone (replaced by stern I-mean-business ‘train face’). I still love how trains make it relatively easier for me to get from point A to point B; I just don’t like how it makes people lose patience and common sense, and sometimes gain a violent streak, during rush hour. Anyway, if you do find yourself braving rush hour MRT madness in Manila, here are a few things that might help for your to come out of it in your right stop and with your shoes still on.

Ramen in Manila

I have declared my love for ramen in this blog a number of times. Last year’s trip to Japan sealed my devotion to the Japanese noodle dish with my very first authentic ramen encounter in Tokyo. Because of this love for ramen, my husband and I find ourselves trying a different ramen restaurant every time we can manage to squeeze it in during the weekend, when we feel like indulging a bit (ramen is not really the healthiest dish out there), or when we have the budget for it (most good bowls of ramen go for PHP200 to PHP300, around 400 to 600 Yen, cheap in Japan standards, not that cheap here in the Philippines).

The past two weekends, P and I were able to try two new ramen restaurants in Metro Manila. One in Makati and the other in our neighborhood in Quezon City.

Nomama Artisanal Ramen. Ever since I tasted Chef Him Uy de Baron’s food in one magazine event (he’s also a consultant for popular Pinoy restaurant Max’s), I knew I liked the way the man cooked. There are always layers of flavors and something pleasantly unexpected about his food. When I interviewed him for Yummy magazine back in February and he mentioned that he wanted to open a ramen restaurant, I made a mental note. Another bowl of ramen to look forward to in Manila.

Pretty, minimalist interiors

It finally opened this month; right across Max’s Restaurant and parallel to busy Tomas Morato. Immediately, I loved the interiors. Bare cement walls, simple black and white furniture, and a wooden bar facing the open kitchen (look up at the ceiling for the clever hooks and lights). But enough about the interiors, we came for the food.