By Stella A. Estremera
Goin' places

CUTE. But I bet, even as you may have already seen that lighted sign along F. Torres Street (in front of Mama Da's and very near the corner going to RMC), you didn't notice that some letters are bigger than the others.

A closer look will reveal that K-A-M-B-I-N-G are bigger than the last two letters, A-N. And that L-A-M-B are bigger than I-N-G-A-N.

I hope you have caught up by now. This new bahay-kubo style restaurant offers goat meat (chevron, yes, goat meat is called chevron, but it doesn't have anything to do with those over-priced stupid signs along Diversion Road made thru the initiative of) dishes and grilled lamb chops, and their array of food are sold at "Dabaw-takaw" prices.

We were introduced to the owner John Rey Naranjo and his wife Karina by my friend Ross. And since it's a food-tasting thing I needed tasters.

Imee and Charmaine proved handy. Carlos wanted to tag along but suddenly became quiet, very quiet, when I mentioned that Commander Rubia of the Navy was at another table.

Trisha wasn't anywhere near the city, while Deng? She refuses to eat anything that bleats and on that night everything was bleating.

And so, there we were, Imee, Charmaine, Ross, and I facing a spread that spelled carnivore. An all meat, plus one tuna buntot, entree guaranteed to send you straight to bed.

Kilawin, kaldereta, adobo, and sinampalukan for the chevron, crispy adobong buntot ng tuna, and grilled lamb chops.

Everything's good. Very good. Except that the kaldereta can be made even better spending some more time inside the pressure cooker of just simmering on the stove. And yes, the sinampalukan would be best with lots and lots of sampalok.

I don't know how else the lamb is prepared, we were already too whoozy by the time we ploughed through all these, all we wanted was to go home and rub our bellies in bed. That's one must-try though.

Don't miss their fried rice too. We had the bulad and bagoong fried rice. Very good.

Later into the dinner, we just placed both in one plate to save on table space and got interesting bi-colored rice... that's a good idea for some culinary forays at home. Trip lang... (We can make diferent shapes, perhaps? A star would be impressive). Blame that on too much meat for one night.

And since I'm not really a carnivore and all those meat dishes were already making me see stars and stripes, I grabbed the celery leaves on the lamb chops just to get a taste of something green.

But hey, you don't have to eat them all in one night. The lamb chops would be a good start... and the tuna buntot too, and the kilawin.

Where is it again? It's at the far end of F. Torres Street going toward RMC area (near the corner of Lopez Jaena beside a carwash and in front of Mama Da's Eatery).