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Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Streetside Square
By Kara Mae Muga Noveda
At ten o’clock in the evening, the scholars of the ungodly hours meet after a long day—if the food, conversation, smokes and booze keep coming, they’ll likely push for another all-nighter.
This is the Mango Square after mall hours, a compound of canopied dining and drinking nooks for the restless city boys and girls out to have a good time, where the music’s volume blends pleasantly with the lively cliquish chatter of different folks—from the liberal coeds to the corporate slaves and regular night owls—all are unwinding from their day’s work.
An arm’s length from the main road (Mango Avenue), people come and go in flowing traffic. For those who can’t stay long, you can actually eat and run along, get easily into a waiting cab or alight on a jeepney in nearby stops.
Some two years ago, a quieter Mango Square lent its appeal to easy-on-the-pocket Filipino dish dining. Outdoors and under a blanket of stars (on better nights), our gang of college kids usually wolfed down forkfuls of Pinoy Korner’s sisig while listening to amateur acoustics on open mic nights.
Good word of this good place got around, and as easy as how those ubiquitous kanto stores pop up here and there, more food booths eventually claimed Mango Square their new territory and the result is an expansion of its original menu of endemic favorites into an offering of international fanfare for the adventurous taste buds inviting a larger crowd nightly. And live musical entertainment bowed down to large television sets (yes, basketball fans can watch NBA) and pop songs on stereo.
But for all these commercial tune-ups, Mango Square has not exactly sold out its provincial soul—intimate conversations are kept in table settings apart, prices remain friendly and yes, you can come in weathered jeans and laidback fashion without raisingeezed eyebrows.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 21, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
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