Sunday, September 14, 2008 Chapa! By Stella A. Estremera Goin' places
ERRR... yes, believe it or not, I have a heart and my heart bleeds for this place we stumbled into Thursday night after dinner with friends and new acquaintances as it bled for my companions whom I dragged along with me. It bled so much, I couldn't find it in my heart to let them pay for what they ordered as we always do (chip-in, chip-in!) and I just had to pick up the bill.
Since I have a heart, I'm not going to tell you where we were. I will just make "kwento".
Dinner was at Red Moon where we had loads and loads of food; I was soooo sleepy afterwards but was sure our dinner companions will not hold on to us for long.
"Matatanda na 'yan! Uuwi 'yan before midnight," I whispered to Trish as we pondered on where we would explore the night.
"Baka nga by 10 o'clock matutulog na 'yang mga 'yan eh," Trish replied. By the way, that "old" friend we were backbiting about was Fer of Ecogov who was with city planning and development coordinator sir Louie, and Fer's companions Bing and Raul.
Mwahahaha! (And yes, our conversation was one big joke, we were really in a dinner meeting.)
There's truth in that joke though and Trish was more accurate, the group broke up by 9:30 p.m., the guys all heading home and their hotels.
And so, there we were, Trish, Deng, Razelle, and I, wondering where we'd have coffee so we can explore as well as prop up my sleepy eyes.
This coffeeshop we first went to was already closed. Hmp! A coffeeshop that's closed by 9:30 p.m.? Geesh!
And so we went to this other one, which used to house another coffeeshop that served excellent non-Pinoy food... and our travails for the night started.
Deng ordered the most unique in the menu, a strawberry-banana shake with milk. I went for the strawberry shake without milk, while Razelle and Trish ordered a macchiato each.
All three didn't want any food; they're so full, they said. I didn't have a choice even if my tummy was just about ready to burst. I had to try something.
I ordered the spaghetti (they have three pasta dishes on the menu, spaghetti, creamy pesto and carbonara, but cream sauces give me tummyache). The waiter said spaghetti's out of stock and so I ordered the fish fillet meal instead (the menu says it's creamy dory, and I love dory fish).
When our drinks arrived, it was only Dengdeng who had a pleasant face. My strawberry was sooooo sweet, I would have bounced out of my skin had not my tummy held me down. Trish and Razelle's macchiatos were just as sweet, they actually cringed upon taking a sip.
"Ano yan, Milo?" I asked. But Trish wasn't to be disturbed; she was trying to figure out where she tasted something like her macchiato.
In between, she had to go to the toilet, and that was something else too.
Imagine sitting down and looking at... yourself. A mirror is placed on the wall facing the toilet bowl, breast-high; you'd wonder who wants to see her crotch while peeing.
Trish urged me to look into the comfort room as well, and so I did, and discovered something else as I stood up to flush the bowl.
Above it, just where you'd look when you're going to flush a water closet was a sign that says, "Please full to flush."
My instinct was to look for some rope or something since the closest the word "full" could be is "pull", but seeing none, I experimentally pushed down the toilet bowl button, and it did as it should; it flushed. Hmmm... I never thought I'd look so ignorant trying to make an ordinary toilet bowl work.
Back to our conversations, and then my fish fillet. It was two teeny-weeny thin pieces of fish (just a little bigger than the head of your fork arranged on top of a huge cup of rice with a mass of corn and green peas that was smothered with grease. Oh dear...
I tasted the fish that was dribbled with a black sauce and toasted garlic and cringed. The darn sauce was concentrated teriyaki sauce, it was as sweet as my strawberry shake, and the fish was so greasy. Take note, greasy. It's not like Spanish sardines oil, that one's good oil. This one is grease.
I tapped the teeny-weeny fillet on the rice to remove the grease and the sauce, and ate it. It wasn't the dory I know.
From out of the blues, Trish had her eureka moment.
"Alam ko na!"
Huh?
Trish shared her observation with Razelle and Razelle howled in agreement. That is: their macchiato tastes just like Great Taste Three-in-one Creamy Moccha. For coffee lovers like these two, that was a sin. A mortal sin.
But since I have a heart, I say, when you finally find that place, just order strawberry-banana. It's good!
