A nearer Manna

Saturday, January 7, 2012

I KNEW it was a Korean restaurant even before I learned its name. With my brain cells trained to zero in on any new place, the target was picked up while my taxi zoomed past Roxas Avenue (on the non-ukay-ukay part).

Brain cells, however, did not file the information immediately, and so it was forgotten, until another taxi ride.

Aha! It’s along Roxas Avenue and its name is Manna. Yes, the same as the one in Lanang in front of the Grand Regal Hotel. The wee part here is that Roxas Avenue is nearer home than Grand Regal…

And so the date was set again, when people are not ready to eat out with friends, December 30, and several friends are in some other places with their families. Workd goes on, however, and so the eating must proceed without fail. The one and only available friend? Imee (again).

It was an interesting night, too interesting such that it couldn’t be written for public reading. Haha!

So, let’s focus on the food.

As it is in Lanang, your meal will be preceded with an array of appetizers – kimchi, peanuts in some sweet sauce (that’s fun to practice your chopsticks skills with), dilis, some vegetable salad in sweet sauce, and several others. I was already full by the time our main dishes arrived. Ugh.

But eat I must.

We had the bibimbap, but since Imee doesn’t like it hot and I do, we mixed it ourselves.

We also had the seafood pancake.

Manna did not fail us. Food is still very good. But order sizes are too big for just two people. Maybe you can share, just one bibimbap. But then, that defeats our food-tasting job. Ergo, we just have to stretch our already stretched tummy some more. Anyway, the food is good, so it’s okay to do some tummy stretching…

Stretch as we’d want to, we can only consume the bibimbap and half of the seafood pancake. The holiday season is not the best time to taste food…
While pondering on how we can stand up, here comes the owner offering us drinks on the house. Sorry, really sorry, there is no longer any tummy space left, promise. And so, instead of offering us drinks he came over with two bean sherbet popsicles. Now, an offer can be declined. But when the popsicles are just placed on your table, then you have no choice but to eat, and… because they are popsicles, you have to eat fast.
We left, our tummies just about ready to burst.
We’ll be back when craving for Korean food hits again. At least it’s now downtown and not far up north (far here being by Davao standards).