The Fat Man Today

Some time ago, a friend wrote about this little hole-in-the-wall silogan in the Little Baguio area for Pepper.ph . Quirkily named the “Yakitate Pork Chop House”, I encountered this little shack in the woods—so to speak—quite often, especially back when I was commuting to the Greenhills area on a daily basis. I’ve never had the time (or, truth be told, the guts) to give Yakitate a shot, but after Nico’s review, I knew I just had to stop by and check out what they had to offer. You may be wondering why I would be so interested on a roadside eatery like Yakitate. The reason behind this is the fact that the restaurant is named after a popular anime called Yakitate! Japan—which is all about making bread. But the disconnect notwithstanding, the name Yakitate translates to “Freshly Made!”, which is unusual when it comes to something as pedestrian as pork chop. But that’s where the, shall we say, uniqueness of Yakitate Pork Chop House begins. On the outside, it won’t seem that different from...

Oh that wonderful feeling when you hit a dry spell, and you can’t do nothing about it. So, rather than not writing at all today, what I will attempt to do is to write at least 300 words of drivel in a desperate pitch to try and maintain my posting schedule. Bear with me guys, there’s a chance that this post is going to run away from me. The fact of the matter is, I have a ton of article ideas sitting in the back burner. The problem is that I don’t have the time or the inclination to research / work on them since, well, I was feeling under the weather over the weekend, and I just really haven’t had the time to actually get anything aside from work done. I know, I know. That’s the usual complaint. Life gets in the way of living. But anybody past the age of 21 knows how true this is. Taken from The Badass Blogger . There are contrasting points of views when it comes to the whole life versus play argument, actually. Most people who live and breathe in the rank and file believe i...

So today I’m going to write about cakes. Because I love cakes. If they weren’t bad for me, I’ll eat cakes by the truckload. Especially cheesecakes, because they’re made of cheese, and cake (not exactly accurate). To be precise, I’m writing about a cake baker—otherwise known as a pastry chef—I encountered quite by chance. Lara dela Torre is the Little Chef , and is a personal friend of Nina. In my mind, she’s what I call a bona fide pastry chef, and is one of the reasons why I remain fat. I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of some of her creations, and I can say I am quite impressed. And by making the acquaintance, I mean demolishing them. Just last week, she sent over a solo choco caramel cheesecake, and I think I devoured at least half of the cake by myself in one sitting. I’d post a photo, but I don’t have any decent shots of the cake before Hurricane Martin happened. But I can tell you this: it is, hands down, my favorite cake to date. I love a good cheesecake tha...

It's a busy morning, so I'm writing this from my mobile phone. Bear with me, folks. Just some talking points on the so-called "trafficgeddon" that's poised to sweep over the metropolis starting today: 1. Why are they undertaking projects of this magnitude all at the same time? Why couldn't they have started on some of them - perhaps the ones that have been in the drawing board for some time now - a few years back? What's so special about 2014? 2. To that point, just how efficient is their implementation plan, for both the execution of all the projects, and the contingency plans? I don't think I speak for myself when I say that I have plenty of doubts for the local governments to efficiently deal with the amount of traffic that will be rerouted. I mean, that's what all the highways they're improving are for, right? 3. They're improving both the LRT and the MRT, but what of the PNR? I've been taking the old at-grade railroads a bi...

Since this is the day of hearts—or Singles Awareness Day, for those of you who celebrate that other holiday—I thought that it’d be fitting to post the only love story I’ve ever written. This was written way back in 2002, won a minor award that same year, and was published in 2003 or 2004 in the Philippine Graphic Magazine. Note that this is my first short story, and there are plenty of things wrong with this piece. But I hope that it manages to entertain you somewhat today. God and Me by Olivier Agustin The earthquake began when he put on his woolen socks to go to school.  I swear, I have never ever seen anyone jump as high as he did, only to fall back down flat on his buttocks right afterwards.  His books scattered on the floor beside him, and the baked potato lunch-bag near flew to the dining table, where his two sisters cowered from beneath which, scared to fits they were by the ‘quake, being the blessed four-year olds that they were, the sillies. Bobby...

It’s been a while since I drank more than three bottles of Red Horse. This changed when I met up with my friends last weekend. I wasn’t intending on drinking more than my usual at the time, but then I read on the news about Tado’s passing. I decided that I was going to drink to his memory (and to the memory of those who perished with him). Shet pogi. Mamimiss kita meyn. From the Brewrats blog . The night before his bus crashed, I remember I had this strange compulsion to watch an episode of Strangebrew. You can see the episode – “Inidoro Factory” – below after the jump. Today, if I’m not mistaken, is the day of his cremation. I’m still at a loss for words. Which is weird, since I don’t think you can call me a big, big fan of the man; I didn’t follow his more publicized work after Stranbegrew was cancelled, and I didn’t like the fact that he was in the show of Willie Revillame, whom I despise. But I did like the fact that, despite his celebrity, Tado didn’t let his fame get ...

Before I started writing this post, I had an idea for a great article forming in my head. It crossed my mind while I was browsing through my HootSuite feeds, so I immediately minimized my browser, and fired up ye ole Windows Live Writer so that I could start working on it. You know how it is with these sudden bursts of inspiration; they’re as fleeting as the Madagascar golden fly (not actually a thing), and if you don’t get the details down as soon as you can, poof! they’re gone. Which was what happened to that awesome idea I mentioned. Within a few seconds of absent-minded thinking, it was gone. Poof! Like a genie, only I didn’t get to make any of my wishes. Or a wish, even. All I did was open a stupid application. Is it just me, or is the ad selling something counter-intuitive? Taken from Progressive Health . Don’t you hate it when your short-term memory (or STM, as my girlfriend calls it, which, surprisingly, is not an acronym for Stamina, as fantasy role playing games wou...

Okay, so my last post may have been a little rough on ramen. To even things out, here’s a post on my favorite noodle soup: the Filipino Chinese mami! Mami was coined by the now-legendary Ma Mon Luk when he started calling his “gupit” noodle soup as “Ma’s Mi”, or Mr. Ma’s noodles, if this article from Coconuts Manila has its facts straight. Along with soipao, siomai, and kikiam, mami is now so ubiquitous that even local packaged instant noodles use the term for their brand names. Introducing Lucky Me’s Instant Native Chicken Mami. Taken from Punked Noodle . I am a fan of Fil-Chi noodles. Namely, mami and lomi. The two places I go to for my Fil-Chi noodle fix are Dragon Noodle Center in Malate for mami, and Mann Hann Kafei for lomi. The thing about Dragon—it looks like a Chinese triad front, but it’s a fairly legit Chinese tea house that’s been around for decades. That said, it has to be noted that it isn’t for everybody. I happen to like the hard consistency of their noodles...

I have nothing against ramen. Ramen is an amazing food group, and I appreciate the artisan who makes good ramen—wherever he may be. But what I don’t get is this sudden interest in the dish. In the past year, expensive ramen places have begun popping up like mushrooms all over the city, and Facebook’s elite have been making a list of which ramen places are good, which are terrible, and which ones can do in a pinch. Puhleeze. This is from Ikkoryu Fukuoka Ramen. This ramen is good. It is also expensive. Taken from Dude for Food . Back in 2007, I was living on my own down in Mindanao. Part of my routine was to treat myself out every Sunday, and if I were on my own, my feet would lead me to the only source of ramen in CdO: Limketkai Mall’s Rai Rai Ken. Apart from restaurants in Makati’s Little Tokyo, and Kimpura in Greenhills, Rai Rai Ken has been one of the more accessible restaurants with (somewhat) authentic Japanese fare. This wasn’t my first time at Rai Rai Ken—I’d taken pe...

The other day, Green Day’s album “Dookie” turned twenty years old. Read that sentence again. Dookie is twenty years old. Twenty years since people have been banging their heads to Basketcase (undeniably the most successful single to come out of that album). Twenty years since Billy Joe Armstrong’s signature voice broke through the mainstream (at least, here in the Philippines). Yes. Taken from Dookie ’s Wikipedia page . Man. Twenty years. I wasn’t even listening to Green Day when Dookie came out. I was just starting to get into my Eraserheads groove at the time, freshly armed with my miniature Lumanog. I only really started listening to Green Day when I stepped into high school, and learned the magical beauty of overdriven guitars, drum and bass pumping pure adrenaline through your veins, and dischordant singing. Basketcase was always a fun song to play since the chord progression was so simple that you can sing it while playing it on the guitar without sounding like a to...