WillKhitie

Homemade Apple Chips..

and Cookies to sell.

5 minutes into the Mexican Food Appreciation thread and I couldn't stand it anymore, ended up finding this.

Not quite a trip to Japan.

Shinjuku, arguably one of the best places to have ramen in Manila.

Often packed with the usual "rich white man and jungle bunny" combo, it'll only be mildly disturbing til the food comes.

Ma Po Tofu ramen, burn-your-belly-from-the-inside spicy.

Manten-men, thick brothy soup drowning heaps of vegetables, crab sticks, shrimp, squid, and beef.

Home food.

Bangus Belly, first I think sauteed in soy, and then baked to get this sort of crispy belly fat texture. Texture and taste of this was great despite the chive overkill.

Russian Potato Salad, always good.

Garlic Sirloin Strips, that I just ended up tossing in a grilled cheese sandwich.

Continuing with the oddly colorful meal, the family had Ginataan for desert.

And as if there wasn't enough food.. here's dinner that day. CW: Left over Potato Salad, with garlic rubbed pseudo-crustinis, Sardines, Ampalaya with idontreallycare, Chicken Pastel, and Fried Bangus. Yikes.

Sick of the home fare, these made me really happy. Spicy canned Portuguese sardines warmed up and forked onto thin slices of bread.

I find fries and ice cream perfectly fine, but then when I start crossing over (i.e. fries, ice cream, then to my burger and back to the ice cream) means that I'm usually... a. drunk, b. stoned, still good nonetheless.

A bunch of snacks.. Shawarma, half way in.

Yogurt, Banana nut crisp, and chocolate chips.

Rehashed left over Filipino beef steak into a fried cheese steak sandwich. Nothing like random blocks of cheese (quick melt, mozzarella, cream cheese, parmesan) melted together in one sandwich.

Late night canned black pepper tuna, rice pancaked.

Mexican food, finally. Mixed emotions about this one, but it still quirked a smile.

Rainy day takeout. Enchiladas.

Fixed for you.

I felt that the abundance and particular attention paid to the cheese in that bagel warranted it being bumped up from it's usual place in the food naming hierarchy. I stick with the results of my case study: bacon, cheese, and egg.

Here's breakfast, generous amount of pastrami on a pandesal.

Mud murky greek coffee.

It was too late to be eating Chinese food. Corn soup.

Crispy Pork, and Beef Broccoli stir fry.

Fried Beancurd, with Shitake Mushrooms.

Birthday.. um.. what do you call it? Baked by my sister for an older brother's birthday. It's, from what I remember, chocolate chip cookies, with layers of chocolate fudge, and mint creme.

Breakfast the following day was made up of.. Pastrami, in little french rolls. Buttery fried egg didn't go exactly to well with the entire thing though.

Continuing the sandwich binge, I had to have a bacon, cheese, and egg bagel. Not so much as sustenance but, more of me trying to bury the memory of the pastrami contraption.

Crotch wrinkle! YAY! The weave on those should do you good in the Motherland.

Haha, they do actually. The denim was one of the main reasons/justifications why I picked the pair. A year in, there's a lack of wear that I attribute to how nobody ever really walks around in Manila? or well, at least I don't much.

A month more of skating and a machine wash will probably usher in better photos.

Speaking of photos, here's a quick snap of how mine are going so far. I've had this pair for a year, give or take a month. Three or four soaks in, and has yet to see the inside of a washer.

Wow, thank god its a new page. My food posts do not really even deserve to be on the same page. For me, there's something about El Bulli, or even just Basque country food in general, Mugaritz, and Arzak, that I put on a pedestal.

There's places, I'd be lucky to eat in, and then.. there's places i'd be lucky to eat in before I die. That is one of them. Amazing photos, thanks.

Here's my now rather crummy looking lunch with the family.

Sushi, notably the spicy baby octopus, and the spicy tuna in the foreground.

Cold noodles in a tea broth.

A real generous helping of duck, crispy, oily, good.

With steamed Seabass, which was hit or miss. I probably tasted the entire spectrum of "done-ness", from undercooked, incredibly sweet, to tectonic plates of dry fish.

Some amazing Prime Rib which I couldn't find any fault in. Fat and lean than just melted together perfectly.

Chicken Shawarma, and the rest of the Indian fare behind it.

Rock Lobster, I think, with a generous dose of mozzarella, then melted on a grill.

And pastries, which went from the mundanely pleasing, to oddly fun.

This time around Adobo. A fancier, restaurant cousin.

That's best recommended with.. Dilis rice, which could have been crispier. I would've paid to have those things just shatter with every bite.

And, indecisiveness led to just more pork. Lechon Kawali. Normally a hit, I'm thinking oily fried pork is losing its novelty.

That plaid is fine. Its just those damn legs pointed inwards, throwing it off. Shudder inducing.

Pie shaped food for, well, easy eating?

Bibingka, which I'm guessing is a sort of rice/flour cake, with salted egg, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over a fire. Meant to be eaten with coconut, the fresh stuff has this amazing subtly flavor.

And eff, Costco Pizza, which even half a world away, tastes exactly the same as it does in L.A.

Couple days later. Too much food TV, led me to plate dinner for everyone at home. Plain, relatively mundane Adobo, Rice, Dilis and tomatoes.

A little past 2 am, there appeared...

"Beer."

"Sisig."

"Beer and Sisig."

"What the hell, deep fried crablets too."

Keeping with the last burger posted, had a go at this.

Odd promo a friend's Dad came up with for this diner place. Four dollar eat all you can. Choices are cheese burger, corned beef, tuna melt, cheese steak, roast beef, and some other ones that I don't care to remember.

5 out of the 8 mini sandwiches I ate, and for about 3 USD more you get a beer tower of San Miguel to wash it all down. Mm.. heart disease.

Shabu-shabu.

This..

And that..

went from this...

to that.

With another typhoon coming to the Philippines, I figured it'd be a nice time to take a break. What the hell, it'll flood in again anyways.

A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to mess around with some local Wagyu patties, here's the end result.

Caramelized onions, bacon bits.

Fresh tomatoes, garden lettuce, there's bleu cheese somewhere too.

Money shot. Always love sandwich cross sections.

Gorged on well.. gross comfort food. Can't hate on Chili's.

Food for two. There was 8 of these on the table, on top of the rings and chips.

Dinner here, a new outlet for Persia Grill.

There was the hummus..

..and the ground beef.

While the Kebabs we're buried neath huge mounds of basmati rice.

After the mouth and belly searing stream of garlic and chili sauce we went here.. Red Mango.

Nothing like cold Yogurt to ease the pain.

Comfort food binge.

Had some rice bowls here at this place.. Cafe Bola.

Their version of Tapa. Sirloin strips, tomatoes, egg. It went from this...

To this...

Too hungry to wait. This was artfully presented. Adobo Flakes. Forked crispy strips of beef, tomatoes, and a local version of quese fresco.

Next logical step, after eating all that rice, was to cancel it out with more fat, hence this. Dairy Queen. Oreo.

and Chips Ahoy. Nomnom.

My pair was sized TTS, at that moment, which was a 33. Give or take the weight I've lost I think I hover around an inch/inch and a half below that now.

But wearing these, post soak, they do shrink an incredible amount. They fit snug around the waist area. The top block fit that I've been turned off about has been remedied as well, as there's no hip flare in sight.

Spite the initial hip bone crunching feeling, they do stretch a lot. But then again, I'm starting to see through all the fuss that maybe this is how the jeans are ideally suppose to fit.

Here's something I found a bit interesting.

The local Zara, in Manila, is stocking some decent looking tasseled moccasins, which aren't a tall bad, for the price they're selling at. Suede and Nubuck, they come in two colors.

Grey

Brown

Opinions?

Well, here's a tiny bit of contribution to this thread at last. Pretty uneventful post wash photos of my pair. Relatively worn on and off since they came out.

I figure I can attribute the lack of wear to the relatively "sit on your ass" all day lifestyle here in Manila. That and the relative looseness of the fit. Don't get me wrong though, their still an awesome pair of jeans none the less, just size em tight.

Front

Back

Close up. See how hairy the denim is?

Post wash photos if the warrant it. I soaked mine with the hottest tap water I could get from the shower and then proceeded to scrub. I hope it shrinks to a fit that'd be a bit more flattering.

Earlier this week.. Lunch at Sango.

I always found this place odd, just the combination of Japanese and Burgers wouldn't normally make sense, but then again, most things delicious don't, so what the hell.

First, Chili Burger. Gracious amounts of chili over molten cheese.

Second was a BLT.

And with that came knobby thumb sized cut chips.

To knock it all down, uber thick milkshakes. Texture felt closer to sipping melted Ice Cream through a straw, damn good.