I came to Manila to eat and, boy, did I eat! Because if there’s one thing I overachieve at, it’s eating.

Here’s a quick summary of the last two weeks.*

7 July, Monday

• I arrived late at night but, of course, given the four-hour layover in Cebu, I will only admit to eating at three outlets at the Mactan Airport.

8 July, Tuesday

• Workout: Kinesis at Core Kinesis.
• Dinner: Gino’s Brick Oven Pizza at Katipunan with the folks. They loved it. My mom oohed and aahed over everything. Favorites were the burrata with cherry tomatoes, the spaghetti bolognese, the Pizza Bianca with extra sausage, and the crack pie.

9 July, Wednesday

• Lunch: Burgoo with my late masseuse’s daughter. I liked the mac n’ cheese but wasn’t too crazy about the pizzas. We had blizzards from Dairy Queen for dessert.

• Workout: Kundalini yoga with Rosan.
• Dinner: One Way Restaurant with Rosan and Raffy. Good food, interesting interiors, slow service. Loved the coq au vin but thought the creme brulee tasted like condensed milk.

10 July, Thursday

• Workout: 15 minutes cardio then found out my Kinesis workout was canceled due to an emergency in my trainer’s family.

11 July, Friday

• Lunch: Earth Kitchen with Tricia. Was tempted to order the fresh bacon slab again, but decided to try something new. Went with the risotto with short ribs, and loved it! Tricia liked the pumpkin tacos (- me, not at all). The carbonara was just so-so. But, as usual, the goat cheese ice cream was superb. Note: There’s a bakery across the street that does some really good chocolate chip cookies. They’re a bit too sweet, but they’re still yummy.
• Dinner/drinks: The Tivoli at the Mandarin Oriental Makati (- Nicolas and I checked into the hotel for the weekend), with 12 others from Lamonation, my food group: “Mga kaladkaring hindi umaatras sa hamon ng paglamon.” (I won’t even attempt to translate that.)

“What better way to kickstart MeMOries: Best of the Best at the Tivoli than to welcome back three of Mandarin Oriental, Manila’s renowned former chefs – Executive Chef Norbert Gandler, Executive Pastry Chef Ernie Babaran and Tivoli Sous Chef Kenneth Cacho – for a one-night-only dinner promotion on 11 July. As soon as word reached Tivoli habitués, an outpour of reservations came in, making the culinary affair this Friday fully booked.” (Source: Mandarin Oriental Manila’s Facebook page.)

All of us ended up doing the wine pairing and were properly sloshed by the time dinner was done, which was around 1:30 AM.

Highlights, for me, were the following:

“Millionaire Salad: Smoked duck breast, foie gras ice cream, pressed mud crab salad with salmon roe accompanied by mesclun greens with walnut-sherry vinaigrette.” We were skeptical about the foie gras ice cream but it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.

“The Tivoli Bouillabaisse: A medley of seafood, salmon tatare, ‘pan de tomate’ in a bouillabaisse froth.” I would dine at The Tivoli again just for this. This was truly a work of art.

“Port Wine-Braised Mulwarra Veal Cheeks: Green pea risotto, wild mushrooms and gremolata.” One word: WOW.

The palate cleanser: “Blackberry Tonic: Blackberry sorbet, shaved grey goose vodka ice and tonic water.” We wanted about a dozen more of these.

“Roasted Nebraska Prime Angus Beef Striploin and Butter-Poached Baby Lobster: Onion tomato tart tatin, truffled potato celeriac mash and Pedro Jimenez jus.” We were almost full to bursting by this time, but I just had to finish this. It was beautiful.

“Textures of Valrhona: Layers of chocolate preparations, praline and buttered popcorn ice cream.” Sigh… Those textures…

And the discovery of the evening, TWG’s Vanilla Bourbon Tea!

12 July, Saturday

• Lunch: Wildflour with Nicolas and Malu.

Malu Gamboa, Nicolas and me.

We ate at the newly opened branch in Salcedo Village and everything we had was very good. I had the kimchi rice…

I could have this everyday!

Nicolas had the eggs with chorizo…

… and Malu had the croque madame.

We also had some very tasty green juices. When the bill came, Nicolas’ comment was, “It’s very expensive for eggs.”

• Workout: Kundalini yoga with Rosan, Mandarin Oriental Manila gym with Nicolas.
• Dinner: Tin Hau at the Mandarin Oriental Manila with Nicolas, Rosan and MiaTams. While the quality of the food was very good and, the taste, excellent, the portions were ridiculously small. We ended up having to order extra dishes but it really seemed like they were running low on stock. After all, they were closing in two days. The lemongrass jelly dessert will be a lost treasure.
• Drinks: Martinis. We went to Martinis to meet Malu for a nightcap, but the bar was empty, dark and depressing so we really only stayed for one drink.

13 July, Sunday

• Lunch: The Caluag residence in Quezon City. It was my aunt’s birthday and my cousins went all out in throwing her a big lunch. There must have been three lechons. There were oysters, a grilling station, and crabs among a lot of other things. I especially liked the halo-halo station.
• Workout: Mandarin Oriental Manila gym with Nicolas.
• Dinner: Room service, which was blah.

14 July, Monday

• Workout: Mandarin Oriental Manila gym.
• Brunch: Mandarin Deli, before I checked out of the hotel. I had a spinach-mushroom quiche and tried their version of the cronut. The quiche was good but the cronut was cloyingly sweet for my liking.
• Rest-of-the-day dining/drinking: At friends’ apartment. I brought a lot of junk food and we went through it steadily as the afternoon and the evening wore on. Plus my friends kept whipping up things in the kitchen. I lost track of how much we ate. We also finished a bottle of Scotch, and then some.

15 July, Tuesday

• Workout: Cancelled due to hangover.
• Lunch: Cafe Juanita with old friends. While I may cancel a workout because of a hangover, I will never pass on an opportunity to eat – especially at Cafe Juanita, one of my favorite restaurants. Mmmm… Bagnet salad… Mmmmm… For dessert, Lorna brought samples of her freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. They were really good, with just the right amount of saltiness to counter the sweetness.

If you’re interested in ordering, please send me a message and I will put you in touch with Lorna.

16 July, Wednesday

• Everything was canceled due to Typhoon Glenda.

17 July, Thursday

• Workout: Kinesis at Core Kinesis.
• Dinner/drinks: Rastro to watch Joel’s short comedies. It was a lot of fun! They’ll have another run on Thursday. Re the food at Rastro, it was good but pricey for appetizer portions. I liked the bacon morsels and the lengua. And the rice that went with the lengua. Yum.

Congratulations, Joel! (Photo source: Rastro’s Facebook page)

18 July, Friday

• Lunch: The Plantation with Joel and two of his actor friends. They recommended the pork chops, which were tasty but a bit on the tough side. I was tempted to wolf down the rice that came with it though. It must have been sauteed in the chop’s juices. Yummmmy. I want to return to try the cakes. And I also want to try the sandwiches at The Boiler Room opposite The Plantation.
• Workout: Mandarin Oriental Manila gym. (I checked in again but only for the night.)
• Dinner/drinks: The Tivoli – again! – with 10 Lamonators.

“On 18 July, chef extraordinaire and restaurateur Margarita Fores will join forces with Executive Chef Rene Ottlik to stage a highly-anticipated seven-course degustacion dinner. Again, news travelled fast to Manila’s gourmands and the one-night-only fete is now fully booked! Call 750 8888 to make your reservations for Tivoli’s “MeMOries: Best of the Best” promotion from 16 to 25 July before seats run out.” (Source: Mandarin Oriental Manila’s Facebook page.)

Another excellent dinner. My highlights:

The flavored butters. I couldn’t get enough of them. My favorites were the one was with pepper, the algae butter, and the smoked one. I liked them so much, I was hoarding them from the rest of the table.

“Burrata, bottarga di Miggine, wild rucola, bio extra-virgin olive oil.” This was absolutely exquisite.

“Foie gras carpaccio, microgreens, edible flowers, sale di Cervia.” This would have been better if it was served with a mini baguette and some sea salt. By the time I realized we still had some bread left on the table, I was almost out of the foie gras. Grrr…

“Risotto Acquerello, crema di scampi, Bulacan river prawn, lattumi sperm sac of tuna, Roman ciccioli.” This had some interesting textures going on. There was crunch from some imported chicharon , and that sperm sac was a naughty touch.

“Arrosto of Philippine grouper, rice oil, fennel-onion confit, sale di limone, fennel pollen.”

“Lychee sorbetto, prosciutto San Daniele, wood sorrel.” It seemed like an odd combination at first, but the prosciutto worked very well with the lychee, lending an interesting twist to the sorbet.

If you haven’t gone to bid The Tivoli goodbye, I suggest trying to go in the next two days before it closes its doors on the 26th!

• Drinks: Martinis’ Farewell Party.

(Photo c/o The Mandarin Oriental Manila’s Facebook page.)

We had five glasses of wine at dinner, and then I had vodka on the rocks at Martinis (Ketel One and Belvedere). Then the Mandarin’s F&B Manager, Peter Pysk, came over with a bottle of Johnny Walker Double Black and that’s when the Evil Twin took over and started taking photos like this:

19 July, Saturday

• Lunch/drinks: At the Goco ancestral house in Taal Town. With only three hours of sleep, I managed to make it to the gorgeous heritage town of Taal. Fellow Lamonator, Mompe Goco, invited us to his family’s ancestral home, which he is lovingly restoring. According to his brother, Chef Robby Goco (Green Pastures, Cyma, Charlie’s Grind and Grill), they intend to turn it into a restaurant next year. They served up Taaleño food. Our favorites were the longganisa, the ginataang santol , the laing , the salad with salted egg, eggplant and tomatoes, and the desserts (the leche flan, minatamis na santol at kamias , buko pandan and the suman with hot chocolate).

• Dinner: The Refinery with the Ledesma family. I hitched a ride home with the Ledesma family and was fully intending to skip supper but, when the Ledesma kids said they were hungry, we didn’t put up a fight. We stopped at The Refinery at Rockwell, where the kids had their own pasta each while Jason, Vanessa, and I split two pastas and one sandwich. (I liked the Hangover pasta, but found the Angry pasta too spicy to enjoy, and thought the bacon-grilled cheese sandwich was bland. The truffle fries were good though. And so was the chocolate chip cookie. The nutella one was so-so… No, we weren’t hungry.)

20 July, Sunday

• Brunch: Purple Yam. Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan (formerly of Cendrillon, now Purple Yam) want to move back to the Philippines permanently, if they can recreate Purple Yam’s success in New York here. They converted the old Besa home in Malate into a reservations-only restaurant.

The place looks great, but perhaps they might want to consider turning the garage into a waiting area. It can get tight in the main dining room when diners arrive early for their scheduled seating.

While the quality of the food is good and I admire the couple’s dedication to sourcing the best local ingredients, Amy and Romy aren’t in Kansas, I mean New York anymore. This is the Philippines and we know what really good Filipino food is supposed to taste like. Not only are they competing with our mothers’ home-cooked meals, they’re also competing with the likes of Milky Way, Fely J’s, Sarsa, Wooden Spoon, even Kainan Au Gusto, Goto Monster and countless other Filipino restaurants that keep opening in and around the metropolis that know their stuff and know how to do it well.

This was the highlight of the meal for me: “Cured tuna with soft-boiled organic duck egg (Victoria, Laguna), native greens and green mango salad.” I liked it that it featured Filipino greens, a welcome departure from the usual romaine and arugula. The duck egg and that cured tuna were absolutely divine.

I think the overall experience would have been better had Purple Yam had bigger servings. We were a group of ten and we had to share small rations. For instance, we were given 12 ukoys. One each wasn’t enough so we split the two extra pieces between us.

“Ukoy: Napa cabbage, snowpeas, carrots, leeks, beansprouts, shrimp fritter.”

And maybe three small pancakes would have been better than one medium-sized one, given the three different toppings. They served the toppings in those small condiment bowls, which half the table had to share.

“Kalabasa [pumpkin] sour cream and Greek yogurt pancake with kaong syrup, banana butterscotch caramel, langka haleya [jackfruit jam].” The other half of the table didn’t even get to try the best of the toppings, the banana butterscotch caramel. They had just plain chopped cooking bananas which weren’t sweet at all.

The beef tapa and pork tocino were excellent but they were sliced very thinly so they weren’t very filling at all. It was a good thing the kitchen offered us more of the tocino, although it still wasn’t enough for everyone at the table.

Tapa and tocino for ten.

Even their garlic fried rice could have been better had they used day-old rice and finely chopped the garlic and maybe sauteed the lot of it in the achuete-virgin coconut oil marinade of the meat.

They did have an awesome selection of vinegars. They also had exotic bitters to go with their special Filipino cocktails. Very inventive and original. Although someone in our party did suggest that they should have regular local juices on offer, like dalandan or calamansi, for those who don’t want anything with alcohol.

One fried egg each would have been nice, instead of the three eggplant omelettes to share at the table, which looked promising but were actually quite bland.

And I’m not sure what was up with that "braised duck in basi " but you could hardly taste it in between the challah nori rolls so I ate mine without the bread, but it still seemed pretty lame as a dish.

Find the duck. And the flavor.

The first dessert, the “watermelon and passionfruit granita with nata de coco , kaong , pinipig and Sebastian’s golden kiwi fruit pop” was really good but mostly because of Sebastian’s kiwi pop. The second dessert, the buko pie, I found too densely packed with buko and lacking in sweetness. The ice cream that came with it was too small to make a difference in the sweetness.

I wasn’t going to write about Purple Yam because I don’t like writing negative things about establishments, but I really really wanted tolove this meal, and Amy and Romy and their staff are so genuinely likeable that I truly want them to succeed. On their business card, it says, “Reimagining Filipino food.” Unfortunately, they’ll have to do a lot more than that for Purple Yam Malate to make it here in the Philippines.

To be fair, the restaurant only opened last July 4, so I hope that Amy and Romy get accurate feedback from their guests so that they can step up their game and, thus, stay the course.

• Dinner: A small plate of pasta, half a turon , and a banana-chocolate chip cupcake at the PETA Theater during the intermission of “Rak of Aegis”.

Hilarious! It’s playing till the end of August so do try to catch it! I suggest reserving the VIP seats. They’re only P1500. Support Filipino Theater!

Note: I’ve left out the meals that I was having at home. For the first few days, I was having breakfast (- my dad, who is still active with the relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda victims, brings home this thinly sliced dried fish from Roxas every time he goes there – and lightly fried, with salted tomatoes and fried rice – they’re quite a treat in the morning). I’ve since stopped having breakfast and try to avoid the kitchen and the dinner table, if I can but, really, how can anyone resist one’s mom’s home cooking? I am failing more than I am succeeding. As per usual.

I’ve also left out of the log workouts, the World’s Largest Gym Class’ 30-Day Challenge, which I am still doing.

I just wish that I had rest days because I deserve rest days and not because I need them because I am either hungover or have a whole day of eating booked, or both. Just as I did with the 30-Day Ab Challenge, I’ve had to move my rest days around to accommodate my binges.

I must confess that I am now two days behind (- I missed Day 19 and 22), so I’ll have to forfeit the next rest days and make up for the days I skipped. It’s going to be tough. I’m really struggling with the V-ups and the push-ups.