Tea for me

The driveway of yesterday's 10-A Alabama Street, New Manila, Quezon City.

P.S.
This teapot was etched on wet cement by Robert Alejandro of Papemelroti. It's dry now, of course.

Blue bird of happiness

At 10-A Alabama Street, New Manila, Quezon City.

P.S.
This blue bird was painted by Robert Alejandro of Papemelroti.

Gayuma

Noun. A love spell, either in potion form or a charm.
 

Gayuma ni Maria. A restaurant in Sikatuna Village in Quezon City with some of the naughtiest names for food I have ever encountered. And if you need some assistance during this day of love, leave a comment and I'll email you the high-resolution file of Gayuma's wall of love spells. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

New life

A lowly bayong—a coarse but sturdy tote bag made of woven palm leaves, commonly used while buying vegetables, fruits, fish, poultry and meats in fresh markets—is given a lovely coat that is just as environmentally friendly, made of a patchwork of wonderfully textured fabric scraps, by What If Handmade, a social enterprise that repurposes old and used fabrics.

Beacon

Circular and with open grillwork rather than solid walls to bring the outdoors in, the parish church of Santa Maria Della Strada (Our Lady of the Way) in Quezon City was inaugurated in 1983.

Organic

I do not know anything about pottery or ceramics, but I do know that I like the creations of Quezon potter Ugu Bigyan (see yesterday's post). I love how he uses organic patterns and shapes, and especially how he mixes textures—all of which result in pieces that are a delight to see and to touch. Take these bowls as an example. They are pinched, pushed and pulled after first being shaped perfectly on the wheel. The exterior is left unglazed, and the creamy white clay has speckles of brown in different shades. The colors inside the bowl run into each other like clouds, the glaze is matte in some areas and glossy in others, and the bottom has a whimsical spiral [inspired by pako (fiddlehead fern), maybe?]. You know you have an authentic Ugu Bigyan piece when you see his distinctive signature at the bottom or the back.

Of clay and water, leaves and wood

Follow us


to the home,


garden,


and workshop of master potter Ugu Bigyan,


whose art is inspired by the leaves and roots of plants which abound in his spacious garden,


where one can sit or lounge,


or take a siesta on bamboo, surrounded by bamboo;


and, if you call in advance, the master potter will don a different apron and cook for you.



Ugu Bigyan Potter's Garden is located in the town of Tiaong in the province of Quezon, about 100 kilometers southeast of Manila.

Southern Tagalog cuisine

As I promised yesterday, here are photos of the meal that my husband and I enjoyed at Patis Tito Garden Café.
 


Ensaladang Pako (Fiddlehead Fern Salad). Pako, or fiddlehead fern, is the curly top of young, edible ferns. I do not know what this variety of edible fern is, but I do know that it grows in the wild in Southern Luzon. The simplest and most common way of eating it is with tomatoes and a soy-flavored vinaigrette. Patis Tito Garden Café serves it with grated cheese, crunchy garlic bits, scallions, and a mild and creamy mustard dressing.



Petite Lumpiang Gulay (Fried Vegetable Spring Roll). Vegetables rolled in a rice flour wrapper and deep fried is a common dish in the Philippines. However, most of Manila's fried lumpia uses togue, or mung bean sprouts. Patis Tito Garden Café's location in the heart of the Philippines' coconut-producing region gives it easy access to the best and freshest ubod, or heart of palm, and that is what they use in their lumpiang gulay. Served with a vinegar dipping sauce, it was the tenderest, creamiest lumpiang ubod I have ever had.



Bulalo (Beef Shank and Marrow Stew). Good bulalo requires two boilings, the first to get rid of impurities and the second, at a very slow, very long simmer, to extract the full flavor of the beef and marrow. Patis Tito's bulalo is enhanced with onions, lemongrass, garlic, and Visayan fermented fish paste—all very mild, resulting in a delightful play of flavors—and served with green beans, young corn and Chinese cabbage. Needless to say, it is the beef marrow that gives bulalo its wonderfully sinful taste.

Unfortunately, I was not able to take a photo of our dessert, which was Turon con Latik—saba (plantain banana) and jackfruit rolled in a rice flour wrapper and deep fried, and served with latik (a native coconut caramel) and toasted sesame seeds. I took a short walk while waiting for it and by the time I got back to our table, my husband had eaten half of it already. Men.

Meandering

Patis Tito Garden Café is located in the City of San Pablo in the province of Laguna, about 85 kilometers away from Manila.
 


Featuring Filipino cuisine in an al fresco garden setting, the main dining room is one large covered patio with coconut tree trunk pillars supporting a high ceiling. Many of the wood cutout details are made by local artisans, and the room is full of a wonderfully eclectic mixture of Filipino and Asian furniture, crafts and art.
 


The café is owned by Patis and Tito Tesoro, whose portraits adorn one wall of the dining room. Patis is a well-known fashion designer who specializes in Filipino formal wear using fabrics from natural and handwoven fiber. She was in the café when we had lunch there on Saturday, and she came up to us to introduce herself and chat a bit, but I was too shy to ask for a picture. The rest of the time, she spent puttering around her garden.
 


Just off the main dining area is an intimate patio with garden furniture and a stone sculpture of an Asian goddess.
 


At the foot of the statue is a whimsical pond-themed fountain. I'm glad the water wasn't running, else we might not have seen the koi and lotus.
 


How can one resist a stroll through the garden when the entrance beckons so beguilingly from the dining area?
 


The meandering paths are an invitation to lose oneself in the gardens of Patis Tito Garden Café.
 


More Asian stone statues can be discovered in the garden. I especially love this moss-covered one.
 


When walking around Patis Tito Garden Café, it is important to look down too. The fine feather details of this rooster mosaic is just amazing.
 


Tito and Patis Tesoro are bird lovers too, and the garden has plenty of large cages with a variety of tropical birds. They had several kinds of pheasant, which I'd never seen before, and I found the bold, graphic coloring of this silver pheasant particularly striking.
 


There are several buildings at the back of the garden which are off-limits to guests. Some are obviously storage and work rooms, but this lovely house with woodcut details is probably the apartment of some of the Tesoro's live-in staff.
 


Tito and Patis Tesoro also have their own apartment within the compound, in a house built in a traditional Filipino architectural style. The main living quarters are on the second floor, and the first floor serves as a storage area and provides much-needed air circulation in this tropical country. The first floor is now a store which sells Asian and Filipino jewelry, fabrics and one-of-a-kind treasures.

And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the food—it's the reason why we went to Patis Tito Garden Café, after all. Come back tomorrow for a vision (wish I could say "taste" instead!) of our delectable meal.

Not for Valentine

Last year, my office spent its annual R&R at Casa San Pablo, and because the place is so soothing, my husband and I decided to stay there this past weekend. It still abounds with the lovely and charming details I discovered last year, but the new sculpture which I noticed on the veranda is not quite what I would call charming. Sometimes, the taste of Boots Alcantara—the owner, manager and innkeeper—when it comes to art is just a little too strange for me. Thank goodness he usually doesn't put them on display at the Casa.

Legendary generosity

The wolves and kettle of the Loyola family crest has a legend attached to it. The story goes that the family was so wealthy and generous that after feeding their soldiers and servants, they had enough to feed wild animals. To commemorate the family's generosity, a carving of two wolves eating from a kettle was placed over the doorway of their castle in the Basque city of Loyola. Of course, heraldic sites make no mention of the story. The legend persists, however, because generosity is one of the graces that St. Ignatius and his followers constantly prayed for. The wolves and kettle illustration over the castle door is real, however, though it is now a stone relief and not a wood carving. This is a resin replica which my former boss, a Jesuit, had commissioned as a gift to the Ateneo de Manila University's most generous donors.

A century-old vision

Sarabia Optical was founded by the country's first Filipino optometrist, Federico Sarabia Jr., who opened his clinic in 1908. It currently has thirteen branches all over Metro Manila, and nine more in various parts of Luzon.

A comparison in tastes

Another year, another trip to Café Ysabel for a multi-course degustation with Chef Gene Gonzalez for Professor Fernando Zialcita's "Exploring Filipino Taste Through Comparisons" course. Many of the items in the menu were changed this year, and one was changed somewhere between the announcement and the day of the dinner. Since the pair that was removed was one which we compared last year, my husband and I didn't mind the change at all. Instead of comparing two kinds of dishes, one dish—pochero, a stew with a tomato-based sauce—was to be tried with four kinds of dipping sauces. As Chef Gene pointed out, in Asia especially, the use of additional sauces and condiments does not necessarily mean that the dish is bland; nor is it an insult to the cook. So we tried two kinds of vinaigrette, a tomato salsa, and an eggplant chutney. With no exception, everyone at our table liked the eggplant and red onion chutney the best.

Ride me

THEME DAY: ANIMALS • Even when fully mature, the little brown horses of our kalesas, which are still used as public transportation in some parts of Manila, rarely grow taller than the average Filipino male (around 5'4" or 163 cm). This patient beast, and his colorful burden, was waiting for commuters in front of the Binondo Church.

Kahol! Miaow! Kokak! Taktalaok! See more animals from City Daily Photo bloggers around the world.