Cravings

Catanduanes, Batangas and Bacolod City...have one thing in common. They have a special place in my heart. Catanduanes is the place where I grew up. Batangas spelled vacation to me when I was young. My dad is from the land of the Batanguenos.Unlike the first 2 provinces, Bacolod does not have anything to do with my roots. It's just that I worked in this beautiful city for two years. I have made friends, lived the life of a hiligaynon and learned their dialect as well. I left Bacolod in May of 2005 and was not able to visit since then. 

It's almost 5 years. And within that time I still feel the connection I have with the place, the culture and the people. There are a lot of things I miss about this place. The cheap taxi rides around the metro... the seafood I get to eat everyday, the beautiful places outside the city that I get to visit, the company of my super "malambing" friends and of course the FOOD! I am craving for food from Bacolod.

Here are some that are on my "CRAVINGS" list:


[1] CALEA Pastries & Coffee

 If you have been to Bacolod you are more or less aware that Calea is the place to be if you want the best cakes and pastries in town. Most if not all high end citizens prefer Calea cakes over the commercially available cakes from Goldilocks and Red Ribbon. The chocolate cake is to die for! And oh, did I mention that the chocolate mousse makes me forget my name? whew!

                                          Cakes by Calea

                                           Chocolate Cake 

                                                            

                                         Triple Chocolate Mousse

[2] Pendy's 

       

I apologize but I couldn't find a better picture than this. Although Pendy's also boast of a wide array of pastries, I fell in love with their Napoleones. The best in town I can say.

                                           Napoleones 


[3] IMAY'S

With Imay's I get to enjoy my favorite Filipino food. Aside from the usual crispy pata, kare kare and inihaw na tilapia, I always come back for their famous pinakbet. Yummy!

Pinakbet

[4] 18th St. Palapala

To complete my cravings list, nothing can beat kinilaw na tanigue and scallops in butter and garlic! I can almost taste it as I check out the pics..

scallops with tons of garlic and butter

I have lived a quite comfortable life in Bacolod. Thanks to my former boss for the experience. The Business Inn has been my home for several months before I decided to look for my own spot one of the subdivisions within the city. 

My home away from home

I miss Bacolod and I will be back soon.

MASSKARA Festival 2010... here I come!

Thanks Tinx!

When it rains...it pours! INDEED. This month has brought a roller coaster ride of emotions. At one point, I am surrounded with negativity... frustrations and a lot of  bulls***t... I swear I want to vomit! But then again, God always provides balance. It also brought opportunities for me to reconnect and hang out with old and reliable friends. In my recent post, I shared about spending time with my TeleTech friends. This weekend, I went to Laguna with my APC family and got the opportunity to invite Tinkerbell. 

Tinkerbell or Tinx as I call him was my former manager. Whenever I get really depressed with work or caught up with my personal drama... he is always there to be my happy thought. It's almost a year since he left and I really missed his company. Our weekend get together was the perfect venue to just have a good time. I rarely drink alcohol but I guess I was just so happy to celebrate the friendship that I had a little too much to drink last Saturday. We sang our hearts out with songs about love, heartbreak, friendship...anything that we can find on the videoke song book provided by the resort. [i know I usually sing off key but duh? who cares?] We laughed till our eyes were filled with tears. It was so much fun I can't wait for the next time we can hang out. I wish he didn't have to leave last year... If I can only turn back time. *sigh..sobs*

Thank you for the friendship Tinx! 

me and my boss 

Nightmares of Bolinao

My manager gave the CCC Team Leaders a summer treat for what he described as our "phenomenal dedication, hard work, and passion towards excellence". The date was set on May 2-4 and our destination... Bolinao, Pangasinan.

We left Cavite after the shift, Saturday @ 9am (May 2nd) and arrived at the Treasures of Bolinao Beach Resort and Hotel a little past 3pm where Dex (our super cool boss!) booked for a suite accommodation for 3days & 2nights. Needless to say, everyone is tired and starving from the long drive... Not to mention that we have not slept the previous night, ugh! After checking out our room and deciding on our bed assignments, we were off to the cafeteria to eat. To our dismay, nobody from the staff bothered to approach us and take our orders...nobody even bothered to greet us... to say the least. Gggrr!

I can hear my stomach growling... an indication that I was really starving, I could eat a whole cow! *laughs* Realizig that we are wasting precious minutes, we took it upon ourselves to find a "decent" table to settle in and John, one of the Business Systems Team Lead decided to approach the crew (odd right? the guests literally needed to look for someone to assist us!) to ask for the menu and eventually take our order. As we were waiting for someone to spare us some attention, I checked out the videoke machine to see if we could pass the time over a few songs... but again to my disappointment... the machine is busted! What I saw was a relic of the song book.. with the pages torn and falling off!

the song book relic

We are a pool of young professionals with one forte' "customer service"... and you need to believe me when I say we can definitely spot the lack of it! So then after almost an hour of waiting, an attendant was on our way with the menu. We hurriedly ordered and was appeased with the thought that we are a few minutes away from "Lunch". It's a consolation that we got our drinks served a few minutes after we ordered. (check out the "Iced Tea" that TL Ryan ordered..see below). Then again, the wait time is despicable! It turned out that all if not most of the staff are students that were on-the-job training. *sigh* I really couldn't blame them, they are students. What I don't get is why the hell was the F&B Manager allowing such a lousy service.

"Iced Tea"

To cut the story short, we finally got to eat. To be honest, it was the most expensive meal I ever paid for. Considering that the food is pretty bland..the service sucked and most of all the place was a mess! I can see flies everywhere...the adjacent tables were left uncleaned... *sigh*

In an effort to make the most of our vacation, we went for a swim. The pool was packed so we opted to check out the waves and take a plunge in the Pangasinan waters. When we got back to the resort, the pool was deserted... our turn to enjoy a more tranquil swim.

It was a fun time to get up close and personal with the other team leads. John wanted to finish off the night over a few bottles of San Mig Light but guess what? THEY RAN OUT OF BEER!!!!

Early on we were already thinking of checking out and leaving, but because we were all tired (especially our driver, Kuya Dan) we decided to stay for the night. I guess running out of beer was the last nail on the coffin. We are out of this place first hour tomorrow morning! I was so frustrated that I decided to call it a night and sleep through my disappointment.

Morning came, It was a fine day. We decided to have coffee to jump start our day. We are expecting a couple of hours drive since we have not decided on where to go yet. We fixed our things and headed to the cafeteria. Well, just when I thought that the series of unfortunate events has come to a halt... I was wrong. No coffee. Sucks right?

I am ending this post just about now before I go berserk! (again WTF!)

Treasures?... nah, more like Nightmares of Bolinao!