TRIVIA: CAFFE LATTE

Food find: Leche flan cake

Waiting for the Kung Fu Panda movie screening to start at the New Eastwood Mall left me and my friends time to window shop. But instead of  the usual shoes and shirts, we window shopped the products of the Weekend Gourmet Market. And I shouldn't even use the term 'window shop' is the wrong word as the booths are mainly made up of one-meter tables.  

There was a lot to see and sample, including sugar-free Brazo de Mercedes and Russian Cookies, but  I chose to buy a Leche Flan Cake. 

Here's my midnight snack after  seeing the Panda save China and achieve inner peace at the same time.

 

Uhm, Excuse Me, There's Shit In My Coffee!

One of the many things I can't do without is coffee. I need it to start my day and I gotta have it right after my last meal for the day.

I grew up knowing only one kind of coffee- instant. the kind that came from the bevelled Nescafe  glass containers (that they marketed as "diamond glass")  that my Lola Pacing would rinse and scrub to turn into drinking glasses. Actually, she also used it as a coffee mug even if the glass was too hot to hold when she pumps out the hot water from the thermos. And if any of the grandkids broke a glass, she wouldn't mind so much as the replacement was just one grocery day away.

click on the photo to see the TV Commercial

The coffee experience in the 80's was pretty much just black, with sugar or with cream. Then the Frappe was introduced. Cold coffee was my introduction to coffee drinking. It was summer and there was nothing to drink but cold water from the fridge or lukewarm water from the tap. As I had no baon, I had no money to buy softdrinks from the sari-sari store. More so, the chocolate drinks of fruit juices in tetrabrick packaging from Glo-ri grocery. I still remember how I made myself a frappe and cleaned up the mess  I made in the kitchen, sat under an aratiles tree and drank my first glass of cold coffee.

Fast forward to 1997. The first Starbucks store opens in 6750. Now a working girl  (not that kind,  you green minded shithead) with some money to spend. I was astounded at the price of coffee. It cost more than my daily commute. But what the heck! Memories of my bootleg ice cold frappe came rushing back, steam rolling my feet all the way to Starbucks. After a few visits, Starbucks lost its appeal. Becoming more of a necessity for mornings when I needed a quick pick me up on busy, shitty Monday mornings. And when I got bored in the office I would schedule meetings at Figaro,  Seattle's Best, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Gloria Jeans (I so do not recommend the coffee in this joint), Bo's Coffee, etcetera, etcetera. My coffee consumption increased and so did my productivity. Any correlation there? I hope not.

Coffee drinking had gone on to be complicated. Now you had to choose between sizes (large, venti, schmenti), caffeine content (Decaf? Are you pregnant?), sugar type (brown, white, and the carcinogeninc suspect sugar-free sweetener), cream or milk, with froth or no froth, with cream or none, etcetera, etcetera.

When I used to train people in marketing, I used the Starbucks analogy every time I had to explain the power of choice. Back in the day, when life was simpler and all you had to do was say, "Miss, pa order nga ng kape" all you got was that, a hot cuppa Joe. Now, because you gotta feel empowered, you gotta make choices- starting with how you like your coffee.  And that is how people who have to have Starbucks in the morning start their day... the abundance of choices and decisions eating up their time, instead of having just a cuppa, so they can have some quiet time before they rejoin the rat race.

I have gone back to drinking my coffee the old school way. In mugs, black with just a little sugar. I now enjoy brews with blends I can distinguish. I'm no ubër coffee connoiseur  but I do like an occasional espresso from the Amici and the filipino in me never abides by the Italian rule of no milk in you coffee after 10 AM (because milk will leave you with a smaller appetite for lunch or dinner).

I also like the ocassional exteme coffee adventure. So when I got the chance to have Kape Alamid or civet cat coffee at Ritual at The Collective, Makati's latest hubbub for the artsy fartsy, I  swallowed my fears.

This benign dark amber is also known as Kopi Luwak in Indonesia, Kape Laku in East Timor, cà phê Chồn in Vietnam. And it doesn't smell or taste like shit at all.

That's because the coffee beans that the Asian Palm Civet has eaten and passed though its digestive system has been washed, sun-dried, roasted and brewed. For something that's passed through a body part where the sun don't shine, the aroma of the Kape Alamid has a mild sweetness that reminds me of Benguet coffee.  The mildness doesn't seem to justify why its touted as the most expensive coffee.

The brew I was served was a bit on the watery side and arabica-based so I don't know if that's how it was supposed to taste. I guess, this coffee adventure will have a sequel. Until the next coffee adventure, then.

Cappuccino Infused with Salted Caramel

Got myself a different kind of drink today at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf... Cappuccino Infused with Salted Caramel.  

The foamy concoction, served in a wide-brimmed cup, looked promising. And so I took a sip without mixing it and it was an explosion of tastes: salty, sweet and bitter. I proceeded to mix it and took another sip. It tasted better but the salt grains hadn;t melted yet and it was a little too salty for my taste.

It's an interesting mix but I'd like to go back to my regular frothy drink please.

When Makati Was My Version Of Hell

This is a previouly posted blog. I used to work in Makati but gave up a lucrative corporate job because I couldn't take the daily commute anymore. Believe me, I've tried all kinds of transportation. Heck, I even learned how to drive. It just didn't work for me. 

Whilst working in there,  I discovered Apartment 1B, a cozy resto with good food and a charming doorman/guard named Aga who was a one-time champion whistler in one of Eat Bulaga's crazy music contests. So these days, when I do find myself in Makati's Salcedo Village area, I try to drop by and have a cuppa and a cake. The last one I had was the White Toblerone Cheesecake. 

Here's a an edited version of one of my worst nights getting stuck in Makati. The coffee shop mentioned is not Apartment 1B because they do serve alcohol. Dig in!

☂☁⚡

Makati. Bright lights. Bleak city.

I’m sure many of you will disagree, but for me a rainy pay day Friday night in Makati just about appropriates hell. And Satan, in a plush red velvet chair high up in a penthouse office is directing the traffic. His minions, disguised as taxi drivers, tirelessly circle the concrete jungle, stopping to splash bystanders with murky rainwater before speeding away, with their undecipherable hand signals that could very well mean, “I’m stuck here in hell, fucker, so you should be too!”

I used to work in Malabon, the land of patis, pancit Malabon and relentless flooding. Many of my friends felt I got a first class upgrade when my office transferred to the country’s business capital.  I had my misgivings.

Being a truant Makati girl, I refuse to own a car and drive, despite my company’s standing offer to get a company car. A friend recently described me as a corporate hippie. Someone who refuses to look like and live like she works in this urban haven called Makati. Though I do not report for work in my tsinelas (It’s against company policy as our recently released Employee Handbook declares), I do go to work in jeans and jersey shirts.

But I digress.

On Fridays, our office closes at 5:00 PM. It’s four and a half hours later and here I still am in the coffee shop in our building, ranting silently on my computer. After years of working here, I have had the wisdom to realize that cursing, screaming and thrashing on the wet pavement will not get me home to Quezon City. And fanning this flame of hatred I have towards this place is the fact that this coffee shop, the only place I can get to without being soaked by the torrential rain, does not serve anything with alcohol in it. Not even Java mocha blend with a splash of Green Cross rubbing alcohol.

I feel like flipping everyone here in the coffee shop.

There’s that table of plain janes gossiping about the office beeyotch whose i-pod nearly broke when she dropped it while showing product sample pictures and way too much cleavage to their married expat boss.

The couple seating across me have opened their laptop and are uploading monthsary pictures on their shared Friendster site. Remind me to puke on them later before I leave.

Three salesmen, oblivious to everyone around them, are sharing the sexploits of a colleague who snagged a pretty young thing while on his recent provincial assignment. They all hope he gets STD.

In my head, I am Honey Bunny in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction. I stand on my chair and brandish a wicked looking gun and shout “Each one of you Motherfuckers enjoy your last night in hell! I’m now gonna shoot every fucking last one of you!” With madness in my eyes, I blow the brains out of everyone in the coffee shop, sparing the kindly waiters who look at me with pity. I run amok and have my own weekend party strafing down all the taxis that cross my path.

But I don’t have a gun on me now. Neither do I have the strength to shout as six hours of watching people be happy has drained me of all the fight I have left tonight.

It is nearly 11 PM and the coffee shop is closing. I leave a tip and take a last sip of the now lukewarm cappuccino I ordered three hours ago.

Makati wins tonight.

I drag my peep-toed cold feet on the pavement wishing that I wouldn't have to be here  on the next rainy pay day Friday.