TRIED AND TASTED: ISAW BY LOLA OTE

When I crave street food but don't feel like pedestrian dining, I go to Lola  Ote's where barbecued street food are served churrasco style inside an airconditioned establishment. My favorite is the pork isaw (intestines), round bits of intestinal muscles, fat and mucosa marinated in  sweet soy and grilled in high heat that turns some parts into toasty bits.  I like it because there's no bitter aftertaste and it's not dry, the way most neighborhood barbecue stalls tend to grill theirs.

On the right is the isaw, beside it is the barbecued tenga (ears). The fat is tender and heart-clogging but the cartilege isn't boiled to melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. 

 LOLA OTE
Address: 24 Sgt. Esguerra St., South Triangle, Tomas Morato, Quezon City
Telephone: +63 9175217892/ 02 5430076

FOUND AGAIN: BEACH HOUSE

Four years ago, I wrote about the UP Beach House.

Around June of this year,  news spread that the UP Diliman admin was about to close down the iconic open-area student cafeteria. On Facebook, the page "HUWAG ISARA ang BEACH HOUSE naming MAHAL" cropped up.  On July 9, Rappler reports that it was officially non-operational. But the great news is that it re-opened on August 4, 2014 in a new location at Ocampo Street corner C.P. Garcia avenue, still within the UP vicinity.

When I went there a few weeks back, I ordered the usual- 3 sticks of Pork barbecue, rice and a side dish of Monggo soup. 

Nothing's changed, except that it was a quieter lunchtime. There was no queue and there were available tables. The food server I spoke to said that they had gotten less customers since transferring to the new site. It's a sad thing if the new generation of UP Students would miss out on the  communal dining experience at the Beach House. 

I do hope that more Iskolar ng Bayan would come and make Beach House a dining destination within the University again.

FOOD FIND: MANANG INDAY'S BOSTON BBQ SHACK

 

Living in a certain Cubao district for more than a decade gave me the luxury of discovering the different neighborhood treasures like this hole-in-the-wall barbecue shack run by Aling Inday and her family along Bostons St.

I first heard about her when colleagues from a nearby production house frequented the place for lunch. She had a regular menu of some soup recipes that goes well with grilled food: Munggo Guisado, Sinigang na Baboy and Nilagang Baka. But it was her barbecue that they raved about.

I bought my first stick from her more than a decade ago and have been a regular ever since.  Her specialties include chicken wings, tenga ng baboy (pig's ears), and the de riguer pork barbecue.

Aling Inday would pour a fresh batch of charcoal, point a dusty plastic electric fan towards the makeshift yero grill, get a batch of barbecue sticks, dip them in the marinade and place them on the metal grill, the marinade dripping onto the coal, sizzling and creating short wisps of white aromatic smoke.

The secret marinade

After a few minutes brushes the marinade on the and turns over the barbecue sticks. More aromatic smoke. And after a few minutes, it's done. Hot. succulent, saucy meat on the plate.