And now, dinner recap. Went last night to a Filipino restaurant called Jologs along East Coast Road. Its website says it stands for "Jojo’s many Silogs [...] acronym of Sinangag (Garlic Fried Rice) and itLog (Sunny-side-Up Fried Egg)" (thought it still begs the question of who Jojo is). We were the only ones there, which was sad for them on a Friday night, but great for us, 'cos they could focus all their attention on preparing our dishes. For my first ever pinoy meal, I had:
Bangsilog: Boneless milkfish marinated in sugarcane vinegar, served with garlic fried rice, sunny-side-up egg, pickled papaya and a very sour broth which tastes like vinegar mixed with some oil and water (not very appetising, but the taste grows on you). It's very simple stuff, and the presentation and combination of food items reminds me of nasi lemak without the coconut and sambal. The fish tasted quite lightly seasoned at some parts, while others were very salty - I guess it all balanced out, especially when eaten with the rice and soup. The egg yolk was the oozing type, and tasted good when mixed with the rice.
Lumpiang Sariwa: Vegetable roll in home-made egg wrapper with garlic/peanut sauce. Popiah, basically. With more thickly sliced vegetable fillings, and the sauce and peanut on the outside. The sauce was a bit more viscous, and sweeter than the popiah I was used to, and of course everyone around the table preferred the usual popiah, but this was not a bad dish.
Brazo de Mercedes: Meringue roll filled with rich creamy custard filling. Oh it was rich and creamy alright. Was quite satiated with the creaminess one-third of the way in. Shared this with my mother and we both left half the filling untouched. Desserts always make me think of how light the Singaporean palate is. We eat things like cheng ting and ice kacang, and other countries have things like Brazo de Mercedes and Rote Grütze (this insanely rich dessert I had in Germany) .
Guinomis: A melodious mix of toasted pinipig, sago, coco milk and gula melaka. This was interesting. Breakfast in a dessert glass. It's like ice kacang with cereal. Pinipig is "immature glutinous rice" that I think they toasted here so it tastes a little like rice crispies. The ingredients are in layers, so even after mixing everything up a little, at first it's an overwhelming ice-cold cereal taste, then when you get to the bottom, you taste the coconut milk and gula melaka flavours. And there are little maroon-coloured sago pearls, so it's a little bit like bubble tea too. Minus the tea, just the bubbles.The restaurant opens from 9 to 9, so the cooks were just starting on their dinners while we were finishing ours. Wrapped up our meal there with a conversation discussing the recently deceased Corazon Aquino and the general state of things in the Philippines. I sat aside and listened while they talked. And tried to understand. Haven't heard the Filipino accent since our Fac Caps' wacky impressions in JC, and was surprised how some words took a while understanding. "Actually" became "ahk-tuwah-lee", " "mishap" became "mis-hup" (I heard it as "mix-up") and of course, all the "f"s became "p"s.
Good dinner, rounded off with a nice little chat. We walked out telling the restaurant they should be seeing us often in the future. Well I hope so.
Epilogue:
Supper at East Coast Lagoon Food Village.
