My knowledge when it comes to Japanese cuisine is limited to tempura, maki, sushi (which I don’t even eat), tonkatsu, and Nissin’s Ramen. Kidding on that last part. I’m not really that familiar with anything Japanese, except for those that I get to try at the popular fastfood joint, Tokyo Tokyo. I actually go there before because I wanted to practice using chopsticks, lol. A weekend or so ago, before our actual trip to Japan, we were invited by the guys from Herald Suites in Chino Roces to try their in-house Japanese restaurant, Hatsu Hana-Tei.

HERALD SUITES’ LOBBY

Located right in front of the famous Little Tokyo in Makati, Herald Suites—sister hotel of Herald Suites Polaris—sports a very turn-of-the-century Filipiniana look—intricate Machuca tiles, faux Amorsolo paintings, classic wooden furniture. You’ll never guess that they’d have a legit Japanese restaurant at the second floor. The only inkling you’d have, if ever you notice it at all, are the Japanese businessmen lounging about the lobby.

Customized Machuca tiles spread across the floor while wrought iron railings flourish along the interior balconies overlooking the central atrium of the lobby. On hand-crafted wooden tables, metal sculptures sit, looking eternally at guests making their way to and fro. Entering Herald Suites Polaris, it was as if we were transported to a time past when arts and crafts were all the rage and things were a lot more elegant than the ascetic modern times that we were in.

HERALD SUITES POLARIS IN POBLACION, MAKATI

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when we headed out—first to binge on authentic Japanese cuisine at Hatsu Hana Tei in Makati, and second, for a staycation at the newest hotel this side of Poblacion, Herald Suites Polaris.

Chinese cuisine has always been integral to Filipino festivities. From birthday staples like lumpiang shanghai, siomai dumplings, siopao, and to everyone’s favorite, the ubiquitous pancit canton. Filipinos indeed love their Chinese food. But that usually doesn’t translate to pinoys trooping to serious Chinese restaurants, most being content with the popular fast food chows, thinking most of the legit ones can only be found in Binondo—the oldest Chinatown in the world.

LIDO COCINA TSINA AT LA FUERZA, MAKATI

Unbeknownst to many though, there are quite a few restaurants around the metro where you can actually get your legit Chinese fix without traveling all the way to Manila’s Chinatown. And one of these is at Lido Cocina Tsina. With roots all the way from 1930’s Binondo, Lido has been serving their Chinese specialties for 80 years now. And as a testament to this, their newest branch, located at La Fuerza in Makati, is already their 15th store.

DRAGON DANCE AT THE OPENING OF LIDO COCINA TSINA MAKATI

Tucked on a quiet sidestreet along Chino Roces Avenue, we visited the restaurant on their opening day. It was drizzling a bit, but that didn’t stop their traditional Chinese dragon dancers from blessing the restaurant with luck and prosperity.

THE RESTAURANT CAN SEAT UP TO 90 PERSONS

The ninety-seater interiors, set with Lido’s history and photos of their mouth-watering specialties, were packed to the rafters with guests. We sat on one corner and waited with excitement for Lido’s famous pugon-roasted asado.

MANCHURIAN WINGS ~ PHP285.00

Soon enough plates of Drunken Lechon Macau, Manchurian Wings, 16-Spiced Shantung Pork and their Chinese Pugon-Roasted Asado were slid down our table. Everything looked delicious and very Binondo.

DRUNKEN LECHON MACAU ~ PHP290.00

The Drunken Lechon Macau is quite interesting, think pork liempo, except it’s marinated in premium wine and spices for sixty freakin’ hours before being fried. The Manchurian chicken wings, on the other hand, looks very tempting with gingery oriental sauce glazing its outer layer, covering the succulently tender meat inside.

16-SPICED SHANTUNG PORK ~ PHP275.00

Our favorites, however, hovered between Lido’s 16-Spiced Shantung Pork and their Chinese Pugon-Roasted Asado. The former, fancily named after Shantung’s cooking tradition, looks like pork chop. And indeed, it is! The difference is that each slice is peppered with 16 kinds of spices. It is, indeed, quite flavorful, very tender, and mildly spicy!

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From the quaint streets of Binondo, Panciteria Lido's signature pugon roasted asado now makes its way to the busy roads of Makati. #LidoLFMgo2016 #LakadPilipinas

A post shared by Christian L. Sangoyo (@lakadpilipinas) on Jul 8, 2016 at 1:18am PDT

The latter, Lido’s ultimate dish, is what people really come to their restaurant for. The Chinese Pugon-Roasted Asado is what established Lido from its humble roots in Binondo to the pantheon of Chinese restaurants in the Philippines. The dish is simple enough, sliced pork loins roasted in a traditional brick or oven. But what sets it apart are the secret spices infused within the meat, a family recipe going back 70 years to the quaint streets of Manila’s Chinatown. And the taste? Definitely Binondo legit.

~ OUR FRIENDS FROM LIDO COCINA TSINA INVITED US TO THEIR RESTAURANT OPENING. ALL VIEWS & OPINIONS ARE MINE.

Lido Cocina Tsina
Address: Unit 6 & 7, La Fuerza Plaza 2, Chino Roces cor. Sabio St., Makati City, Metro Manila
Contact No: (0927) 226-4940 | (0917) 843-9083
info@panciterialido.com | Facebook | Menu
Opening Hours: 7:00AM to 11:00PM
GPS Coordinates Map: 14.544529, 121.016963

• BOOK DISCOUNTED FOOD TOURS IN METRO MANILA •

I’m no expert when it comes to Japanese food but I’ve always been fond of it—the cooked ones particularly. And even though I have visited Tokyo before, I am ashamed to say that my experience with this cuisine is quite limited to ramens, tonkatsus, gyozas, and tempuras from a popular Japanese fast food here in Manila. I was quite excited then to try out Saboten’s offerings, it’s not everyday that I get to pig out on legit Japanese dishes.

►SEE: SEDA BGC STAYCATION

SABOTEN GLORIETTA’S VERY JAPANESE INTERIORS

The restaurant is located at the ground floor of Ayala Center’s Greenbelt 5 in Makati. It has another branch in BGC, but I haven’t visited that one yet. Saboten originated from Japan, you might say that it is the Jollibee of Japan when it comes to tonkatsus. They have numerous branches at every corner and malls of Japan, not to mention the 500 branches all around the globe. This is a popular place to have your tonkatsu fix indeed.

►PART OF OUR AYALA FOOD TOUR: KABILA RESTAURANT MAKATI

Two slabs of mouthwatering deep fried pork bagnet greeted us as we moved from our breakfast table at Ayala’s M Café, to its north wing—which was really just ten steps away from us—where lunch awaited us. Aptly dubbed, Kabila, this is where we’re gonna have our next meal. Yes, we’re insatiable like that.

MODERN MINIMALIST INTERIORS OF KABILA AND M CAFE

MOBILE INSTALLATION AT KABILA FILIPINO BISTRO

Located on the ground floor of the famed Ayala Museum, a building designed by none other than National Artist for Architecture, Leandro V. Locsin, M Café and Kabila Filipino Bistro shares a very modern interior all set in white. The whole floor is decorated by various paintings, mobiles, and sculptures. Although I haven’t been inside the museum itself, I guess it somehow reflect the artsy nature of the place.

With a two-day food-tasting and restaurant-hopping activity looming in Makati, we were desperate to find a nearby bed to crash into after filling our bellies silly. Going back home at the end of the day and inching our way back through EDSA’s horrendous traffic the next day wasn’t an option we were entertaining—we would sleep in Makati for the night. And that’s that.

YOU HAVE TO CLIMB ONE STORY UP TO THE MAIN LOBBY

Luckily, we found out about Red Planet. Tucked along a relatively quiet street near the bustling central business district in Makati, this red and white building became our refuge for the weekend. It was so conveniently located for our food stops that we decided to extend our stay for one more night.

What can you expect from a restaurant with a name like Simplé Lang? You’d think it’d be a pretty simple affair, as their moniker suggests, but just look at the é at the end of the first word and you’d probably have a rethink coming. As one of the outside graffiti boldly states on one of their glass walls, Simple and yet so arte! Well, that’s a dead giveaway that we’re probably dealing with a conyo restaurant right here.

SIMPLE RED AND WHITE INTERIORS

As I flipped through their menu, it quickly became apparent that that é has everything to do with what Simplé Lang stands for. The restaurant serves classic Filipino comfort food, but with not-so-very-slight twists that makes them more interesting than say, finding them on your favorite carinderia or gotohan. Take their pancit tinola for example. If I had to guess what the following hour would be from that alone, I would surmise we’re gonna be in for a surprisingly good food session.

Budget hostels, those usually preferred by budget-conscious backpackers, don’t usually equate to good food. At worst, they serve zero food, and at best, their servings are set to simply fill your stomach. But check in at Junction Hostel Makati, one of the newest and trendiest hostels that have sprung up along Makati’s Poblacion backpacker district (right along Z Hostel) and you’d be surprised how good their dishes are.

JUNCTION HOSTEL’S FUNKY LOBBY IS WHERE THE ACTION’S AT

THE CHEF AND HIS BOYS BUSY PREPARING OUR FOOD

Coming from an afternoon drinking session at Makati City’s El Chupacabra, the weekend gang decided that we didn’t really want to go home just yet. We looked for a lodging that can accommodate our group in a single room and found a hostel that fits the bill—Z Hostel Makati. And it’s just a few steps away from our current watering hole too.

Z HOSTEL’S SWANKY LOBBY

Z Hostel is one of the newest hostels to mushroom along Makati’s backpacker district, Poblacion (same street as Junction Hostel Makati). It packages itself as a luxury hostel—something quite new to my ears, really, as the attraction of most hostels is its budget-friendly prices, which more often than not, translates to mediocre sleeping quarters.

► BOOK A DISCOUNTED MAKATI MUSEUM TOUR

It was early evening when we alighted from our cab. Slowly trudging our way through the horrendous Friday night Manila traffic, we eventually reached a quiet side street near Poblacion—Makati City’s flamboyant party and backpacking district. Our rendezvous, the newest hostel this side of the metro—Junction Hostel Makati.

JUNCTION HOSTEL’S SECURED ROOM ENTRANCE

It was Junction Hostels’ soft opening and we were their first guests. With the usual weekend gang, we entered the hostels’ chic lobby and were warmly greeted by their staff. A few minutes of checking in and we were handed our funky electronic key cards. We’re off to the third floor of the hostel for our room.

It was past eight in the evening as we rolled along the Zobel Roxas street somewhere in Makati City and stopped at a talyer where sleek sports cars were being serviced.

I thought we were going to a batchoy house? I asked my companions.

Yup, we are, this is it.

Welcome to Antonio’s LaPaz Batchoy House. Located at a barangay aptly named La Paz, it is somewhere between the boundaries of Makati and Manila. It looks like any ordinary eatery except it’s not. Here, they serve two of Iloilo’s specialty noodle dishes, batchoy and molo, plus a few more.

It was almost a year ago to this date that I attended Makati City’s Caracol Festival. I’ve been hearing about this event for quite a while now, but have always been out of the metro due to some trips or whatever. This time around, with nothing better to do one Sunday afternoon, I decided to head out to Makati City to see what the fuss was all about.

Since the festival was going to be held to a place familiar to me, I didn’t bother researching about it. I simply boarded a bus and waited at the Ayala Triangle where I thought the Caracol Festival would commence. It was a surprise then that the city seemed too dead for a festival to be happening.

There was absolutely nobody around. Was I in the wrong place?

►CHECK FOR AFFORDABLE HOTELS IN MAKATI

Christmas is fast approaching, and with all the tragedies our country is going through, it’s almost unbelievable that it’s just but a month away. But Christmas won’t go away, even with all that.

And as with past years, Makati City is once again making the evenings glimmer with the wondrous Ayala Christmas Lights and Sounds shows. I was able to watch the previous years’ presentation and it was by pure chance that I got to see this year’s.

It’s as magical as the first time I stood under those old trees, mouth agape at the thousands of glittering stars. Enough to make you forget—even for a little while—and remember that it’s still indeed the most wonderful time of the year.

Passing through Ayala’s leafy avenue, crossing its lighted underpasses and running through its snaking pedestrian skyways, I rushed through Makati’s central business district like a daft executive on a tight schedule. I glanced at my watch and it’s already ten past lunchtime, I’m late! I crossed over to the cool interiors of Greenbelt 5 and at last found my rendezvous, I’m gonna have lunch at the newest food sensation hitting the yuppies and business executives of the Ayala district, Chops Chicago Steakhouse.

Multitudes of unlighted basketball-sized spheres hang at the gnarly branches across Ayala Triangle’s old trees. It’s a regular busy day in Makati, with throngs of sharply dressed yuppies trotting in and out of the gardens on their way to their meetings and what-nots of working people.

The moon rose and the sky transformed from regular blues to electric hues. Buildings lit up, their towers gleaming in the early evening. The avenue outside got even busier; but inside the Triangle, people stopped, seemingly anticipating something. A sprinkle of shimmering notes twinkled through the gardens and bright lights suddenly flared. The annual Lights and Sounds show at the Ayala Triangle commenced.

A photograph I sweated over won second place in the recently concluded Make It Makati: Capture it as it Happens Photo Contest. I submitted five entries but only one got in.

With over 400 submissions entered into five categories; Artsy Makati, Green Makati, Party Makati, Sporty Makati and Techy Makati, being picked as one of the top entries was actually good enough for me. Artsy Makati received a total of 89 photo entries, and my image landed at number two. Not bad eh?

Makati City, particularly the Ayala Center has been known to photography circles as a no-man’s land. Whip out a big camera and a security would automatically appear by your side with a terse warning about shooting prohibition in the area. These restrictions were held down for more than a month as the contest commenced. Finally, photographers can shoot the beautiful business district to their heart’s delight. One can even bring tripods with no hassle from the guards! Imagine that!

With a hectic travel schedule, I sneaked in a few hours of my time to bring my camera and walk around the iconic district. With a travel appointment to Ifugao that same day, I only have a total of six hours to scout the area and produce decent enough photographs for the contest. It was now or never, the competition ends in a few days and I’ll be in Ifugao by then.

So I walked and walked; looking for unusual angles, wracking my brains for the categories.

The Royal Dutch Airline working with Digital Photographer Philippines and Lonely Planet Philippines launched a photo exhibit a month ago featuring the works of four photographers showcasing the Land of Windmills and Tulips. A week of the exhibit was devoted for my work along with multi-faceted photographer Joel H. Garcia during our amazing seven-day stint shooting The Netherlands.

Aptly titled Capturing Dreams, please allow me to share my humble contributions that graced KLM’s exhibit walls at the RCBC Plaza a few weeks ago.

The first day of shooting was held at The Hague where we were based for the whole week. We roamed its brick-paved streets, passing innumerable old-world structures that I’ve only seen in books. The afternoon was spent chasing windmills along the windswept rural parts of the region. I have to pinch myselft that I really was in Europe.

I was onboard a KLM plane for a 14-hour flight to my first foreign destination exactly sixty days from today. I was bound for the Netherlands as part of the DPP-KLM On Assignment: Europe photo safari.

The whole trip took seven beautiful but tough days across the cities of Holland. Together with renowned photographer Joel H. Garcia and KLM Brand Ambassador Eli Van Ingen, we roamed its winding streets, jaunted through open fields, explored old castles, swayed with windmills and photographed everything there was to photograph in Holland.
Last night, our best images from the thousands we took from that seven-day non-stop journey were displayed in all its colorful glory upon the halls of RCBC Plaza in line with the Royal Dutch Airline’s 60^th anniversary in the Philippines.

The photo exhibit titled Capturing Dreams, features the works of Air France / KLM brand ambassador Eli Van Ingen, celebrated travel and wedding photographer Joel H. Garcia, Dutch photographer Alex Van Hagen and yours truly.

The exhibit currently showcases Joel’s and my photographs and would do so ‘til the 12^th of December. The full exhibit date runs from the 28^th of November to the 16^th of December at the ground floor lobby of RCBC Plaza in Makati City. If you happen to be near the area, I invite you to pass by and let us share with you the beautiful dreams we captured in Holland.

When it comes to choosing a place to eat in, I usually stay away from Filipino-themed restaurants since I feel that my mom and dad can also excellently cook those dishes themselves. Why should I pay for something that can be had at home right? Well I thought I was right until I tasted what Kanin Club has to offer.

Located at the lush gardens of Ayala Triangle in Ayala Avenue, we usually just pass by this resto on the way to the more popular and always full Banapple. This time though, since it was an invite to eat there for L’s mom’s birthday celebration; we decided to forego Banapple and try out Kanin Club.

The Filipino themed resto’s original branch is located at Paseo de Sta. Rosa in Laguna, it has since expanded to three more branches in Westgate, Alabang, UP-AyalaLand Technohub in QC, and finally at the hip Ayala Triangle in Makati.

I was at the veranda of Villa Igang at Guimaras, laptop on my table and a twilit panoramic view of the sea out the deck when I received an e-mail from the Philippine Blog Awards informing me that my blog, Lakad Pilipinas, was a finalist for its Luzon Culture and Arts Category.

The sun had just set and I just came back dripping wet from another session of shooting by the sea but the thought of drying myself was set for later; I was soon scrambling across the PBA site and checking out the other nominations, it turned out I got six! Six! Yes six! I cannot believe my eyes, six! Last year, I didn’t even get one! Wow!

These are what I got:

     Culture And Arts Category For Luzon
     Travel Category For Luzon
     Photo Blog Category For Luzon
     Lifestyle Category For Luzon
     Best Photo Post
     Travel Category For National Level

I was especially psyched to be a finalist for the Travel Category at the National Level, but I was totally not expecting to win it since it was filled with excellent travel blogs from my own blogging heroes.
The night of reckoning was held at the Carlos P. Romulo Hall at the RCBC Tower in Ayala just in time for my flight back to Manila.

I guess every blogger worth his salt was there and everyone seems to know everyone else. I don’t know anyone else besides L who came with me. Although I saw Nina and Ferdz Decena, two of the most prolific travel bloggers in our country, I was too shy to approach and talk to them.