The Wise Trees

Old trees arch, leaves bow 
as they have learned resilience
looking up, you learn. 

Here's to Long Family Lunches

I knew we'd have to endure the Saturday traffic given that the coding scheme was suspended and the truck-ban was off. We braved it anyway and went out of our way to Quezon City for lunch.

Thaipan described itself as a fine-dining restaurant, though it felt more mid-range. I came in my maong shorts and they didn't really impose on having me wear long pants or a dinner jacket. They were right about the place being "reminiscent of home." Even better, it genuinely felt like somebody who cooked well invited you to their home and served you lunch.

The place was quite literally, formerly someone's home. They refurbished and re-purposed the house. The bedrooms were turned into private dining rooms and the wide front lawn became an outdoor dining area. We had a good conversation around that as D. says it gives an aura of preserving a heritage, the way families pass on good values to their children.

D. lived in Thailand for about a year, and she's always a good judge of food that brings her back there. I suppose this one does. The aesthetics in the presentation suggest that it was carefully and expertly prepared. The servings are generous and it would have been awkward if you're out on a date and you were to finish the whole plate of pad thai or bagoong rice on your own. But it's perfect for sharing especially if you are a long-time couple who wouldn't mind maybe even eating it in the same plate.

The little one has also began to develop his own taste and palette. He's got something going on for some of the crunchy stuff and he voted for the Catfish Salad as his favorite. He warmed up to the spacious former lawn area.

The afternoon breeze was comforting so lunch was long, delicious and filled with conversation.

I suppose I mentioned the traffic earlier because it sparked a memory of how a few years ago, we didn't have to go very far for good Thai Food. A place called Sala Thai was in Malate for more than a decade. It had to close and was converted to another fast food joint. D. and I had several dates there years back, and it was some of the best food we've had together. We remember hearing the cook barking orders back to the well-dressed waiters, speaking to them in Thai. I even remember the how even the elegant utensils and table top cloths all look like they were imported from Thailand to keep the authenticity consistent.

Some of our other favorite Thai restaurants end up closing down. Suko Thai's another one. So it's probably why there's an ephemeral element about the experience in Thaipan. We would have wanted more restaurants to conserve the good-looking houses, the same way that families pass on the good values and preserve heritage. And we wouldn't want it to close down.

So yeah, fancy that we brave the traffic and ate there while we can.

The Best Bar in the World

The best bar in the world is our dinner table

Fiction lay along a bowl of chips 

and my wife's homemade salsa

seasoned lovingly 

using himalayan salt balanced with parsley leaves. 

There was no talk of sports, but my three-year-old tells me, "Drink your beer daddy" 

as he sings to Mickey Mouse clubhouse. 

We dance. 

When the little one was put to sleep, 

my wife and I have more conversation: 

familiar, spontaneous, honest and heedless 

as conversations of married couples go. 

We play some more music 

I'm my own DJ, dancing randomly 

to Talking Heads 

and Lyke Li 

and Up Dharma Down. 

We drink some more 

grocery-priced beer 

This price makes it tastier 

No service charge either

and I don't mind washing up a few dishes. 

And oh, the bed is so close 

for us to stagger silly on the way up. 

Why Fiction?

An exposure to what is unfamiliar makes us know who are: the more we lose ourselves, the more we discover ourselves. Travelling sets us up for that realization. We step away from our comfort zones to the wideness of the world, and to the true bounties of discovering the secrets of life in the universe.

 

This was a golden nugget that got laid as I read Jennifer Egan's "Why China?" in her collection of short stories, Emerald City. I paraphrased some of the sentences I liked. While the story induced it, the thought it is entirely mine. Reading does that to you. It challenges you to either figure out or build your own metaphor, write your stories, transcend what fascinated you in fiction to polish your persepctives, maybe even change your outlook, and entertainingly so.