When I'm done with 52, I'll be proceeding
to Final Crisis.
The unfortunate victim of my sudden turnaround to comics is A Game of Thrones which continues to be unread despite having traveled with me to Iloilo and Roxas City last week.
The unfortunate victim of my sudden turnaround to comics is A Game of Thrones which continues to be unread despite having traveled with me to Iloilo and Roxas City last week.
* * * *
Desk-work brought me back to Iloilo City last
Wednesday.
My last visit to the place was I think late 2004
when I went there with the then RP National Basketball team coached by Boycie
Zamar and bankrolled by Cebuana Lhuillier, my former desk. We were in Iloilo for
the "Try-Outs ng Bayan" along with then the young
national players of which I remember only Dennis Madrid, Celino Cruz, Marc
Pingris, and Cyrus Baguio.
Last week, work again found me in Iloilo albeit for
a quick stay (unlike the 2004 stay which was, if I remember correctly, 5 days).
I had to visit our Iloilo branch and see what improvements can be done on the
marketing-advertising side. I planed into the city on the noon-time PAL flight
and was at the branch by 2:30pm. After an hour and a half and a dozen or so
photos of the branch, I then had to kill time before meeting up with my pal,
Brian, later that evening.
So, I undertook a mission I had promised to do -- sample the local coffee shops.
I was aiming to sample at least a couple of coffee shops but due to time constraint and the fact that the night plans changed abruptly, I was only able to check out Coffeebreak.
Near the Desk's branch was a branch of Coffeebreak which I promptly went to for a late lunch (I had just realized that I hadn't had a proper lunch as the flight was right smack in the middle of lunch-time).
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| Hazelnut coffee with passion "brownie" |
I ordered their brew-of-the-week which was Hazelnut and also ordered a pastry which CB called Passion.
Passion is a moist choco-cake slice that is more brownie than cake with a choco-layer in between and almonds (or were those walnuts?) on top.
I'm not much a connoisseur of coffee but the CB brew was quite good and brownie was filling. Since I only had enough room for one coffee-type, I didn't have the chance to sample their iced or frapp coffee versions. Next time probably.
Aside from the great coffee and brownie was the free wi-fi at CB.
 |
| Access to wi-fi granted! |
I finally got the chance to test out the wi-fi capabilities of the PSP I brought along and after finally getting it configured, I simply asked the barista for wi-fi access and in minutes I was happily surfing away.
Using the PSP to connect to the internet shows one that not all websites have been configured to work on all mobile devices. Maybe the sites would work well on most tablets and smartphones but websites like Yahoo and even this blog did not display properly on the PSP screen. I could not even access the CMS of Blogger.com which made on-site blogging impossible. Fortunately, the mobile website versions of Twitter and FB worked well. Maybe I just need to install another internet OS on the PSP or upgrade it.
Just like any other coffeeshop, Coffeebreak's counter was easy to understand although they were more colorful than your usual green, brown, mocha variant shops.
Aside from passion, there were a lot other pastries and sweet stuff to chose from. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for a sugar-load. The other delicacies will just have to be tested on another occasion.
* * * *
It's always good to see Brian.
Brian relocated to Iloilo several years back, got married, had kids, and has settled in his home province for good. So, it's quite seldom that we see each other, the last time being on the sad occasion of our friend's death.
Despite my trip to Iloilo being just a one-nighter, I still checked up on him and we agreed to meet later in the evening. He picked me up from my hotel around 9:30pm.
Deciding that coffee was the last thing on his mind that evening, we went instead to a small watering hole just off Loney Bridge (I think) for two bottles. While the videoke was blaring with tunes sung by the other patrons of the bar, we talked about life, careers, future plans, diabetes cares, and other stuff including reminiscing old times.
After the two bottles and a song each, Brian proceeded to give me a tour of the city. I was surprised that at before 11pm, Iloilo was already relatively quiet, not unlike Cebu which at midnight was still roaring with life.
See you on my next vist, bro.
* * * *
The next day, I got up early, had breakfast at the hotel's resto, packed up my stuff and headed to the bus station for the trip to Roxas City which I'll chronicle on a next post.
* * * *
Everyone knows that Iloilo is famous for La Paz Batchoy. And when it comes to batchoy, the name Ted's easily comes to mind.
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| Deco's La Paz Batchoy |
So, I evaded Ted's even though it was just around the corner and instead tried the La Paz batchoy at Deco's.
I ordered their special which promised a whole lot of extra stuff that would turn-off my doctor. This was dinner, some 30 minutes after I just had my mid-PM/late lunch at Coffeebreak.
Along with the batchoy, I ordered four pieces of pre-war pandesal. The digit-sized pandesals were more interesting than the batchoy, sadly. These pandesals were bite-sized and were packed. You could use them as pamato if they were flatter. Despite their diminutive size, they were surprisingly filling. And they were baked well -- firm, packed, solid, yet easy to munch on. More like soft biscuits only thicker.
Going back to the batchoy ...
If my tastebuds remain accurate, the batchoy at Ted's was tastier. Although both stores used the same ingredients and are cooked the same, it all boils down to the sabaw or the broth. Ted's sabaw was the more superior one IMHO.
