Aristocrat Restaurant is one of Manila’s older restaurants. I got to eat at the old branch along Roxas Boulevard, home to memories and Sunday gatherings. It has been there since 1936, and it has been serving traditional home-cooked Filipino food that has been treasured from generation to generation.


I also see Aristocrat as somewhat symbolic of the city’s demise: while the food is still good, it’s a fraction of what it used to be. I got to taste the Sinigang na Hipon (Filipino sour soup with shrimp) and their Chicken Honey and was somewhat thrilled. The Sinigang while still good by any standard, is somewhat of a let-down considering it’s not as fresh as one expects it to be. It has hints of pre-cooked pre-packed sinigang mix to the taste, and somehow the shrimps were overdone.


The chicken fared much better. It was really tasty, and the flavors were spot-on, but it was somewhat dry in the inside.


The worst part of the meal is the service. While the waiters were courteous and attentive, they don’t seem to be trained properly for the job. It's not that the waiters don't do what they're told to do--they do it well--but they just weren't trained in the fundamentals of food service as well as the management should. They don't know when to dive in when they scoop out empty plates, they don't move efficiently from table to table, and they aren't as coordinated as they should be. I think it's the restaurant's policy to have someone carry the serving tray to the table and someone else to serve it. It took my server a couple of calls to his colleagues to help him set the food down. They also didn’t serve the proper condiments for the food. It’s been a habit of mine to crack chili on patis for sinigang and maybe add a dose or so of calamansi if I don’t find it sour enough but none of that was made available. I asked for catsup to make the chicken moist, and they served disposable foil packets of catsup on a saucer, something which I found really tacky considering the prices of Aristocrat and that the times call for environmentally viable practices.


Add to the tackiness is an identity crisis. Aristocrat should consider moving forward with its image if it wants to survive. It has shoddy interiors that do not speak of the cultural traditions associated with the kind of food it serves. It is a confusing amalgam of a past revered, funky modern colors, and bad construction. Imagine white walls with red and mint green accents, enlarged colored photographs of food hanging on it and then black and white photos of old events wallpapered on ceiling borders making you look up to towards the really busy checkered ceilings dotted with really harsh lighting. Inside the restaurant is a bewildering lamp post complete with the restaurant’s lone Valentine’s Day décor hanging from one of its arms. You just know it shouldn’t be there unless they commit to the concept and bring the old streets of Manila inside. The white plates are also somewhat of a let-down. While it is the safest way to go, it’s also thoughtless and cold and takes away from the kind of experience you would want to have when you take your self, or your family and friends there.

The scary things about restaurants you really have fond memories of is their incapacity to sustain those memories as they forge ahead. Aristocrat's modernizing efforts is half-baked and hesitant. That's just the tip of the iceberg: they have got to get their service back to shape and the dining experience in their restaurants a little more pleasant. A lot of us are fond of Aristocrat because we have so little remembrances of the past especially when it comes to food establishments. They die prematurely in the Philippines before they become great. I hope Aristocrat survives without riding on the coat tails of its famed past that just flickers alongside an ocean of forgettable places to eat.

My version of Gambaretti on a bed of angel hair pasta.

Cook angel hair according to package instructions. Set aside.

Dissolve 2 tbsp butter in olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until lightly brown. Add shrimps and stir until shrimps are about half-cooked.

Add the bell peppers, lemon juice, salt and pepper and stir until shrimps are cooked. Stir in the angel hair pasta and garnish with parsley.

Pho Bac has a not-so-new space fronting Glorietta 3, beside Subway. It’s shabby-chic-meets-casual-contemporary pretty and I am not sure if such a prettification is affected by competitor Pho Hoa’s efforts to prettify themselves too. Too bad they didn’t commit to the design in order to realize its full potential. We ate there since I am missing Vietnamese food a lot, and while the décor is pretty, the food is pretty sound as well and the service a little bit on the exasperating side.


Exasperating because: (1) the restaurant was empty when we got there and none of the waiters bothered to give us a menu or even ask for our orders as they all huddled up near the kitchen; (2) they served our food in this order: pancit, then the soup, the salad and then the complimentary kropek/kerupuk (fried fish crackers) which I believe should have been served as an appetizer; (3) we had to ask them thrice for additional plates and bowls since these were hefty servings that we would like to share; and (4) we had to ask them for utensils. The staff needed to be trained, and the manager needs to be more attentive if only to live up to the prettified environment. Maybe I am getting old since I found the music annoying and loud. They were playing Sunday rock songs on the radio, and I don’t know when it has became standard practice for restaurants to rely on the radio for ambient music.

Thankfully, the food was generally good. The Chicken Pho wasn’t so fresh as I would have wanted it to be but I suspect they used pre-packed chicken broth for this one.


Their Mixed Seafood Noodles tasted a lot like Pancit Canton and I am somewhat missing the eclectic use of fresh herbs that I remember peppering the crispy noodles I tried before in Hanoi, giving it a more balmy flavor. This was too soy-sauce-ey, salty. But for Pancit Canton, this is still good.


The best dish for the night is the Seafood Salad: mint, basil, nuts and sesame seeds on a bed of greens and mixed seafoods dressed with the classic Nouc Cham (a combination of water, lemon, vinegar, fish sauce and sugar). It’s a good way to cleanse the palate.

Had Sunday brunch with my family to celebrate my mother’s birthday at the Royal Garden, a Chinese restaurant in a corner intersecting Ongpin and Padilla Streets in Binondo, Manila. It’s simple and straightforward, and has an appearance that will prove antithetical to the restaurant’s name. Appearances aside, I enjoy this place a lot, and would come here more often if only I had the time. It has long been a family place, where we would go most of the time for after-midnight food, especially for those late airport arrivals that needed a good feast.


While the Royal Garden serves a lot of good noodles and predominantly Cantonese-style stir-fry dishes, we always run after the dumplings they peddle in a cart refilled every thirty minutes or so. The dumplings here are some of the best in the city, they are steamed fresh and served in really old bamboo steamers that lends some serious moisture helping seal the dumplings’ flavor. If you come at peak hours, you could run out of dumplings fast so it’s best to horde a dozen or so bamboo steamers onto your table.


My favorite here is the Steamed Squid with curry and chili. They're quite unusual for dumplings but they're really good.

Some of the dumplings you can try at Royal Garden:

Bibingka is often comapred to pancakes because of its round shape, golden brown color and the pudgy softness. Despite similarities in appearance, the tastes are worlds apart. I always associate the taste of the sweet and savoury pancakes with with more industrial cooking processes: eggs, flour, butter whisked together and fried in a pan—and the industrial feel of it is just right to allow you to get through a lazy Sunday brunch or a fast-paced weekday breakfast. The Bibingka is more rustic: it is made of galapong or glutinous rice soaked in water and ground with coconut milk to form a dough before being put on a banana leaf and baked in a special clay pot heated by coals from the top and from below. It is topped with butter or margarine, kesong puti (white cheese), itlog na maalat (salted duck eggs), sometimes sugar and even grated coconut. It is savory, sweet and salty. It is more rustic as the banana leaves help in giving a balmy taste to the bibingka. It reminds me of Christmas, of going to the Church for Simbang Gabi the road lit and the cold December nights warmed by coal ovens cooking an assortment of sweet treats like bibingka.


Cooking traditional bibingka is challenging. But it is worth it especially if you have the equipment and the time for it. You will need:

2 cups of galapong, ground and left to soak for at least two hours (or overnight) in 3/4 cup water
2 cups of coconut milk
½ cup clarified butter
6 eggs
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
4 oz. cheddar cheese, cut into strips

Pound the galapong that has been left to soak in water until the mixture is fine. Put in a bowl and mix in coconut milk, and about ¾ of the clarified butter. Whisk in the six eggs and the baking powder. Mix until you have a thick batter. Let rest for about an hour.

If you have one, prepare the bibingka oven. It’s a special clay oven that can be bought in any market in the Philippines. It’s composed of two layers where you can put coals on each layer sandwiching the batter. If not, a salamander will do the trick and can produce almost the same results. An oven can also be used. Don’t fret too much about the temperature or the cooking time, or if you should put it on the topmost layers or on the bottom of the oven, since the cooking time and temperature for the traditional clay ovens are also inconsistent. Just make sure you put your oven on the highest setting.

Line the bottom of the clay oven with a round-cut banana leaf and place some of the batter there for cooking. It usually takes anywhere between 5-10 minutes depending on how thick the batter is, how cool the weather is, and how hot your coals are. Before it cooks completely, brush some butter, add some sugar, add a slice of cheese on top. It would be heavenly if can use white cheese and salted eggs. Take it out when it’s cooked. You can use the stick-the-toothpick-in-the-middle-of-the-cake trick to test if the bibingka is cooked.

T42 (pronounced Tea for Two) is a quaint restaurant located at the topmost floor of the Siam Center in between the Siam Paragon and Siam Discovery Center. I loved the desserts they served here ever since I first set-foot in 2006 and the deep-fried fish with basil leaves and chili. They phased out the fish eventually, and replaced it with more affordable chicken that I ate in my last visit. It’s still good, but I do miss the crunch and the steam packed by the fish before.

What is immediately striking with T42 is the incorporation of a shabby chic interior that is done in mostly pristine white with touches of dark wood, black metal and green foliage in a sun-drenched space. It’s an interesting contrast to the BTS Train Station hovering outside the window, and the overwhelmingly modern space of the mall. It’s décor is calmingly pretty, and provides an interesting background to the food.

While T42 still serves traditional Thai dishes, a great deal of the dishes on their menu can be described as a somewhat experimental take on traditional food. The slices are smaller, hence easier to cook on the wok or skillet, and the flavors cover more surface area. There is a somewhat industrial feel to the food since T42 makes use of canned products, and they pull that off nicely. They also mix traditional Thai flavors with more global ingredients, something which I find uncommon in the area as Thai food is kept traditional for tourists. The mushroom salad I got, for instance, was served in a bed of greens that isn’t associated with anything Thai.


This is the chicken with basil leaves and chili. Not as pungent and crunchy as the fish which was deep fried with a batter of traditional Thai spices, but it's still good and flavorful.


The crowning glory to T42’s menu are their desserts. I kept coming back for their cheesecakes, and on this visit I tried their apple pudding (I’m not sure of the name but it is pudding with apples in it) and was delighted by it.


Other things to try are the drinks. I got myself tamarind juice and thought I might regret it but it worked with the pudding rather well.


T42 is found at the 4th Floor of the Siam Center along Rama I Road in the Pathumwan District of Bangkok.

One of the good things about Thailand is the availability of the best food in the world right on the street. Its affordable and unpretentious. And for the more adventurous and trusting of us, it can bring on a world of discovery. It is through street food that I was able to hone the difference between numerous incarnations of papaya salads and pad thai. Locals who brought me to their favorite hawker stalls often quizzed me about whose food was better, and this revealed a lot about local Thai tastes. Competition among street food vendors can get very competitive and they say that any bad food vendor is forced out of business quickly if what he offers can't compete.

In any case, street food is meant to be shared and enjoyed festively. When in Bangkok, it's a sin not to take anyone with you to share the food with so you can enjoy more flavors and at the same time have a helping hand in carrying everything!

Some favorite places in Bangkok where one can go to enjoy the street food:

1. Suan Lum Night Bazaar. There's two big groups of open-air food stalls. One has a stage with performers singing. More expensive in general but has more selections to offer. You purchase coupons from a stall (200 baht per person is good enough for hefty meals), and use these coupons to purchase food. You can exchange the coupons again in the end for money. Another set of open-air food stalls is right in front of the bazaar, it's more quiet, cheaper and doesn't make use of fuzzy coupons. Generally, the food here is much better cooked and goes out of the way to avoid cliches about Thai food.

2. Silom Road, in front of the Montien Hotel. While the rest of Silom is famed for its nightlife and street food action, the collection of hawker stalls in front of the Montien is collectively the best in the area and offers everything from savoury rice meals to sweet rice cakes and fresh fruits like durian.


3. Soi Thonglor off Sukhumvit Soi 55. While most street food in bangkok come alive at night, Thonglor's street food fare is 24 hours and is best enjoyed during breakfast as numerous hawker stalls offer a rich selection of rice noodles in soup and congee. There are also a bunch of stalls that offer some of the best selection of rice cakes and local desserts like the preserved fruits below.


4. Khao San Road. Some of the best Pad Thai can be found here. You can see two hawkers and their carts going head-to-head against each other to show the tourist who produces the best meal in the fastest time possible. It's all in the spirit of good competition. You can have breaks in-between and go visit numerous markets and vendors for shopping, or pack with you a bag of deep-fried crickets to eat as you go along.


5. Yaowarat Road in Chinatown. It's the best of both oriental worlds: traditional Thai food meets traditional Chinese cooking. Here you get more than just the ocassional pad thai. Consider grilled vegetables that seems charred and burned from the outside only to reveal a succulent and fleshy inside steeped in lime juice and fish sauce. There's also martabak made with spices from as far as India. Bangkok has long attracted migrants from everywere in Asia and the food in Yaowarat is a testament to that.

Kokaew first brought me to Ban Khun Mae in February 2006 when I started my research fellowships in Thailand. It was nostalgic getting to eat there again after 3 years when I first set-foot since that period was one of the loneliest and I really didn’t understand how I survived it. Looking back, I remember fond memories: and much of the fondness stems from having to eat a lot--my de facto defense mechanism. I spent Sunday lunches at Ban Khun Mae a lot, mostly on my own, other times with transient friends from all over. I lived in Thailand for six months, and this has been my favorite place for a number of reasons. Its beside Chulalongkorn University where I was based, everyone I’ve taken there has liked it a lot, and the food is really great. Located in the busy and traffic-laden Siam Square, Ban Khun Mae is a calm reprieve from the inanities of Bangkok. Its dark wood interior lends a calm atmosphere to the restaurant and the antiques and low-key lighting that fills the place give it a warm homey feel—a contrast to the commotion and noise that can be seen outside.

The real star of Ban Khun Mae is its traditional Thai food. While it can be argued that you can get this kind of meal anywhere in the streets, it is difficult to find the same consistent quality across a great number of dishes elsewhere. While most street food and other restaurants will have a specialty or a pool of dishes that make its reputation, Ban Khun Mae has great cooking all around, and it wouldn’t take a gourmand to know the difference in how refined the taste is compared to other traditional Thai restaurants in the city.

Some of my favorites that I ordered on this particular visit:

Other things to try: Chicken Satay, Steamed Prawn with Milk, Chicken Pandan, Baked Prawn With Glass Noodles, Green Curry, Deep Fried Grouper Topped with Sweet, Sour and Hot Sauce, Pad Thai and their Baked Rice in Pineapple. Their drinks are worth trying too: Lemongrass juice, Thai Milk Tea, Roselle Juice. Ban Khun Mae is located at 458/7-9 Siam Square Soi 8, Rama 1 Rd, Prathumwan, Bangkok. You can call (66-2) 658-4112 for reservations, or visit their website here.