Cycle 3 – Item 244
5 (Wed) September 2012
Steamed Crab in Chili Sauce
3.0
at Harbor View Restaurant
-Ermita, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines-
with YL, HK
Research Trip to the Philippines: Day 3 of 3
- Day 1 (3.242 Chinese-Style Fried Chicken)
- Day 2 (3.243 Seafood Platter + Pancit Bihon + Ihaw Pusit)
- Day 3 (3.244 Steamed Crab in Chili Sauce)
In Manila. Here to meet with the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific in developing a tool to assess health legislation in countries across the region. If all goes well, I should be jet-setting around Asia for the next few months in continuation of the project, same project that brought me here twice last year. Flying back tonight.
For the duration, I’ve been staying at Casa Bocobo Hotel. It was the cheapest, closest, cleanest property that I could find on the internet.
Not sure what to make of the breakfast buffet, but I’m pretty sure that it was awful.
LUNCH
For lunch, I paid a return visit to Uncle Choi Kitchen, which I enjoyed on a prior visit to Manila.
DINNER
Harbor View Restaurant is a Filipino restaurant. Specializes in fresh seafood, prepared in a variety of styles, mostly Filipino.
For the final meal of the trip, I wanted to keep it local but a bit more upscale than what I’d been getting. Thus far, my experiences with Filipino food had either been in a shopping mall, on the street, from a fast food joint, or at a resort.
A quick internet search pointed to Harbor View Restaurant, an establishment on a pier overlooking Manila Bay. Some reviews warned that it was overpriced, and that was even better, because I was feeling good from the work that we’d accomplished over the past couple days, and I was way under budget on my per diem (see cheap-ass hotel above), so I had money to spend and well-earned enthusiasm with which to spend it.
I invited two Korean WHO staffers working with me on the project.
We had a great time. The restaurant itself wasn’t quite as upscale as hoped, more along the lines of a casual seafood shack with paper napkins and disposable chopsticks. For some of the menu items, like the fresh-from-the-tank goodies sold by the gram, the prices could be regarded as pricey, especially by local standards. The one crab that we ordered came out to 1,400 pesos (about US$34), more than twice what I’d paid for all my other meals during the past couple days combined. But it was very good – huge chunks of sweet meat drowned in a gorgeous garlicky soy-chili sauce. It felt like money well spent to hear the squeals of joy at every bite from my dining companions, two young women who claimed that they hadn’t enjoyed such a delightful meal since they’d been assigned to Manila. Oh, thank you, Professor! The magnificent views of the harbor and city skyline at dusk didn’t hurt.
MIDNIGHT SNACK
The food on the flight into Manila had been so crappy that I wouldn’t have thought that it could be beat, but the food on the flight back home (PR 468) succeeded.
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN THE PHILIPPINES)