Dive-Monster Rhoody

Café Laguna opened recently in Dumaguete just next door of Hotel Nicanor. Café Laguna is since 1991 in Cebu and has several outlets with the latest opened a week ago here in Dumaguete. The name Cafe might be a bit irritating as Cafe Laguna is definitely a Restaurant.

Anyway, after my last (not that impressive) try of a new Restaurant in Dumaguete I was very skeptical to go to the next addition of local food outlets as I rather spend my money with throwing it in the ocean than in bad food, stomach cramps, creating enemies etc.

But as it was 7:00 pm anyway and I had to go to Hotel Nicanor to confirm some rooms, I took the chance and paid Café Laguna a visit. So Rechel and entered the Restaurant and got welcomed by a hostess (if this is the right name) who brought us to a table for two. The entrance area of Café Laguna also has some seats for guests which wanna look into the menu first, or need to wait a few minutes for a table – very convenient and professional…. And that in Dumaguete? There must be something wrong.

Cafe Laguna’s interior is nice and it is obvious that all tables, chairs dividers etc were not build in Dumaguete. For my personal taste maybe a bit too light and I just don’t like this kind of green they are using for the seats. (The pictures look warmer, I was cheating with the camera setting, sorry)

Most of the staff are guys and they are very friendly in a professional way -not the Dumaguete typical way with that disturbing “I have no clue about my job but smile and say yes” face. Most of the staff is from Dumaguete but were the last few weeks in Café Laguna’s Headquarter in Cebu to get up to speed.

Café Laguna offers only Filipino Cuisine, where I use the word cuisine and not food by purpose.  The menu offers a big variety of starters and main courses like chicken, pork beef dishes as well as many veggie- and seafood dishes, Merienda and drinks.

Like always, I asked the waiter what is not available, as I don’t waste my time in studying a menu just to hear the famous “Sorry Sir, out of stock”, and surprisingly everything was available. The price-range is between 150 and 270 peso for most dishes and appeared to me a notch higher than in other Filipino Restaurants in Dumaguete, but seeing the staff and the restaurant including aircon they are more than reasonable.

We ordered Kinilaw Tangigue and Crispy Crablets for our Pampagana (appetizer) and Beef Tenderlion steak a la Popre and Buttered Chicken for our main course.  Of course after about 20 minutes starter and main-course arrived at the same time but that is the Filipino way so I should be used to that.

All four dishes of Café Laguna were very tasty and I am really positive surprised about the quality. The local Beef was not like piece of leather, the buttered chicken super juicy and not just skin and bones like in other places in Dumaguete. I even liked the crablets, despite the fact that I usually hate that small stuff were one needs 50 pieces to get a mouthful food.

When we checked the bill we had the chance to fill out a form if all was good and what to improve. Not sure if anybody reads that, but it gives a good feeling to have the option. We paid for 4 dishes, 2 garlic rice and 3 drinks 930 Peso and left stuffed.

Café Laguna is definitely a positive addition to the existing Restaurants in Dumaguete. I would almost describe it as Filipino fine dining and perfect if you want to introduce a first time visitor to local cuisine.

You can’t compare Café Laguna to the fast-food “unlimited rice” outlets or street kitchens where the food has little quality and simmers the whole day in a pot or outdoor places like blue monkey. You pay for quality, atmosphere, variety which is all given at the new restaurant Café Laguna in Dumaguete.

Of course the whole report does not sound Rhoody-like, so I need to add some small critics. There should be some tissues, pepper, salt etc on the table. When my food arrives, I wanna start eating and not asking for salt, pepper soy-sauce and wait again and as you serve finger food also, tissues are more than appropriate. Maybe some kind of sauce or dip for the buttered chicken would be nice.

An advice for all who want to have the dinner in a western way (meaning Starters first): Order your main-course when your starter arrives, that should give you the perfect timing.

They will have me back there and all I can say is: Keep up the level and good success for Cafe Laguna in your new branch in Dumaguete

Cheers

Rhoody

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I am the opinion that each and every individual should have basic Medic First Aid skills. This includes CPR ( Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). While in some countries a MFA (Medic First Aid) course is required for even getting a driving license, in others nobody cares. Living in the Philippines since quite a while, I saw horrible scenarios when people try to help with some simple cuts or burns.

Small injuries here are normal and you rarely see a young person without any wounds or scares which never healed properly. That comes many times from poor First Aid Treatment. Instead if disinfecting wounds you can watch relatives, taking weird stuff from trees, soil from the ground, leaves and other stuff to put it on the wound. The last step is having the grandma peeing over it.

This might have been the standard Medic First Aid procedure a couple of hundred years ago, but the world developed a little bit and there are other options available. Another thought I always have is when walking through cities in the Philippines and seeing plenty of older expats with very young attractive woman hand in hand – How are they reacting if the older guy has a heart-attack while overexercising, or just because of the heat and moisture they are not used to.

Are this young girls able to help the guy with life-supporting treatment until professional help arrives?

Did they ever get a MFA/CPR Instruction?

Well, this thoughts might sound a bit weird for my valuable readers but after a long time living here I do know of cases where people died because of the treatment. Being a PADI SCUBA Diving instructor it is my duty to be up to date with all MFA and CPR Procedures. Actually it is called EFR (Emergency first Response) in the PADI system. Each Rescue Student I have is required to have a valid EfR / MFA certification which includes CPR Instructions. IF they don’t have this, I can teach them EFR courses and they earn the status as a emergancy First Responder.

Anyway, I am not allowed to post any fractions of the PADI EFR instruction video here, but I found a great short CPR Instruction Video I would like to share with you guys.

cheers and enjoy

Rhoody

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Last evening I was dining in a Sandpipper ‘s Café, a new restaurant in Dumaguete. Don’t ask me why it is Sandpipper with three “P” and not Sandpiper like the bird. The staff there could not get me any info about that three-P issue.

I knew about the opening last Sunday anyway but a friend of mine could not resist to spam me each time she saw me online on Yahoo, Facebook and other Online-Platforms about the authentic American and Mexican Food and the outstanding Pizza. Well, I tried to put that spamming out of my head and went there at 7:30 pm with Rechel.

Stepping through the door a very positive surprise awaited me. I liked the interior as it gives a nice feeling, good colors and NO plastic chairs, just friendly and warm. The next positive point, three former Casablanca employees, two in the kitchen and the head waiter, so the food should be good and Roy, the waiter was one of my favorites at Casablanca.

I viewed Andrew, the owner of Zanzibar there and he invited us to join their table. Great, so I was able to see and taste even more different food of Sandpipper (by the way, even Google does not know what a Sandpipper is) . First order drinks:

Rhoody: Coke light
waitress: Sorry Sir, we do..
Rhoody: Ok, coke Zero
Waitress: Sorry Sir, we don’t have Coke Zero also
Rhoody: Well, Bottled Water na lang…

Of course things like that can happen, specially 4 days after opening and with about 1001 friggin shops around, and each and every single one of them is selling Coke Light or Coke Zero.

The menu is not really big, but has a nice choice of American, Mexican and local dishes. I asked Andrew and his friend what they ordered and we ordered something different at Sandpipppppper (well as there is no Sandpipper with 3 P’s I thought it doesn’t really matter if I use 5 or 6 or 19.)

So here is our total order at Sandpi_er (2p 3p 10p no p who really cares):

Southwestern Eggrolls
Chicken Fajitas
Kimchi Soup
Seafood Corn Salad
Breaded Pork (American Style)
Pepperoni Pizza
Classic American Burger
Mineral Water

So lets start with Sandpaper’s (just thought to mess up another letter, as “P” is getting boring). The orange description is original from Pandsippers menu:

Southwestern Eggrolls (Have the taste of the south, black beans, corn, grilled chicken, jalapeno and cheese wrapped in our house made flour tortilla)

Well, the house made fluor tortilla had the quality of an average fast food lumpia, but at least it was not fried in old oil so it had an ok taste. The magic cheese must have disappeared into invisibility or non-tastility (wow great new word)  somehow before I had the chance to taste it, or it might be the same cheese like on my burger so I could not taste it due to the lack of exactly this. The filling never saw a jalapeno in its entire life in the freezer. Where do I know about the life in the freezer? Well the Lumpia dough was hot and the filling stone cold …. Anyway, Rechel liked the dip …

Chicken Fajitas (Try one of our most entertaining dishes filled with sizzling beef/chicken, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, ready to jump into your mouth, wanting for more!)

Hmmmmm, like you see on the picture, nothing was ready, it was more like in a spare-part shop and you need to assemble yourself. After assembling, it really wanted to jump in my mouth… and it did… but I learned out of that mistake and avoided to give the next bite another chance to jump … As there was some Eggroll dip left, I gave the chicken a bath in it, left the bread aside and considered it eatable…

Kimchi Soup (Pipspanders –see at least I use all letters- special dish, so no description in the menu)
The Sandpipper’s (this time written correct -at least that’s what the restaurant thinks-, but only for search engine issues) Kimich Soup is a kind of sourish broth with lettuce, string onions and  well, I guess that’s about it, just leave a comment if you see some more ingredients in the picture… It is a far cry from Kimchi taste, but generally ok… just call it Sandpiper’s experimental vegetarian broth

Seafood Corn Salad (Come out of the box and try our delicious shrimp, fish and squid, mix with lettuce, corn, olives, cucumber, tomato, carrots and cheese. Served with bleu cheese dressing):

I did not taste it, but after investigating the picture I finally found out where the cheese of my Southwestern Eggroll went .. ALL 7 of them !!! Well I could not find the corn, but I assume corn is not that important in a corn salad …

Breaded Pork American Style (Pork fillet breaded with fine breading that will melt in your mouth. Served with Potato wedges and a side of gravy sauce.

It was new for me that a breaded pork actually uses fine breading to be breaded… One never stops learning, Anyway, the dish was a Vienna Schnitzel, 10 peso less than in Casablanca, but only a quarter of the size there. It is served with brown goo The Potato Wedges were RAW in the middle totally not eatable … funny that at this moment the waitress came to our table:

Waitress: Sir, everything ok?

Andrew: Well the Potatoes are raw.

Waitress:  But Sir, everything ok ?

Rhoody: hmm, if potato wedges are raw and uncooked, no it is not really ok.

Waitress: ok. (and was never seen again until we paid the bill)

As weird as it may sound for my valuable readers, but THAT was the good part of the dining experience so far … next:

Classic American Cheese Burger:

It is hard to describe and I am not an American, so maybe this is a classic American Cheese Burger and I have just no clue and Sandpfizer is correct and an American Cheese Burger is a sweet Burger Bun with a Burger Paddy stretched with at least 70 % other ingredients but not beef (I would say something like cardboard or sawmill leftovers), topped with a slice of cheep Lee Plaza Form cheese.

Don’t get me wrong, the Burger Paddy itself had a good size, but a bite in it makes the Burger Delight Chilly Cheese Burger for 4 am drunkyards at the Boulevard for 29 Peso appear like a Michelin 3 star dish compared to Sandpipers Classic American Cheese Burger. Everything more than 2 mm below the Paddy surface was raw and red, that is actually why I can estimate the 70 % of the ingredients!!! Then again, I am not American, so what do I know about All American Burger.

The Pepperoni Pizza.

The Size ok, but definitely no 14 inch like promoted (if that is 14″, my little Rhoody is 10 inch…. diameter). The Tomato-sauce was cheap-shit sweet philippino Spaghetti sauce, the Pepperoni also imported from Lee Plaza and the Mozzarella definitely the cheap local one and nearly without taste. Fluffy American style dough but tasteless what is (given the whole dining experience) actually a very positive point.  When the bill came I thought I got hit by a horse. That piece of sh_t (insert “i’ at the appropriate position marked with an underscore) cost fucking 445 Peso.

I apologize to my valuable readers and if you read my older posts you can see that I usually @#%@ or xxx this kind of words, but fuck me crazy, some of that stuff was just one tiny step away from food poisoning.

I can’t understand that 2 cooks working for years in Casablanca forget each and everything about food and its preparation and don’t even get a simple potato wedge correct on the plate. What a shame….

But I am also a lucky one. A friend of mine ( who is actually a trained chef with international accreditation) went there today at 5 pm. He could not believe the Horror Stories I told him about Sandpipper. They stole him 580 Peso for a ham and egg pizza out of his wallet.

He send me following text after his visit: Hui, waren gerade im saddingsda und haben ne Pizza fuer 580 Peso gegessen. Ausser dass das voll teuer is gebe ich dir recht.

Translation: Hey, we just were in sandwhatever and had a Pizza for 580 Peso. Next that this is expensive, I totally agree with you.

So let’s recall the good points of Sandpiper : nice place and a lot of headroom to improve. Rechel mentioned also one waitress had sexy legs … sus, I missed that

Anyway,I almost forgot there was at least one thing which was totally authentic:

4 Bottled Water really came as water in four bottles… recalling all the other stuff, at least I hope it was water at sandpipper (sandpiper’s) Restaurant in Dumaguete

Cheers

Rhoody

PS: For my spamming dear friend:

Whenever a relative, friend, lover etc works or opens whatever place, even a flee-circus for 7 legged retarted spiders doing backward somersaults,  keep your suggestions out of my profiles, chats and out of my freggin life !!!

PPS:Dear valued readers,  I even tried a polite Version for Dumaguete Info, If you are interested how to get that fuck up into a polite way, just click here

PPPS: This report is based on my private experience at one visit with 7 dishes and shall not be used as a general critics of the Food served at Sandpippers Restaurant in Dumaguete

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After quite some seven turbulent months and not much time in my hands, I wanna start the month of August with a cute Video I found on You Tube. So enjoy the two Minutes like I did…

cheers

Rhoody

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… well, there Rudi (at that time I was far away from being Rhoody, but that story later) and Lissy walked on a sunny morning in Senggigi/ Lombok – Indonesia along the mainstreet to Astrid and Gerd’s Dream Divers at god-forbidden 7:30 am to start their first theory and pool lessons on their way to become certified Open Water Diver.

Of course we did not finish our assignment completely but went a good way through it. At the dive-shop we met our instructor and another couple who were (like we) quite nervous waiting for the things to come.

We went through the knowledge-reviews and first three quizzes… Fu@% me, I must have missed the quiz part during the introduction the evening before, but with 3 other students sitting next to me and 2 open rotating eyes, no problem, I passed all 3 quizzes with “honest” 90 %. At the end, PADI is teaching the buddy-system, so my buddies did one chapter each and I was following along … hehe

Honestly, I totally understand my students nowadays who wanna push through the course in three days, that they might have some problems in understanding how the course and the system in general works when they got explained everything, but I always try to remember my problems at the beginning.  PADI changed quite a bit during the last years and things are just easier now with plenty of options how to go through the Open Water course.

Having that mastered it was time to get some equipment. Well, while Lissy looked super hot in a 3 mm Neoprene wetsuit, my living 100 German Kilograms squeezed into that tight fitting thingy let the Michelin-Man appear like a sex-symbol.

The dive-shop is actually located in a 5-Star Resort and I really apologize for that view to all regular guests there, who needed to experience and see that sweaty, red-head German Sausage running around the pool for some hours…

Finally it was time to assemble the equipment and get into the water. Standing in waist-deep water fully geared up like a scuba diver, breathing from a regulator, bending forward and making the first breath under water from the “high-tech” equipment …

Rhoodys 1st logbook

… didn’t really impress me at all. I know that this is for many the most rememberable moment, but I was just happy to get into the water that I stop sweating in the hot sun above the surface.

We were (at least what I felt) a pretty cool group and nobody had any major problems with all the skills, or panicked with some water around the nose. The start of each Open Water course is basically breathing under Water, clearing mask, practicing the use of a alternate air source and swimming around. Well, having no clue about buoyancy it is more or less hopping along on the bottom of the pool or popping up to the surface. Buoyancy skills are scheduled for the afternoon.

Even without any buoyancy, I liked the bubble-blowing and playing around with all that stuff under water, and most important I did not sweat at all. The time flew by and after my Instructor checked my tank it was time for me to end the first session as it was pretty empty and just a few breaths short of getting the shape of a coke-bottle.

Our lunch “break” was mainly watching video part 4 and 5, having a quick bite to eat, and for (Lissy and me more important) sneaking out of the dive-shop, smocking some cigarettes to get our lungs back into normal surface-conditions.

To be continued…

cheers

Rhoody

PS: I will speed up and not write an article about each breath, it just happened while writing that all that stuff, feelings and memories came back as it was just a few weeks ago… anyway, I don’t force anybody to read my brain-rubbish anyway…

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Mifune is a new Japanese Restaurant in Sta. Catalina Street in Dumaguete (actually they call it Mifune – Japanese Food and Bar) and finally on the third visit I could test it with Rechel.

That I needed 3 tries was not necessarily the fault of the restaurant.

The first time I went there was simply one day before it opened, the second time 3 days later but the air-con was not running and it was just super hot that I could not even sit down without being soaked in my own sweat. So now on the 3^rd try all was good and I could test-eat the delights at Mifune.

I really like Japanese food and don’t mind spending a few peso for some good stuff.  Well, we are in Dumaguete and of course I need to limit my expectations as a authentic Japanese restaurant would probably run out of customers after a week as people in Dumaguete are just not willing to pay for good quality.

When Rechel and I arrived at Mifume it was about 11:50 am and my first surprise, the air-con was running and it was very cool, perfect for fat sweating people like me. The interior is a bit on the “cheesy” side but I guess it needs to be like that to fit the philippino taste for flashy colors and plastic dust-catcher. My personal idea of a Japanese Restaurant would be a bit classier and for sure I would not put in the cheapest and smallest plastic-chairs which can be found in Dumaguete, where a long-nose adult-ass does not really feel that comfortable after a while.

It seems to me that there is a lot of staff for the relatively small place but hey, I don’t have to pay it and as long I get served I don’t mind. They were attentive and the service was friendly and fast. Let’s talk about food of Mifune. The menu offers a nice variety of Japanese food.  So I run through the Menu and ordered a variety of dishes including Mix Tempura, Chicken Teppan Yaki, Mixed Seafood Teppan Yaki, a Dragon Seafood Roll and a Tuna Teriyaki.

Naga the owner of Mifune and an old friend of mine offered me to try some fresh octopus but I refused as the last octopus in Dumaguete had the consistence of a bleached used trike-tire and I didn’t wanna take the risk to ruin my meal before it comes.

We got a small complimentary Salad so no critics about the green tomato and katsup-mayo-mix dressing.  Next came the Tuna Teriyaki, three slices of Tuna in a kind of BBQ Sauce, not really Japanese Food but good and no complaint for 139.- Peso.

The Tempura Mix for 180.- Peso looked good and tasted also very delicious.

The Chicken Teppan Yaki won’t be on my list next time as I get better chicken (and more) in other places for 189,- Peso. Our other Teppan Yaki dish, the mixed seafood, was Rechel’s favorite and she didn’t leave me a lot left to judge it accordingly. Last the Dragon Seafood Roll will be a “Do Again” next time I just will take care that the cook won’t mess it up with that horrible sweet philippino mayonnaise.

All together with all those Japanese food and two ice tea, we paid 918.- Peso in Mifune Restaurant, which is absolutely fair for that kind dishes. If you expect real Japanese cuisine you might be not 100% excited as I thought all the dishes were pretty much philippinolized missing a bit on originality.

I am also aware of the consumer structure in Dumaguete and therefore Naga and his staff in Mifune Japanese Food and Bar Restaurant did a good job and I can see a better future for him than for other “we are bored and know it all – let’s open a restaurant” – expat’s we had in Dumaguete before (and sure will have again).

Mifune will not end up on my “Must-do” recommendation list of restaurants in Dumaguete, but for sure it is for me very welcome alternative for expats who are searching for something a bit different.

Cheers

Rhoody

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I get asked many times by people what brought me here to the Philippines, when I started scuba diving, why Dumaguete and many more questions. So I thought, why not write some stuff down that I only need to forward the links and don’t need to tell the same story many times.

My whole dive story started in Lombok, a small neighbor island of Bali. I was working in the music business as sound-tech and each time I had a few weeks off I was on the way to south-east asia with Lissy, my long time girlfriend. Together we explored several countries in Asia. We usually went for 3 weeks and covered at least 2 regions of a country with a stopover in a South Asian big City like Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and other interesting places.

On a 3-week  trip which basically was the beginning of changing my life, we were 2 weeks all over Bali with the last week a lazy week in Senggigi on Lombok. Just after checking into our hotel we walked along the main street to an overview about restaurants and clubs and any kind of night hang-outs for the last week.

I have no idea what had obsessed me, but when we passed a office of Astrid and Gerd’s Dream Divers office situated at that time along the Senggigi main street I just told Lissy that I wanna go and try diving, so we stepped into the office without any clue it will change my life forever.

We were explained that scuba diving is a bit more than just jumping in the water and breath oxygen. Actually this was the first time that I heard that it is not Oxygen but just simple air in this bottles … ok 2^nd lesson … of course scuba tank…. Oh my god those diver are really picky…

Well , ok then … can I have a TANK with some AIR and go diving tomorrow with you guys… After some more explanation Lissy and I found our self sitting there signing up for a dive-course and were watching the first 2 hours of a crappy video tape to start the course right away.

We left the Dream Divers office in Senggigi on Lombok with an PADI Open Water Manual which probably went through 1000 student hands before so the manual was more or less 250 loose paper we need to sort first and with the task to study chapter one two and three over night and be back at the office at 8:00 am.

Great holiday, instead of sitting at the beach or a smoky club and getting drunk with cold beer and colorful cocktails, we were on our veranda with our worn-out manual and studied pages about snorkels, fins and of course AIR pressure in SCUBA TANKS.

tbc

cheers

Rhoody

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