Dive-Monster Rhoody

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

Tags:

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

Tags:

I went to Zanzibar – Lounge & Restaurant in Dumaguete a week ago when it had soft-opening and my first impression was that this will be a cool hangout for me in the future.  Zanzibar – Lounge & Restaurant is a small place just across the famous Sans Rival very close to the Boulevard in Dumaguete.

I wrote about the soft-opening a little report on Dumaguete Info (click here: Zanzibar Dumaguete on DI), so for this post I wanna stick to the Grand Opening of Zanzibar Lounge and Restaurant in Dumaguete which was yesterday at 7:30pm. Well that was a very bad time for me as it also was the Kick-Off of the German Team at the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. Zanzibar has a nice big TV at the bar, so I was able to watch it there.

I always trust the philippino time and was pretty sure that I won’t miss a lot of the program. When I arrived there at 7:25pm the stage was not eve build and therefore I could watch the match which began in “real” time. Well, Germany lost but that didn’t really bother me a lot  as the mood in the bar was great and I had so many smiling faces and lovely woman around me to enjoy the evening.

After the game I went outside to find out that there was still nothing going on, but Mike of the Dauin Beach Resort arrived with his family plus Angela and Freddy, two friends of mine from Taiwan which had the last evening here before heading back.

Around 10:30pm (which is not too bad for philippino time) a band started playing and they were pretty good. They played 10 songs, which was definitely not enough and sadly in the middle of their set it started to rain a little bit. After their set a “fashion-show” started, well, I am almost 9 years here in the PI and if you seen one single provincial fashion-show, you have seen them all. (I hope you can wait for my “Fashionshows in the Philippines”-article, that’s gonna be a blast)

That’s why I skipped that part and my lovely Rechel took some pictures. I preferred to get inside Zanzibar and what can I say, the place was rocking. Everybody was in a party mood and the spirit was great.

Well as I am a bit older and had not that much sleep the last few nights, I decided to leave the party-zone around midnight.

Anyway, the Zanzibar Lounge and Restaurant – Dumaguete goes straight into my top3 hangouts in Dumaguete.

cheers

Rhoody

Tags:

The sad part of the story is that I got pretty pissed off by a friend or better the business of a friend and his mangers/staff, therefore I won’t name the place. Well here is how it went…

Last Sunday Rhoody decided to go out for dinner with his little family as it was the last day before school starts for his little pictures-monster. Being so generous, Rhoody gave her the choice where to go and Daisy decided to go to, hmmmm … let’s call it “The Great”. Well fine with me, as I like “The Great” for its food and cute waitresses. So we four jumped into the trike for the 10 minute ride to the Restaurant.

Upon arrival were two other tables occupied and food served. Having heard some complaints of friends about the waiting time at “The Great” in the recent past, I thought that it can’t be that bad as we are the only guests the kitchen has to take care.

A girl without uniform appeared and brought us four people exactly one menu. Well I guess she thought that I am the only one who can read.

Darling, please do not compare your English and/or waitress skills with the skills of my family, they are very well able to read AND understand a menu in a restaurant.

I ordered water and before anybody else was able to order anything she disappeared to get me my order. My company was again not able to order as the waitress disappeared again. Exactly at 7:07 pm (I got a SMS at that time) another waiter showed up where we ordered our two dishes. He apologized that he can’t explain anything as he was never working before in “The Great” and has just been “borrowed” from another Restaurant for a few hours.

Here we go, a magically disappearing no English speaking waitress and a borrowed waiter without any clue. Our order was pretty simple, so I still hoped that not that much more can go wrong. A simple Pizza and homemade Pasta should be done in about 15-20 minutes … if you take a nap in between.

… Wishful Thinking, Rhoody !

After 30 minutes our “borrowed” waiter came to announce that the order will take 10 more minutes. Hmmm, seems the kitchen takes some extra effort and cuts the Pasta with a nail-cutter for us.  After another 10 minutes the borrowed waiter “Clueless” came again to announce that he is going home now. .???

What the fuck… It seemed it was too embarrassing for him letting us wait for almost an hour now and just deliver stupid excuses. But guess what, the little un-uniformed girl appeared magically and whispered something like:

“Sohry Sirr, glybbediglyp, buksana, bolera ako, walang ulam…  “… and run away again. I am actually not sure what she said, but it was not English and appeared also for my girlfriend who speaks Bisayan, Tagalog, Waray and English more like a magic evil spell from a long forgotten fairy tale.

An hour waiting time passed by and I went outside to have a cigarette. Here I recognized that it was outside actually cooler than inside the restaurant, despite the fact that there is a huge Aircon Unit in “The Great”, the sweat was running between my two backside-cheeks.

The Waitress magic spell seems to work as my little picture – monster came outside to tell me that the food arrived. At least parts of it. After glorious 1 hour and 7 minutes waiting time the home-made pasta appeared. Did I mention that homemade Pasta takes about 4 Minutes to cook.  Ok, a quick look, that was not the homemade pasta for that we went to “The Great” this was simply cheap Lee Plaza crap.

Nevertheless, the waitress ran away again. So we needed to search around in the guestroom where to find some pepper, salt and hot sauce. Being a little explorer, my little picture monster finally found it and … wow, give me a fuc@%ing break…

In the salt-shaker was a worm happily relaxing on white grounds, stretching its belly to the top like Rhoody on a Sunday afternoon at the Beach in Dauin.

As a matter of fact, that little thingy was too big to get into there through one of the tiny holes of the salt-shaker. Conclusion, it must have gotten inside there when refilled in the kitchen of “The Great”.

Of course I told my family immediately to stop eating anything there. I don’t even wanna know how disgusting it is in the kitchen if those things are even presented in the dining-room.

Oooh, after 1 hour and 20 minutes the Pizza (about 5 to 6 minutes baking time in a brick-oven) arrived. I will never find out how many baked/cooked/fried/raw animals were on there as I just reject to eat that. Yes I know there are many countries and tribes where people eat insects and worms, but the average Rhoody is none of them. At least it should be mentioned on the menu of “The Great”.

Here my suggestion how the special dishes can be included into “The Greats” Menu:

Todays Special:

Pizza Bombyx Mori – Asian Style Pizza w/ Mozzarella, Asparagus and fresh Silkworm pupas.

I will send a mail to recommend “The Great” for Andrew Zimmerman’s Travel Channel program Bizarre Foods.

For all that, I “only” had to pay the drinks. Maybe I am a bit picky, but if it would not be a friends place I would have told them: Fuck you man, you try to food-poison me. This hygienically conditions here are utterly disgusting… basically enough to close each foreigner-run restaurant on the spot and you still charge me for anything??? … that is ridiculous.

Well, will I visit “The Great” again? I don’t know yet, the regular, (English speaking) waitresses are still sweet and nice to talk to, but if, I will only have something to drink and will demand to clean and open the can/bottle by myself.

cheers

Rhoody

Tags:

Well I stumbled over some personality test and as they wrote it only takes 2 minutes, I was wondering how they can figure out Rhoodys personality in a couple of minutes. Well I just post the result in here, it seems to be not too far from the reality, where the Agreeableness is my favorite answer:

Openness

Reflective question: How important are your emotions in determining how you behave?

This trait refers to the extent to which you prefer novelty versus convention. Approximately 73% of respondents have a lower openness raw percentage than yours. From the way you answered the questions, you seem to describe yourself as someone who is intellectually curious and appreciative of what you consider beautiful, no matter what others think. You might say that your imagination is vivid and makes you more creative than many others.

Conscientiousness

Reflective question: How do you feel when you are working with someone who is disorganised?

This trait refers to the extent to which you prefer an organised, or a flexible, approach in life. Approximately 66% of respondents have a lower conscientiousness raw percentage than yours. From the way you answered the questions, you seem to describe yourself as someone who avoids foreseeable trouble through purposefully planning, and achieves success through persistence. From your responses it appears that you are reliable and prepared for life’s challenges.

Extraversion

Reflective question: What role do you tend to play in a team? (at work or in social activities)

This trait refers to the extent to which you enjoy company, and seek excitement and stimulation. Approximately 50% of respondents have a lower extraversion raw percentage than yours. From the way you answered the questions, you seem to describe yourself as someone who enjoys and actively seeks out social occasions, but would say that they’re not everything. You might say that sometimes it is nice to step back for a while and have a quiet night in.

Agreeableness

Reflective question: When others are experiencing problems, what do you do?

This trait refers to the way you express your opinions and manage relationships. Approximately 0.4% of respondents have a lower agreeableness raw percentage than yours. From the way you answered the questions, you seem to describe yourself as someone who is willing to make difficult decisions when necessary, and will point out when something is wrong no matter what other people might feel. Your responses suggest that you would say that you can be tough and uncompromising.

Neuroticism (Emotional stability)

Reflective question: When do your emotions (or lack of emotions) get in the way of good decision making?

This trait refers to the way you cope with, and respond to, life’s demands. Approximately 16% of respondents have a lower neuroticism raw percentage than yours. From the way you answered the questions, you seem to describe yourself as someone who is calm and emotionally stable. Based on your responses, you come across as someone who is rarely bothered by things, and when they do get you down the feeling does not persist for very long.

cheers

Rhoody

Tags:

hmmm… not much to say to this Picture.

It might work if his Girlfriend tells him “You really look good and your tattoo is awesome! ”

Tags:

Doesn’t it always happen if you wanna explain something and get interrupted, you tell your wife to wait for a minute and not touch things until you return.

Maybe it is just me, but I can bet a case of San Miguel Pilsen that 3.28 seconds after I turned my back to my love, her hands are on the object I asked her NOT to touch.  Upon return I usually find the computer showing weird behavior, or something is broken on the ground, or my snapshot camera shows 29th of September 2039, or or or … And all happens just with the pure mental power of my sweetheart as (of course !!!) she never touched anything.

I found this funny clip what to do in a case like that … get a gun, and …

Tags: