Dive-Monster Rhoody

I met the boys at Wendys and definitely had no intention to eat another Burger after the 1,5 and a half a few hours earlier in Burgerking. Well, that changed pretty quickly and who can say “NO” to a juicy looking “Baconator”. The Baconator at Wendys was the highlight that far and tasted almost like the picture promised.

Stuffed like a turkey on thanksgiving I rolled the 5 Minutes to the I-MAX to watch “AVATAR”. A few words to that, I am absolutely not into Science Fiction and Fantasy and before I watch stuff like Lord of the Rings I would eat a Fishhead-Balut-Pizza.

Our seats were central in row 7 and the screen is just huge. To my very own surprise I had a great experience watching that movie in 3-D. The world created in the movie is a lot of stuff I see under water and is just breathtaking. The story is nice and the 3D effects great. The 2.5 hour movie was not 1 minute boring and at the end of the day I was glad to join the guys for the movie. I actually don’t know if I would enjoy the movie on a normal screen but after that experience I don’t wanna find out and won’t watch it again. I don’t wanna destroy or question that experience.

I did destroy this movie illusions already many times, I am sure plenty of my reader did the same. Remember when we were all young and watched “Karate Kid” and similar movies 15 – 20 years back, great movies, diba? Well did you ever watch that movie in the last 2 years and were wondering where the excitement has gone ? They were great movies at that time but well, that time is over. All Chuck Norris movies, Rambo and Rocky belong to the same kind… RIP.

Anyway our driver picked us up and we were on the way back to AC, of course not without another stop-over at Burger King and the peer-pressure forced me to have another BBQ-Burger. One of the BIG Boys had another for take out plus a extra large “Blizzard” from Dairy Queen. An hour before midnight I entered the holy halls of Kim and Tom and counted the Burgers the last 36 hours not without promising myself never to repeat that again.

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So after this absolute bad Hooters Experience we walked through the Mall of Asia, bought our survival-kit (underwear, toothpaste etc.) jumped into a Taxi and drove to Malate where our Hotel - the Executive Plaza - was located.

The Hotel was 1.900 Peso what was actually a ok-deal compared to their published rates and or short-term booking. The room was OK, the water-pressure high so I took a loooong shower. One thing I did not like, there was almost no cell-signal in the room, well, there are worse things in the world, one of it are TV’s which show you after switching it on 98 channels to select from. I canned through the list and wanted to watch some news, when selecting the channel the only thing I saw was “snow”, well ok, let’s try another one. . . same snow just a different shade of gray…  at  the end I had about 13 available channels, 6 Filipino selling-whatever channels, one with showing a list 98 available channels and 4 with different cameras showing live the traffic on EDSA. …

Around 7:00pm  the 3.5 big long-noses met again in the lobby to head out for some cold beverages. Kim guided us to a place called “Blue Room”. The Blue Room is a great warm-up or hangout place. Nice seating, good snacks and relatively cheap drinks (considering the location).

They played very interesting (sometimes as bit disturbing) music. I would call it a kind of smooth Jazz and it was easy to listen and not too loud. The disturbing part was, that all songs were Jazzy versions of famous songs, and welcome to the Jungle by Gun ‘n Roses in smooth Jazz just sounds wrong. Still, the Blue Room was is a place I will go again when in Manila if I ever can find that again.

At around 11 we headed to the EDSA Entertainment Complex. First thing the guard took away my little camera as they have a no-photo policy. The EDSA Entertainment Complex houses several bars kept in different themes. We had about one drink in each Bar but didn’t get into a party mood. At around 3:00am we made our way back to the Hotel of course not without heading to McDonald’s first to have a small Take-out Snack existing of 2 Quarter Pounder Meals. Pretty much stuffed I felt asleep about 4 am.

Five hours later a woke up and it was impossible to go back to the land of dreams and the spy cams on EDSA-channels lost my interests after about 3,5 seconds, so I texted Kim from the Hotel-Lobby who was already out for Breakfast in Robinsons which is just located around the corner in 2 Minutes walking distance.

Breakfast with Kim and BigC at Burger King as Kim needed to charge his cellphone and this service is available in that fastfood chain… it turned out to be a bit bigger meal than planned. The original order was  Western – BBQ-Burger-double and while I was waiting Kim looked at his order to find out it was the wrong Burger so he gave it to me to shorten my waiting time. Well half way through that Burger Mine arrived. It was actually pretty good and it took about 60% of the burger to find out it is just a single and not double like ordered. So back to the counter complaining and waiting for my real order… It finally came correct and after 1,5 and a half burgers I was ready to roll to the Mall of Asia for some shopping before meeting the guys again for watching Avatar. Well, of course not without having “lunch” with another burger at Wendys…

Cheers

Rhoody

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That is the continuation of the IMAX – Experience story below and I admit that Manila Burger Run is a kind of strange title, but after reading it I am sure you will understand that there can’t be any different name for that article. So let’s start where the other one was ending…

So here they stand the 3.5 fat long-noses at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon holding tickets for “Avatar” in 3D at the IMAX for the next day at 4:50 pm. First thing was to find a Hotel what was not a big issue as the guys have countless connections and a few txt later all bookings were done. Time for lunch.

We decided to try Hooters which is actually not located in the Mall but a half marathon away from the Mall of Asia… Hooters is a well known Burgers Chain in the US, pretty famous for OK Burger but more famous for the waitresses with Bigger Boobs then Brains. That is actually identical with Hooters behind the Mall of Asia.

The small difference is that the Boobs of the local Hooters waitresses didn’t fill a Cup-A Bra, so don’t ask for the brain…  Accordingly went our try to order… if there wouldn’t be typhoons and flooding in the Philippines, I would describe the “order and what got delivered”-procedure as a mild disaster. Well don’t blame the girls there, they just stick to the company – outlines, remember: “Bigger Boobs then Brains”. They still look better then the average burger sales lady in Germany.

So our first starter came of course together with the main course, the second starter did not show up, but after a reminder it was served when all other dishes were eaten,  the side dishes came after that. That all would be normal in a low-standard restaurant in Dumaguete but not for that price-class…that is simply annoying.

What made the Hooters experience to a real unforgettable event was simply the quality of the dishes. I am not a gourmet but that was simply disgusting… the fried shrimps had still the shells on under the breading and after the first bite lead to a small cut my gums I skipped on that.. The Burger I ordered looked a kind of Yummy, but that is as far the culinary delight went. First bite and BLEHHHH … Filipino Sweet Burger Buns. What the F… is going on here. Ok I am hungry so somehow a Gallon Hot Sauce and Heinz fixed the weird taste.

To pretend staying a kind of healthy we also ordered some vegetable side dish, just to discover another outstanding surprise. Hooters must have an employee whose job is to soak carrots in old kitchen oil and/or somehow injects it also… I am very aware that this sounds a bit strange, as was my experience after 39 years wandering around on this planet eating minimum 3 times daily.

That I was only able to have my bottomless drink refilled once in about 1.5 hours was only another adding experience.

Well , the bill was just over 100 US$ !!!! for a pile of  crappy  burgers, boob-less waitresses and oily carrots. I definitely will put Hooters on my “been there, done that, but never again”-List.

So we were more than ready to leave that place and back to the mall, to buy some clothes and stuff needed for the unplanned overnight-stay in Manila.

Enough for now…. The Manila Burger Run continues…

cheers

Rhoody

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Neva’s Pizza and Pasta in Dumaguete is a great place I know since a long time, but for whatever reason never made it there. So 2 weeks ago a grasped my little one and Rechel and got into a trike to get there to check the place out for lunch.

It has been a hot morning and I actually was a bit afraid that I gonna sweat my big Lubot off as there is no aircon room there and with the location of Neva’s Pizza a kind of in the middle of the city it could get a sweaty affair for me. Surprisingly, I was OK there and the fan’s kept me on a level that I did not get soaky wet of sweat in a split-second and looking like the water-fountain in my garden…

Neva’s Pizza call them self also as the “Home of the Kuripot Pizza” in Dumaguete and after a quick look on the menu I could not agree more. The Pizza at Nevas in Dumaguete are available in the “Special” and “Kuripot” version, the “special” at Neva’s comes with Mozzarella while the “Kuripot”-version is with Cheddar cheese. Prices for a good sized Pizza at Neva’s are starting already at P 78 !!! The average “Special Pizza” is around 150 Peso, the “Kuripot” averaging at 100 Peso. Pasta and rice Meals from 47 Peso to 109 Peso.

Our order was the most expensive Pizza, the Neva’s Specialty with 218 Peso and my little one ordered chicken Milanese for 80 Peso, plus a pitcher of ice tea for the three of us.

The Pizza are prepared in a Wood Fired Brick Oven and it turned out to be pretty tasty. For that price you can’t expect imported stuff but there is another Pizza place (Italia Restaurant) in Dumaguete promoting imported ham, Mozzarella and Salami, but keep it in the fridge… at least I couldn’t find it on the Pizza at Italia… and that for a ridiculous high price.

My little ones chicken was also really good and I rarely saw her eating that much in that short time and she was excited that Neva’s was also not greedy with gravy.

Neva’s Pizza in Dumaguete seems to be a busy place (at least on that Sunday) and the reason is simple. Very good quality for that price, OK environment for being in that location, friendly staff (not like the grumpy Italia Restaurant Chef), definitely a place to go again.

I also saw two delivery – trikes in Front of Neva’s Pizza in Dumaguete, so we asked the Staff how much and where they deliver. If I understood correct, Neva’s delivers for free in Dumaguete when ordering a minimum of 150 Peso.

Call me Kuripot, but they can count me in as a steady customer. All thumbs up for Neva’s Pizza and Pasta in Dumaguete.

cheers

Rhoody

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I thought I could have a quiet night in Cebu and sleep early after I got a text from Kim that his flight arrives around 11:30 at night. I welcomed him and Mike at the front desk at Eddies Hotel. They looked pretty tired but the decision was done to have a quick drink in a bar. Still safe as it is not Angeles City … The bars in Cebu closing at three.. We went to Vikings and ordered some beer . For what ever reason the bar did not close and we were there way past 5 am… Welcome to the beermonsters world.
After a good sleep we had our pickup arranged by Exotic Dive Resort in Malapascua at 12 o’clock. The driver and we were a kind of in time and were on our 4 hour trip to the north of Cebu.
After we arrived there and our luggage was unloaded the driver left and we were surrounded by porters who pointed us to a little boat at the end of a “pier” made out of a pile of rocks. There was nobody there who identified himself as send from Exotic Dive Resort and so we carried or gear to that funny little boat. We put it down on the end of the pier, maybe 2 meters away fro the nose of the small bangka. The boatcrew did not move one centimeter to help us. So we paid 200 Peso that the porter carry our bags the 2 meters.  We basically had no other choice at all and a big thunderstorm was about to come in.

The transfer of Exotic Dive Resort is charged over 11,000 Peso and you have to carry your own crap around. That’s a bit strange, but the story continues. We checked into our rooms and the room is large and convenient with balcony,  the bed is a little hard but big and ok, and the chicken and dogs under my door are obviously all here to welcome me at Exotic Dive Resort

more to come

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The Austrian owned Restaurant Casablanca in Dumaguete is one of the best restaurants in Dumaguete and this region.

A wide mediterranian selection and Guenthers art of cooking is well known for quality. That in combination with his outgoing personality will give you an outstanding dining experience in Dumaguete.

Casablanca has also a Deli with a nice selection of imported sausages, cheese and ham and canned stuff. If you want something different, just have a Sampler from Casablanca’s Sushibar. The neat small sushibar is perfect for your and you darling to have a romantic evening with some exotic delights.

Who wants it a bit more rustically orders a German Haxn and one of the over 20 imported beer. Guenther the Owner asked me to take some Pictures for his Casablanca-Website, so I spent some time there and enjoyed free food and drinks, here is a small selection of the pictures which didn’t make it to the Casablanca webpage:

If you ever are in Dumaguete don’t miss out to visit the IMHO best Restaurant in Dumaguete. If you go there, please don’t tell the staff that I posted the pictures here in my blog…

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Last Friday I was helping out with the soundsystem in Edelweiss for the Elvis show. (A few pictures here: Elvis in Dumaguete) After he ended his show I heard a band playing at the neighborhood in a  Outdoor Restobar Disco kinda thingy. When coming closer I heard they played some CCR stuff. The place is called Necy’s Restobar Dumaguete.

We went in and like many times I was the only foreigner in a local place. Also as always I was very heartly welcomed by the guests. This evening was the first time a Band played there at Necys Restobar and there was an entrance fee of 75 Peso per person. The 75 Peso were including a drink (in my case San Miguel Pilsen) and a small snack. We decided to take some BBQ-Sticks. Can’t complain about that for 75 Peso.

The owner came each few minutes and thanked us for being there but it was so friendly and never annoying. I had 2 more beer and a good time. The Band continued with some Santana Stuff and Rock ‘n Roll standards. After they finished I talked with them and they told me it’s the first time they played together here in Necys.

I will have another look during daytime to make some pictures of the place and most likely drop in there next Friday to see them playing a full set.

So if you are in Dumaguete and wanna see a nice place with some great locals and good music have a look at Necy’s Restobar. The place is located across Hypermart on the road to Valencia

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