By Popular Demand :)

A Craving for Bulalo

Yes, that’s what I’ve been having for the past few weeks. A deep-seated need to slurp down some soft, hot, slippery marrow scooped out of a giant bone of a beef shank. Revel in the tender Batangas beef swimming in the most flavorful broth.

It’s so hard to find a good bulalo place here in the metro. The nearest I can think of is Sosing’s where they churn out vats of bulalo like it’s no one’s business. But bulalo is meant to be enjoyed at one’s leisure and it is just crazy over at Sosing’s. Patrons (mostly cabbies and jeepney drivers with 15 minutes to spare for a meal) stand beside you, pressuring you to vacate your table. Who needs the aggravation?

And so we drove up to Leslie’s in Tagaytay. Aaaah…who doesn’t go into rapture with the mere mention of Leslie’s Bulalo? The heart starts beating a tad faster at the thought of hot, steaming bowls of Bulalo served in a table overlooking the iconic Taal Volcano. Perfect.



We arrived just a bit past lunch one lazy Saturday afternoon. It was actually hubby’s birthday weekend. Plans include a Leslie’s Bulalo meal and major R&R at Discovery Country Suites. We stayed there last year, pregnant moi and hubby. This year we returned with our darling 7-month old baby girl Micky and her posse, Yaya Jazz and Yaya M. From the incredibly romantic Japanese-themed Nara suite, we booked the family friendly Nantucket suite. How times have changed.

Anyway - complimentary bulalo broth greeted us in Leslie’s, along with fresh buko juice (now this one, we paid for). For people like us who can’t decide, the Sinugba platter is a blessing. A little bit of everything : mussels, steamed prawns, grilled squid, grilled chicken, the indispensable liempo and my fave, grilled Maliputo with the sweetest flesh. Incidentally Maliputo is a type of fish I am told resides exclusively in Taal lake.



Sinugba platter + Leslie’s Bulalo = Extremely ecstatic Blair Mitch


Let's sing all together now, "L is for Litid, that's good enough for me..."


Obviously I couldn't resist eating the marrow before I took this shot. It's criminal to let the marrow wait. So just imagine it, will you (really evil laugh).


Ooooh. Sinugbaaaaaaaaa...

Bulalo is nasty stuff that tops the cholesterol scale so best to save it for special occasions. I can’t remember the last time I ate Bulalo prior to Leslie’s so you can just imagine the extent of my craving. Sharing with you my not-so-new rule when it comes to sugar, fat and all them forbidden goods: Don’t dilly-dally and waste your precious once-a-month ration with the amateurs. If you have to get your fat fix then go to the master, like Leslie’s.

See ya next quarter!

Songs and Food

The chef prepares a special menu
for your delight, oh my.
Tonight you fly, so high up in the vanilla sky.
Your life is fine: it’s sweet and sour, unbearable or great.
You gotta love every hour,
you must appreciate.
This is your time, this is your day.
You’ve got it all.
Don’t blow it away.
-Vanilla Sky, Paul McCartney



Paul McCartney’s song Vanilla Sky is probably the only good thing that came out of Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe’s disastrous movie project. It also happens to be one of my favorite songs that went on extended play recently. I don’t have to explain, but it’s a song that enlightens and inspires.

There are songs and there are songs about food. I’m not food addled in the brain, it’s just that songs that use food allegories and metaphors are usually the ones I am drawn to. And while you may think that songs that use food typically relate to sex, food can bring richer meanings: life, love, longing, and inadvertently, laughter (consider the laughable horror that is MilkShake by Kelis: My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and they’re like… better than yours, damn right, it’s better than yours. I can teach you, but I have to charge).



I still fall into a deep swoon when I hear Sting’s soulful Tea in the Sahara, imagining the sisters with their cups full of sand, waiting for the young man to reappear: tea in the Sahara with you. Food provides sustenance. It can nourish the stomach, the heart, the mind and this instance, the soul.

It won’t do
to dream of caramel
to think of cinnamon
and long for you.
It won’t do
to stir a deep desire
to fan a hidden fire
that can never burn true.
- Caramel, Suzanne Vega



Suzanne Vega’s Caramel is classic make-out song. The allusions to caramel and cinnamon make the longing more poignant, compelling. Thick, sweet, cloying, all-consuming unrequited romance. I can feel her predicament. I can almost taste her pain. It’s tragic and terribly, terribly romantic.

And when Fiona Apple came up with The First Taste, it perfectly captured the start of a grand, sensuous love affair.

Give me the first taste
let it begin
Heaven cannot wait forever.
I’m building memories on things we have not said.
Full is not heavy as empty, not nearly my love, not nearly.
- The First Taste, Fiona Apple



Allusions to food can be multi-sensorial. It can also serve to mirror life’s complexities. After all, what is paella but a hodgepodge, or probably a symphony, of flavors and textures? Food can also transport – remind one of instances most conducive to friendship and more. Consider the coffee moment, immortalized by Tanita Tikaram in song.



The woman smiles, the cafe feels like home to you
and as she glances through the magazine you feel somehow, she's seen you, too.
All my life I thought you said
all my life I heard you say
it'll be all right (All my life)
if you stay for all my life, for all my life.
- The Cappuccino Song by Tanita Tikaram

I’ll end with a song that almost serves as my theme song, but not quite.

Squint your eyes and look closer.
I'm not between you and your ambition.
I’m a poster girl with no poster.
I am 32 Flavors and then some.
- 32 Flavors, Alana Davis

Indeed, food is so much a part of our lives.

*I have a special cd mix of "food songs". Want one? Email me at mrs_so_rocks@yahoo.com or tell me how I can hook up with you in the comments section and I can send you a cd absolutely free. It’s an early Christmas present, and only because I’m nice.

**Photos taken from gettyimages.com