U-belt Food Trek

Yesterday I walked my way to the University Belt area thinking of food and cuisines and what life really has to offer me. My food walk started in the morning after Andres requested Fried Chicken for breakfast so I prepared a simple mix of fish sauce, soy sauce, a pinch of salt, and calamansi for marinade. Then I dipped the chicken parts in egg and seasoned flour for that crunchy southern style fried chicken. Andres enjoyed it and I enjoyed it too.

Then in the office, I ate early lunch in preparation for my planned long walk to everywhere. I ordered Menudo and lechon kawali with rice combo and the taste was very homely. It was quite expensive however for seventy pesos. But in a bourgeois school setting, the price is peanuts.

Then I rode the LRT from Katipunan and upon existing the train, entered a new world. I walked inside a mall full of clearance sale and checked out the second hand bookstores along the streets while people watching, thinking what goes on in their minds as they walk. Then I got hungry again and ate at Mang Inasal Recto branch digging their 49 pesos one piece chicken inasal and rice. It was meditative eating of sort as I enjoyed thinking of life giving me the chance to experience most of what it can offer a person. From the fume ravaged Recto kiosks to the Bourgeois Hotel restaurants, I can walk and eat and breathe in these places. There must really be luck.

Then I walked and again rummaged through the books for sale and arrived in Sampaloc area and saw a school with a big wanted poster of people they find as trouble makers and they actually look like former stockholders of the school. Then I checked another school and was impressed with the marked improvement and upgrading of facilities. Feeling hungry again, I chanced upon a Kambingan store but goat meat was expensive so I settled for a Pork ribs adobo for 35 pesos. It was succulently soft to the palate in an adobo sort of way. Then I walked again towards Dapitan area and picked up Thelma in her work. Feeling tired and sapped with energy, she suggested that we go to Banawe and eat comfort food. I happily agreed and went to Mandarin Sky for a sumptuous serving of Shabu-shabu.

It was a whole day of feasting for the mind, body, and soul.

Mandarin Sky

Mandarin Sky is one restaurant that we so fondly visit for its sumptuous Shabu-shabu meal that borders on becoming an all-time favorite with the satay soup taking centerstage in the whole mix-match of watercress, thin slices of beef and pork, and other stuff that I forget when I start sipping and eating the magic soup. One can choose from the thousands of ingredients offered to perk up the already magical satay soup.

Their house fried chicken is just great with the crisp skin that melts in your mouth. The Oyster in XO sauce is to die for. But it is the Shabu-shabu that matters most in the Mandarin Sky scheme of things.

Mandarin Sky

Banawe St., Quezon City

(in front of St. Theresa's College)