Hanamaruken Ramen @ TriNoma Mall

Before the bug really hit the country, my current foodie of a boss said as an aside "There's this new authentic Ramen house near your place. You should check it out one of these days."

It got buried somewhere in between purchasing a PS4 console and that Apple TV unit I was drooling about; with a toddler and an infant, who in their right Malay mind would want to go to a Ramen house for crying out loud?! I had visions of screaming children asking for their milk, and chopsticks embedded in eyeballs or some such orifice. Nosiree Boss Bob, this brown man ain't takin' his ass anywhere near a noodle house.

But fate has a funny way of sending you to where you said you wouldn't go. About a month ago, my better half (well I'm the better half, I'm just trying to be polite) decided to go Duke Nukem with the budget while we were at the TriNoma mall, which was completely understandable as we were both frayed and harassed. She wanted to have a treat, and try something new as well. We ended up hightailing it to Hanamaruken.

Admittedly, I was a little taken aback with the space as it was visible while we were approaching. I had two little kids with me, and one of them at the stage where the world is a playground. I was thinking spilled soup and bothered guests. The place looks cramped lemme tell you. Being inside is another matter altogether. There was some elbow room, much more than I thought, and there were families inside having their lunch, most with toddlers in tow. So ok, that's one fear checked out.

Without the comfort of being able to peruse the menu, we ordered two of their signature Ramen, two sodas and an order of Gyoza. We were informed that there were limited plates only for each of the items on the menu, which I thought was both impressive and nice. There should be some attention to detail here. I was not mistaken. The Ramen looked authentic, and beside our wide eyed gushes, smiles and those familiar small nods readable to couples only, the taste was authentic too. I'd strongly recommend it to those looking to recapture memories of visits to Japan, or maybe just a simple authentic culinary experience.

Service was great, as well as the staff. There were some celebs present, but the staff made sure all the patrons were taken cared of. The only black mark, was getting the bill, which took better than thirty minutes. Not that I really mind, but if you have kids in tow, and need some urgency before their attention span expires, you'd need some chop chop, capisce? The whole shebang set her and our budget back by fifteen hundred pesos.

Can be a date place as a stretch, but you may find your Casanova moves a little hampered by children. THREE STARS.

As an exchange for my meal, I was made to promise to write about it, as my muse insists on me writing again at all cost. I'm keeping the promise, and writing this while my infant son tries to suck on my leg, and my toddler daughter is using my right palm as a headrest. Anyway, check out Hanamaruken's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hanamarukenph

Nescafé as a Barometer

If memory serves me right, and by the bye I am not rocking chair material yet (not for a couple of decades thank you very f&$king much). I took a gamble on this purchase three years ago. At PHP 14.35 it looked like a fine deal (yessiree Bob shake yer hand on it) as you get a couple of sips of fine roast, enough to give you a kick, but in a small enough serving to prevent palpitations and that unflattering acidic feeling in the pit of yer tummy that you call, well, yer tummy.

Fast forward to the last payday and grocery run. I've been studiously avoiding taking a good gander at the tag prices and opting instead to bug the living bejesus out of my sweet wife about her budgeting skills, in the effort to prevent myself from blowing a gasket. In this world where fathers are thankless beasts of burden and labor, I decided to go frig the man and give myself a treat. I plunge my hand inside that refrigerated gondola right and come up with my ten minutes of caffeine pleasure. No wait. What? Are you effing kidding me? Twenty two pesos!? I rounded it off to twenty three and just about went into an epileptic seizure.

That's 50% percent inflation smacking you right in the kisser Boss Joe-say can you see in the dawn's early light! Now say you're a top dog in a company full of alphas. That'd still only be 30% annual increases in three years aggregate! How in the world are you going to even get ahead unless you steal the people's taxes?! Wait, back up. That's another thing altogether. What I mean is, with how the taxes are, and how fast inflation, or maybe how the government is unable to curb prices, how can you even keep living a respectable lifestyle? Chew on that for your "positive thoughts for the day". Because baby we are positively getting screwed.

Cold Bony Fingers

There are early mornings when the walls are thin, and what or whomever is there on the others side are near enough to touch our minds.

It's the icy finger that traces a frozen line across your heart, whispering to you, reminding you of your fleeting time in this mortal coil. It's a slithering wet sound in the pool of darkness fighting the gathering light.

A reminder of our finite drawn breaths. And how small we really are in the scheme of things.

I usually shiver a lot on those days. Maybe you can tell me if you feel the same when that happens to you. See I told them to go and visit you next.

There Goes the Dream of a "Seamless" Integration of Gadgets and the Internet

So. After the hiatus I tentatively step into my old stomping grounds. The veritable multi platform Multiply is now an eBay sort of place. Livejournal is somewhat deserted, the writer forums of old have since been waylaid by Facebook. We'll come to think of it all of them were.

Yahoo is forcing Flickr users to work with Tumblr and has pulled out support for Google's Blogger. Meanwhile I have to get everything linked up to Google + to have photos and pages work together.

I haven't started with my iOS yet which tries to force me to abandon all of it in favor of Apple supported platforms.

For someone who just wanted to write and have an easy way to share content, this IPO and digital battles are getting so messed up.

I want the choices inside a one stop shop. I hope we get these companies to stop pushing us towards a funnel.

Afterthought

I think once upon a time I was a happy child. It comes out in fleeting and staccato bursts in this life of mine. Try as I might, I am unable to keep it going, like a flame eating through dry wood.

One Day in the Land Of Decay

Four Forty Five AM

 

The sky was turning purple when Arthur awoke with a start. The air-conditioning they won on a raffle five years ago was whining something god awful like a donkey on its last legs, and for a moment he wondered about how his neighbors feel about that grinding noise. There was a smile breaking on his lips, then it got stolen by father time’s gifts: he felt his blood surge, his throat constrict, his nostrils clog and yes the icing on the cake, his heart starts to gallop like it was getting revved up by a monkey in his brain. Hello headaches and scary maybe last mornings.

If life began at forty, he wondered what else would be added on top of sleep apnea, hypertension, wonky kidneys, allergic rhinitis and an enlarged heart. If there was anything he was sure of, all that advertisement about life was freaking hogwash. Life shoots you out of the womb and begins walloping you. It stops only to get a bigger bat while you philosophize and fool yourself that an uptrend is beyond the bend.

Wincing as he tried to slow his heart, he tries to shake his head and open his eyes. It took some learning a few years back to not sit up straight immediately so as to avoid a morning trip to the emergency room because of hypertension.

 He was wishing he’d listen to his grandmother a little bit more when he caught sight of his wife. Their kids were in the nooks of her arm, and for one funny moment he thought she looked like a hen turned over on her back. Then he realized they slept at two in the morning as little Matthew kept crying. Salary day was more than a week away, and they ran out of formula. Gwen was trying her best to breastfeed, but with their diet of greens and cheap rice, there was not much kick to it. Matthew was asking for a more rounded meal, and had been belting his lungs out in that single minded way only babies can do. By midnight, he created enough ruckus to wake his older sister up, and then it was boo hoo city for the family.

He vaguely remembered both of them being near tears, studiously avoiding to look at each other while supporting one another by taking each of their children and trying to rock them to sleep. How she took Mariel from him he can’t recall, but it choked him a bit knowing that even in her tired state, Gwen tried to make sure he at least got some rest for the grind of the coming morning.

With another shake of his head, Arthur slowly stands up from the mattress on the floor while silently cursing his wobbly knees. He slowly opens the bedroom door, and with another glance at his sleeping family, walks to the hall to begin his day.