Bulgogi Brothers Alabang Town Center

Bulgogi Brothers in Alabang Town Center. Good stuff.

Unlimited Korean appetizers (seems customary in Korean culture) on the right; on the left, galbi tang or something like that (I once ate in this restaurant and ate this before watching The Great Gatsby and remembered calling the dish The Great Galbi. 

Beef is awesome. Tender as hell and the sauces are great. Freshly grilled meat is always awesome. Better to have lots of money though to get the prime meats. Above is their cheapest at around 400 pesos.

Every table has a text hotline where you can send comments and suggestions. I've gotten great feedback from there and appreciate the response.a

A Heretic Verdict on Ramen?

I love Japanese food but I was never a big fan of ramen. It was just noodles and a lot of soup to me and that was it. I'm telling you straight up: I was wrong.

Ramen Yushoken in Molito (beside Omakase)

When we got there, there was a queue. We entered and got a menu and I noticed right away that their menu had no pictures. I found this very intriguing. What I then realized was that this is their brilliant way of capturing your imagination. Instead of seeing the photos, reading the menu, the descriptions, and the instructions for eating while waiting was a complete delight. Instead of aggravating my impatience for queuing, it made me hungry even more. Whoever wrote the copy for that menu is brilliant.

The first that arrived was the gyoza. And can I just say, without exaggeration, it's probably one of the best I've ever tried. It was like xiao long bao in the sense that it was so juicy and soupy on the inside.

Then came our ramen. Tantanmen (the photo above on the lower left frame) and some sort of dipping ramen (I forgot the name haha what a useless food blogger, huh?). The broth of the Tantanmen was breathtaking. To think that this is the first time I really got into the concept of eating ramen. It was epic. They say this broth has been cooking for 24 hours or so before being served. It was unbelievable and it changed the way I look at ramen and eating in general.

Ramen Cool in Kapitolyo (near Uncle Moe's and Charlie's)

A few days later, still craving ramen, I ate in a restaurant near my work. It was decent and very affordable and the serving portions were great. I've just been so blinded by my bias for Yushoken. And so I moved on and kept searching for what I now dub as The Greater Ramen.

Ukokkei Ramen Ron in Pasay Road (right below Cable Car)

The internet is not shy about claiming Ukokkei ramen as the number one ramen place in Manila. Food bloggers and top ten lists all put this at number one. Even friends and co-workers who love ramen swear by this place. I went there for lunch last Thursday and guess what: I didn't like it! But wait, the story does not end there!

A lot of it was circumstantial: the traffic going there, then the queuing, then the bias to the Yushoken place (Ukokkei's interior is not as appealing). We had to wait outside for almost an hour and the lady at their reception wasn't being so nice. Again, all circumstantial and probably isolated and has nothing to do with their ramen.

Cold Ramen, Shoyu Chashu, and Gyoza

Straight up, I'll tell you now that I like the gyoza in  Ramen Yushoken more. Their cold ramen is absolutely epic though. I used to eat this cold ramen in some Japanese restaurant near my college before but it was only after Ukokkei that I realized what real cold ramen is or its potential for that matter. Every bite was like eating sushi.

The broth was great. You can really tell what they talk about when they say that this broth is cooked for 48 hours or so. It was really really good ramen but I can't say that it is better than Yushoken.

And so the next day I approached one of my bosses who's an absolute foodie to share my disappointment. He knows almost everything there is to know about eating out from high-end places like The Steak Room to the motels that have the best canton (haha!). [he was actually the one who suggested The Farm to me]

Did you try their Tantanmen?

In my head, I was like what Tantanmen? They didn't even have it in their menu. Turns out, they only serve the Tantanmen during dinner time and you have to go super early cause they only serve like 20 bowls or something like that. I actually had a blog post composed and ready to be posted but I had to rewrite everything when I found out about this.

I'm definitely coming back. The curiosity is killing me. Is it just an illusion of scarcity that will lead to my heretic verdict or will Ukokkei be able to redeem itself? I'll be coming back there and will be blogging about my experience! Follow me on Twitter (@harryinitiative) to get updates regarding this very important matter. :)

SEE ALSO: Why Do We Tax Ramen?

Anthony Bourdain is Cheating Through Life and Torturing People Like Me

Watching No Reservations is a lot like torturing yourself. It's just too much of what's too good and currently too far to reach. And I come to the conclusion of one thing: Anthony Bourdain is the luckiest man alive.

Uni and Salmon Roe on Rice

Yes, he's a brilliant and talented TV show host and writer, giving the world a unique perspective on food and travel but he himself said before eating that meal above that he feels like he's cheating for being paid to do that. And I was here in front of my laptop getting tortured as I watched him eat that heavenly bowl of pleasure.

Anthony Bourdain drinking vodka in Ukraine

And every episode, all he does is drink. It's like he's paid to get drunk and eat amazing food. The girl he was with in Hokkaido called him a professional drinker. After watching how much vodka he drank in Ukraine, I'd have to agree.

Hey, I'm already getting paid just for writing about food here. Surely there's something there, yeah?

Like he says: always be hungry for more.

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Longganisa for Breakfast

Nagluluto ng longganisa
piniprito ang itlog
yan ang aking almusallongsilog; wag kalimutan ang spicy vinegar

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#NowPlaying: M Black - Heartbreak (Bare Noize Remix)

What nourishes you also destroys you

It's my mom's birthday party today. Lechon will be served later on tonight. I am not as excited as I should be, I noticed. I haven't really been in the mood for food.

You know there's this concept called "Inedia" or the ability to live without food. It's not really about starving to death or whatever. I feel that it's more spiritual, actually. I guess it's more of how we usually eat more than what's enough and it becomes just so unhealthy. Most of hunger is just in the mind, I believe, and many times our mind plays tricks on us.

Sometimes I wonder, how come I can eat 1 cup of rice and be full and sometimes eat more than 1 cup of rice and still be in the same level of fullness? It's as if I was just being impatient for the satisfaction to sink in and the excess food wasn't really necessary.

You know, most of our energy actually comes from the air we breathe. You can survive 30 days without food and yet only 3 mins without oxygen. I remember this story about a girl who survived 7 years without food and gets all her energy from the sun. It does seem like a fake story. But hey, it's true I spend most of my time in front of this laptop or out at night and not under the light of the sun--the one that gives our planet heat and life.

A few months ago, when looking for an internship job for school, I actually wanted to write about food. Someone even told me that it's ridiculous and that I can't write about food--I guess because I never really expressed interest in it or ever wrote specifically on food alone. That's why it's quite heartwarming when someone tells me "nabasa ko yung food blog mo ah"--oh wow, people actually like the way I write. It's authentic surprise, actually, and not trying to be condescending at all.

But then, as I have said, I don't really have that much appetite for food nowadays. I feel that all the unhealthy stuff (fats, caffeine, alcohol, sugar) or overeating will just add to my current disarray. Lately I've just been having what I believe to be enough as compared to how active (or lack of being) my lifestyle is.

Also, I focus on water, something I believe I lack, and is something that composes 75% of my body. We all know that we need at least 8 glasses of water a day and yet I know many times we don't reach it. I learned this the hard way around almost 2 years ago when I got kidney stones (some say it is something that is even more painful than giving birth).

I'm just really not in the mood; some sort of generic distaste for everything. Right now, you can tell me I've won a trip to Hawaii to tour the set of the TV show Lost and I probably would just shrug it off and not care. Everything is tasteless and black and white.