Zambales

[Update - Closed as of 2013]

And just literally a few steps away is this place...

I hadn't been here in about three years. Bert and I wanted a quick lunch so...


in we went to check out what they offered. This is your standard steam table/point point joint. I'd hesitate to call it a 'restaurant' since that word implies that you can order from a menu and have sit down meal. But semantics aside...

Looks like they closed off the space too. It used to be huge but there is a dividing wall now. There is also a longely shelf with a few food items (soy sauce, noodles). There's bare bones seating in the middle and next to the other wall.

Afritada, menudo and igado (not sure what the lower left corner was):

Some dish with shredded chicken, tortang talong (eggplant torta), and kare kare. I can't identify the dish in the lower right corner. The lady behind the counter was probably wondering why I was taking pictures of the food, ha ha.

Pancit, pork skewers and a fish sinigang:

Desserts on the counter - tupig and suman. Tupig is glutinous rice dessert sweetened with coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked over coals. It has a smoky taste to it. Suman is also a wrapped  and steamed sweet rice dish that you are supposed to eat with freshly grated coconut.

Never mind the two dishes on the left. The one's on the right are chicken tinola (ginger based soup) and arroz caldo (also with ginger!).

What we brought to his mom's house: 1 pork skewer, 1 tortang talong, 1 small bowl of tinola (the lady must that thrown that in for free), and igado (it's a pork entrail soup with vinegar and soy sauce but I don't think this version used entrail, just regular pork meat).

When the lady was dishing out our two item combo ($6), I'd asked her about the tinola. She ended up giving us a free bowl of it. It had sili (green pepper) leaves and slices of chayote, which is what I also use for my version. This version though had too much fish sauce and not enough ginger.

The igado - nice and porky and for some pieces, fatty. The vegetables were red and green pepper and carrots. I haven't had igado in years. I think the real version also uses liver, which this didn't have. The OG version is not for the faint of heart.

The pork skewer and the tortang talong. The skewer wasn't so good since it wasn't that fresh. The meat was also kind of hard. The tortang talong was all right but not as good as my dad's version. It's basicaly a split open eggplant that's cooked like an omelette.

All of this was only $6. The quality isn't as good as what I'd get from my mom (if she made these dishes) but for just us two (sans TC that day), it was just fine for a quick and filling lunch.