Jack The Scribbler

Tres' Crispy Pata Kare-Kare is a winner (Pic from Tres Restaurant)

From a piece I wrote for Appetite Magazine, whose editors include Mark Joseph Holandes Ubalde. A few sentences were altered from original draft I submitted. Food reviewed for this piece was complimentary. [See: Tres Restaurant's Facebook page, Seph Holandes, Appetite Magazine,]

In this world, many things come in threes.
It is the number of musketeers and stooges, French hens and little pigs, blind mice and bears encountered by Goldilocks.
Three is also the number of the Philippine’ largest islands and three brothers — Juan, Diego, and Pedro — all attempt to save their dying father in the Filipino folktale, Ibong Adarna. [See: Ibong Adarna]
The same number is also incorporated in the menu of a newly-opened mid-scale restaurant in SM City North Edsa.
The restaurant’s name — not surprisingly — is Tres, the Spanish word for three which Filipinos also use colloquially as an alternative to “tatlo,” the Tagalog term for the number.
This helps explain why prices of the restaurant’s items — from beer (P53) to Binagoongang Lechon Kawali (P193) — all end in the first odd prime number (that is, if you happen to be a geek, a math major, or someone like myself who just looked up in Wikipedia).
The move to integrate three in its menu is “consistent with Tres’ theme,” its proprietor Juliel L. Evangelista says.
As a result, of the 30 or more items in its menu, three are considered specialties — Crispy Pata Kare-Kare (P313), Binagoongang Lechon Kawali, and Crispy Ginataang Hito (P273).
But the preoccupation with the number doesn’t end there.
Customers can order three kinds of Kare-kare — Beef (P263), Seafood (P293), and Crispy Pata (P313) — and three variants of Sinigang — Salmon sa Miso (P293), Lechon (P493), and Pork Spareribs (P243).
A side dish called Tres Pizetta (P343) offers three small pizza slices with different toppings — beef salpicao, sauteed gambas, and chorizo with mozzarella and tomato sauce.
To top it all off, it launched a three-peso promo as part of its strategy to attract customers.
From October 15 to December 31, 2010, diners with a minimum bill of P1,000 for a single food purchase are entitled to purchase its Crispy Kare-Kare for — you guessed it — three pesos.
This is not a bad deal anyway you look at it.
After all, Tres’ Crispy Kare-Kare alone gives its more established rivals a run for their money.
Take its Kare-Kare sauce.
Prepared using roasted peanuts, annatto seeds, and toasted rice, the sauce in itself is already a refreshing take on a Filipino favorite.
Served in a separate container, the sauce is later poured over crunchy slabs of pork, slices of banana blossoms, string beans, and Chinese cabbage, all in a shallow bowl slightly bigger than a netbook computer.
The short ritual — lasting no more than seven seconds — serves to whet all kinds of appetites, big and small.
Dry pork strips combined with the thick and rich sauce consumes the palate without cloying it, especially since it is best enjoyed with its specially-prepared bagoong and Kalkag Rice (P133).
By itself, its Kalkag Rice — fried rice sprinkled with a generous serving of sun-dried salted shrimps — is enough reason to visit Tres.
Kalkag Rice also goes well with another entree, its Binagoongang Lechong Kawali.
Although arguably spicier than traditional bagoong-based dishes, its sauce contains coco milk, providing a gustatory tit-for-tat to the chili.
Besides its main entrees, Tres also has a treat for those who may choose to drop by for a snack.
Its Arroz Caldo with Bangus Tinapa Spring Roll (P123) is a variation on a dish whose possibilities have been ignored by casual dining establishments.
Served hot in a deep, rectangular bowl, Tres’ Arroz Caldo has just enough flavor to enhance its side dish, a set of inch-long Bangus tinapa rolls fried in lumpia wrapper.
The fish roll is enjoyed by dropping it directly into the rice concoction, scooping it out, and then biting into it.
The taste of smoked fish then takes over the palate complemented by the warm and thick Arroz Caldo.
Tres also offers its own version on Pancit Canton.
The dish has a wide array of ingredients, beating even those served by traditional Chinese restaurants.
Noodles are topped with fresh vegetables, kikiam, shrimp, pork strips, and one whole chicken drumstick.
And to provide happy endings to its hearty meals, Tres has also conceptualized its own desserts, all of which are — pardon the exaggeration — winners.
Among the tastiest is the Layers of Banana and Cinnamon Toast (P93).
Tender banana slices are heaped on pieces of melba toast placed right beside two small scoops of vanilla ice cream.
The warm and crunchy pieces of melba toast help diffuse the sweetness of the bananas and the chill of the ice cream.
Overall, the desserts and the entrees exemplify what Evangelista calls a “reengineering” of the traditional Filipino dishes.
Tres has thoroughly reexamined long-neglected Filipino ingredients and delicacies and have come up with its unique renditions of these dishes.
Results are not only promising, they are delicious.
The question then must now be asked: Why was the restaurant named Tres?
“Our restaurant’s menu was developed by three chefs. And our servings are good for three people,” Evangelista says, as a matter of factly.
Guess you can’t argue with that.

It's a nice view, anywhere you look at it. (From fuckyeahreading.tumblr.com)

No question about it: The Kindle 3 is perfect for reading eBooks, thanks to its much-vaunted, proprietary electronic ink technology.
The letters are crisp, clear, and sharp.
It precludes glare, strain, and other forms of visual torture associated with poring over a digital screen that doesn’t feature Angel Locsin’s Folded and Hung ads. [See: Angel Locsin’s Folded and Hung ads]
But that’s not the only thing the K3 offers.
While the add-ons may not be spectacular, these nevertheless increase the value to owning and using what may well be the world’s most famous eBook reader.
Which, I guess, is my way of saying: I love my Kindle 3 and I hope you love yours too. And if you haven’t gotten a Kindle 3 yet, go get one while the peso’s strong and the dollar’s weak and so I can shut the hell up about it already.

(The usual disclaimers apply. No arrangement, financial or otherwise, has been made between Amazon.com, its owners,  affiliates, and this self-styled, self-confessed Kindle 3 cheerleader. The check is still in the mail. Or so Jeff Bezos keeps on telling me. Right.)

1) It’s best for reading in the bathroom.

Here’s something that Jeff Bezos missed.
Owing to its weight, size, and form factor, the Kindle 3 is good for reading in the bathroom, especially while occupying the best seat in the house.
The K3 has dispensed with carrying a thick volume on the way to the can as well as the need for extra space in the toilet on which to place books, crucial when reaching for a roll of tissues.
Whether hunched like Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker or stretched out as if flying business class on someone else’s tab, the K3 is the best bathroom companion as the posterior comes home to roost.
Just make sure you turn on the lights.
(In case of a power outage or absence of reading lamps — common in certain cheap accommodations — you can always get the Mighty Bright book light.) [See: Mighty Bright booklight]
In the meantime, for the rich and ambitious, you can also use the K3 while in the tub. But remember: the K3 wasn’t designed for underwater use.

2) It’s an emergency music player.

iPod suddenly — and mysteriously — out of juice?
No sweat.
That is, if you’ve bought the K3 along.
Bigger but thinner than the Walkman, the K3 plays mp3 files stored in its music folder on its speakers or through a regular-sized audio jack for earphones. (You do need to drag and drop files beforehand using a PC or a Mac).
The feature is purely experimental though.
This explains why it lacks a shuffle, repeat, and loop mode and other related features found even in digital audio players made ten years ago.
But the K3 will keep on playing music even after the unit is turned off. Or once it runs out of power (which will take awhile.)*
(There are two ways to play music. For the first, go to Home, press the Menu button, choose Experimental, and scroll down to the play music command. For the second, press Alt and the space button. To skip to the next song, press Alt and the F key. To stop playing, press Alt and the space key. To make coffee, get off your butt.)

3) It’s a rudimentary web browser.

Let’s say you have a crummy phone (like some people I know).
As a result, you may be unable to access the internet even with the availability of a robust WiFi connection.
What to do?
Pull out the K3 and access the internet through its proprietary browser.
While the device will find it easy to detect and connect using the network, it will have difficulty recognizing certain graphic files and pictures on webpages.
Despite this setback, it’s still good enough for instant searches on Wikipedia and other sites.

4) Two words: Twitter and Facebook.

(Which is three words actually. But who’s counting? The Comelec?)
Struck by a witty aphorism, a moving account, a well-written passage you’ve read on the K3?
You can share them on your Twitter and Facebook accounts without changing screens, thanks to the K3’s social network features.
Of course, users need to manage their settings on the K3 first after they register their units on Amazon.com.
Don’t get too excited about sharing though.
If the passage is longer than two or so paragraphs, Amazon.com is going to cut it.
But don’t fret.
You can still share longer passages the hard way.
Just copy the “My Clippings” text file stored in the documents folder of the Kindle hard drive and take it from there.
In the meantime, if you want to overshare — if you know what I mean — there’s always torrents.

5) Yes, you can read comics and graphic novels.

Since the K3 can read PDF files, it can read comic books and graphic novels stored in that format.
Or at least theoretically.
But don’t bet the house on it.
After all, the K3 may find it difficult to load and render comics in color as opposed to graphic files drawn in black and white.
So it’s still touch and go.
And if you do succeed in installing and loading a comic book into the K3, consider it a small victory for yourself and the inexpensive eBook reader that — arguably — revolutionized the way humans read books.
*From the Go Get A Room Dept. It took my K3 18 days before it required recharging. Eighteen days — a lifetime for a device that I use everyday for tasks including but not limited to reading. Even my low-tech Treo 650 phone doesn’t last that long on a single, full charge. Meanwhile, charging the K3 took just about an hour or so.

(From lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com)

Twitter makes many things possible.

It provides tips to clean your coffeemaker [See: Three things I learned from Twitter] or a link to a catalog featuring a series of Mercedes Benz cars — and their specs — produced for the American market in the 1960s (which I got from the person managing Donald Draper’s Twitter account.)

This latest blog piece — which includes what may well be my third  attempt at podcasting — was similarly brought about by Twitter.

In a tweet posted at around four in the afternoon of October 19, my Twitter friend @nicknich3 said:

No, it's not the lanzones we're talking about here. It's the tweet before that, my friend.

His tweet’s shortened link, in turn, brought this:

This reminded me of portions of the interview I held last June with some executives of Meralco, the Philippines’ largest electric company, regarding the firm’s Twitter strategy. [See: How Meralco got its Twitter name back]

During the interview, Kirk Campos, the company’s corporate communications staff, said that he once attended an internet convention in Manila which dealt with social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

According to Campos, a speaker in the event said that Meralco’s foray into Twitter was “a noble cause” since it was going to open the floodgates of complaints from its customers. However, the speaker said that without knowing that Campos, and his supervisor, Joe R. Zaldarriaga, the company’s media relations manager, was in attendance.

For more, you can listen to a three-minute portion of the interview, which lasted more than one and a half hours.

Twitter, Meralco\’s noble cause

———————

From the Give Credit Where Its Due Dept.
As indicated in podomatic.com, the website where the podcast was uploaded, the interview was held last June 22, 2010 at the Meralco headquarters on Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City, Philippines. [See: Podomatic.com] Among those in attendance included Campos, Zaldarriaga, and Ernesto A. Fraginal, senior manager of the company’s call center operations. No credit goes to yours truly for failing to embed podcast. What the $%#@*&^+~!