cendrillon

Great eats: Day 2.
My wife was very happy with the Japanese cuisine of Day 1. So I sought to balance things out with some offerings from the culture represented by my side of the marriage. After shopping our way from Midtown down to Soho, we checked out a joint recommended by my sister, Cendrillon. The interior was a very warm and inviting loft space with weathered brick walls accented by photographic references to the Philippine homeland. The cultural decor wasn't over the top gimmicky and managed to fit comfortably into its neighborhood. The food seemed very authentic to my tongue. My wife ordered a bountiful beef tapa salad. Lots of greens mixed with thinly sliced beef with sweet flavoring. I chose one of my favorites, the simple yet classic chicken adobo. The rice vinegar and soy flavoring was perfect and even the long grain rice took me back home. I happily noticed that the dish was served with a spoon and fork. I actually got flashbacks scooping up spoonfuls of adobo and rice. Spoon & forking it has like a lost art for me. After 17 years of home training, I've succumbed to the blasphemous single fork technique or my wife-endorsed chopstick method. But its like riding a bike.

We both ordered halo-halo. And this was some heavenly halo-halo. Especially after lugging shopping bags on a hot summer day in the city. I attacked the purple yam ice cream and leche flan at the top before slushing the shaved ice and slurping up the remixed agar, coconut, jackfruit, red beans and assorted sweet stuff. Mmmm, I'm drooling as I'm typing this out.

And while we were finishing up the halo-halo, one of the chefs came to our table to casually banter about the iphone. Tito (my cousins and I refer to any elder filipino we see in public - even strangers as "tito" or "tita") seemed to be on a break and casually hovered around our table to discuss iphone functionality and pricing. He's one of those elder filipinos that takes their time in conversating - even physically walking away mid-sentence only to return at the beginning. Tito concluded by declaring that he didn't need an iphone. For a second, I thought I was at one of my family reunions and one of my relatives that I can't identify had wandered over to chit chat without introduction. At this moment, I thought to myself, "Damn, this place is authentic!"