So I’m not really a food blogger, but I’m a blogger that loves food. However, it’s been so long since we’ve tried something new, so I haven’t had anything really fun to write about. Until last Saturday when we went to Zark’s Burgers.

You see we’ve heard a lot about Zark’s. Friends have gone to the place. They’ve been asking us for more than a year to go, since people knew how much we loved food, and burgers in particular. Also, my brother is kind of a legend of consumption in our circles (See his blog here) they’ve told us about the eating challenges this particular joint had to offer. So on a bored Saturday afternoon, we trooped all the way to Taft Avenue to see what they had to offer.

What these two challenges were:

1. The Jawbreaker:

• a 1.5-pound triple layer cheeseburger with SPAM, bacon and overflowing with cheese sauce
• 200 grams fries
• 1 12 oz glass of iced tea
• 5 minutes to finish

What you win: The food free, otherwise, a P250 charge.

2. The Tombstone:

• 2 Pound cheeseburger
• 200 grams of Fries
• 1 12 oz glass of iced tea
• 10 minutes to finish

What you win: A t-shirt, free food, and a picture on the wall.

So of course the brother had to try the Tombstone, since he so easily demolished a similar challenge at Burger avenue (1 pound burger, 5 minutes to finish, he ate that in 2 minutes).

My sister and I, not the eating challenge types, ordered the Strikeout at P120 (mushroom cheeseburger) and Zark’s ultimate burger at P130 (bacon mushroom cheeseburger) respectively and documented the whole thing.

Food verdict: The patty I actually liked for being quite peppery, as I find myself adding a few shakes of pepper every time I head to Wham!, a favorite burger place. The fries were thick cut, much like Burger King’s fries, and were plenty on the plate (we added P20 for fries and a drink). What I didn’t like, the bread. It felt like monay and absorbed so much of the oil and moisture from the veggies that it was a soggy mess halfway in.

Pros: The price points are definitely affordable. My meal totalled P150 and I didn’t even feel the need for dinner that night after. Love the variety of the menu (Found here), where else can you get candied bacon in your burger and a Spam slice?

Cons: The wait. It was 1 pm in the afternoon and we waited 30 minutes in line to get in. This is a popular joint, and prepare to get even hungrier before you get in (which may probably be a pro for the people taking on the challenge)

So what happened to the brother? He almost didn’t finish, and after seeing what he had to go through:

I couldn’t blame him. There is no other word for that Tombstone but a behemoth. And those fries, a mountain.

Is this the last time we’re going to Zark’s? Definitely not. We’re coming back ravenous. Prepare the shirts!

 

1. Pandesal places at almost every street corner, because life without pandesal is depressing.

2.This:

And the thousand other shores that surround this actually gorgeous country if you just know how to look.

3. For goto and tokwa’t baboy in all shapes and forms, comfort food that doubles as pulutan and ulam.

4. Divisoria, the craziest shopping for the weirdest things, and at rock bottom prices.

5. Dampa at Paranaque, where the seafood is so fresh, it’s still swimming.

6. For temperatures that never need a heater.

7. For food markets at every turn, where you can buy the most artisan food, to the most normal lutong bahay.

8. For UP Diliman and it’s bike/jogging lanes, and picnics in the grass at the oval, and peeping at people making out at the lagoon and giggling like a 12 year old.

9. For a culture so adaptive, we can all call ourselves citizens of the world. Our food is Chinese, our names Spanish, the language American, but our personalities can only be called Pinoy.

10. For a history so marred with so much strife, but to come out stronger, and smiling.

What do you love about living in the Philippines?

 

NotBob’s heart shaped heinie. Have a good one!

Eho died today. My six year old bunny, flopped down on his cage and went off to that vegetable farm in the sky. I miss him already.

Because I’ve spent too much of my life focusing on what’s sad.
Because I’ve spent too much time looking at the glass half empty and forgetting that I’m lucky enough as it is to have it filled at all.

Because there is too much beauty in the world to look at the ugly.

I have decided to be happy. Of the ten things competing in my head to make me wallow in depression, there are twenty things I am happy about today.

1. I am happy that I woke up today and got to help my fiance get ready for work.

2. I am happy that my mom brought home a bag full of fresh pandesal to eat with the hungarian sausages I’ve been eyeing in the freezer.

3. I am happy I have three kilos of fresh, ripe mangoes in season that I can eat when I want.

4. I am happy that I get to work under this roof:

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. I am happy to have three dogs deliriously happy that I’m working outside, asking for belly rubs and then falling asleep near my foot.

I have a million things I have decided to be thankful for, and people who I love who remind me that I’m hecka lucky to have them.

So today, I am happy.

What made you happy today?

If it reads like every other blog post you’ve read the past two weeks, I apologize, but yes, 2013 will be a year of changes, not just because I set goals and targets, but this will be a year to mark on my calendar. My mom has always told me that 13 is a lucky number for me, and I hope this is true.

This year will be my last as a lot of things, and the first as something else altogether, so wish me luck.

So for the first change, is me wearing my prescription specs faithfully to fix whatever destruction I wreaked on them the past several years.

 

I know what you’re thinking, this girl that gets all sappy about everything is going to get sappy about Christmas isn’t she and you’ll be right. I do get sappy about a lot of things, and Christmas may be my favorite time of the year.

I just love the season, and one thing makes it a great time for sure, I’m going to be with my family every year. You see,

In our family, we spend Christmas together. My mother’s side of the family gets together every year to eat, open gifts and basically cause a ruckus (with games or karaoke) to celebrate the holiday.

I love it. Things change year after year, but this I can count on to be fun and just be happy.

This year we’ll probably be fishing in my uncle’s small pond, trying out the newly installed Jacuzzi and eating while eating then eating again.

Another thing I like about the holiday is the preparation. This year, I decorated my first real tree. I work in a Christmas tree company and got one as a bonus this year, and we set it up, decorations and everything from start to finish. It feels so grown up, while being like a kid again, getting excited about being able to help put the Christmas balls on the tree, picking out the things that will make it shine.

This is also my last year spending Christmas as a single person, and the last one officially as a kid, and I’m making the most of it.

 

There are few things that calm me more than a trip to the beach, and I really needed one when we went last weekend. I’ve felt surrounded by high adrenaline rushes, and incredibly stressful situations for months and was itching for a chance to just lie down, feel the sand between my toes, while drinking a cold beverage. I didn’t even want to do anything in terms of physical activity. I made sure I had a good book stored on my Nook, a decent sarong to lie down in, cold beer from the nearby store and a wide variety of chips and sweets to keep me company while the other people I was ran after a good high, surfing.I admit I did felt a bit of temptation when I saw the quality of waves that day, a constant arrival of surf quality waves, and not a lot of people to plow into, but my inner hippie won out and I laid back and enjoyed my post adolescent third Percy Jackson second volume book.

In that moment, the serenity I felt made up for the past few months of my life, with everything and everyone pulling me in all directions, sometimes good and sometimes horrible. The blank slate of not worrying about this or that made me so thankful that I had the chance to do that this weekend. A good way to go before everything goes full throttle this next few months, whether it be personal or work wise.

Sometimes we just need to be in a place that gives us peace, and for this girl, the smell of saltwater, that rough texture of sand granules between my toes, the crash of the waves on the shore, is my happy place.

Where’s yours?

 

I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve used my voice. My real one. The one that tells other people who I really am. I guess it’s my fault really. I let myself get lost in the sea of voices around me, stronger, more significant ones that I thought I needed to hear before I shared my own. I felt that in order to keep the chaos of my life to a manageable din, I let myself fall silent at the expense of others.

This was nobody’s choice but mine. I lived so long putting my voice over others that I failed to hear the most important words around me. I alienated others. I forgot what was important. So I sank back and let others’ ideas, opinions and feelings wash over me and took it all in.

It worked for a while, and then I felt myself slowly losing myself and not getting a chance to put in anything above a whisper.

Now I find myself getting back the decibels I need to put myself where I need to be without losing others. I’m trying to keep the balance of talking and listening and not just letting my voice, my thoughts be heard, but hear what others have to say too.

I have my voice back and I’m not letting it fade into the background anymore.

 

Because I believe the muddier it is on a trail, the more fun you’ll get into. Last Sunday’s was less filthy than our usual, but nonetheless an achievement. The first trail I went to, we came, we saw, we conquered.

So how clean are you today?