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We like Delimondo corned beef. Good meat, no fuss, plain packaging.

Last week while many parts of the city were underwater we tramped to the neighborhood supermarket for supplies and found that everyone had had the same idea. Every shopping cart and basket was in use and there were long queues at the cashiers. The shoppers were stocking up on toilet paper, instant noodles, canned sardines. There was a panic-buying run on corned beef.

How did corned beef become a staple of the Filipino diet? We think it started in World War II, when American soldiers handed out cans of corned beef from their rations. (During the Napoleonic Wars the British soldiers lived on corned beef.) Maybe earlier, during the American Occupation and Commonwealth periods.

In the Philippines corned beef is served as breakfast, merienda, lunch, merienda, dinner, and midnight snack. If you prick us, corned beef comes out. The number of local and imported corned beef brands on the market boggles the mind. We still remember our childhood shock at discovering that not all corned beef came out of a can.

Laing pasta

Laing with Tempura

Laing stuffed in Ravioli with Red Tuna Sauce

Last week Mike hopped on a budget flight to Legazpi, Albay to check out the laing situation. Read his food diary at Walk and Eat.

Has anyone taken the PNR train to Bicol? The railway service was revived last year. We hear they have sleeper cars. We’re thinking of jumping on a train to Albay to look at Mayon Volcano but we gather she doesn’t reveal herself fully this time of the year. How are the trains? We’re getting madly conflicting reports.

Photo from Gourmet Pigs

is the title of a movie by Yasujiro Ozu. Green tea over rice or chazuke/ochazuke is a traditional Japanese dish served towards the end of the meal. Green tea or hot water is poured over cooked rice and topped with nori, wasabi, pieces of salmon.

Yesterday we were so hungry we crawled out of bed and crashed our friends’ lunch at Sugi. So there we were with this wonderful menu and so many great dishes to choose from, and we must’ve been ill still because the only item that appealed to us was chazuke. Followed by fruit gelatin, which was amazing because we never eat Jell-O.

A craving for bland food. Who knew it was possible.

Thank you for all your kind wishes. Take care of yourselves, the air is rife with viruses.

Photo by Laurent Blevennec/Présidence de la République. Gilles Bragard introduces France’s President François Hollande to Obama’s chef Cristeta Comerford, with Prince Albert of Monaco’s chef at right.

It’s good to be a chef, particularly if your boss is a president, a prime minister or a prince. So when the “Club des Chefs des Chefs,” a group of chefs to world leaders, visited Paris this week, they were welcomed as if they were chefs d’état — heads of state…

Read the NYT Magazine.

Update, 24 hours later: CONGRATULATIONS, you have avoided the trap! We were just waiting for some bright little creature to bring up the obvious so we could flame him/her nyahaa.

Kaya toast set at Toastbox: Coffee with condensed milk, toast with butter and coco jam, two soft-boiled eggs. Their service has improved.

A soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk.
A soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk.
A soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk.
A soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk.
A soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk.

Every single morning from prep to sixth grade. Our mother was a firm believer in protein. 22 school days a month, 220 school days a year for 7 years: that’s 1,540 egg and milk breakfasts, enough eggs for a lifetime. The second we started high school we not only gave up soft-boiled eggs, we rejected breakfast altogether.

Recently we noticed that whenever we do have breakfast it includes eggs. Can’t fight early programming. Yesterday Ige took us to breakfast at Benny’s at Rustan’s supermarket. The Eggs Benedict is not bad at Php265, and they have a wide breakfast selection. We prefer the restaurant’s old name, though: Yum Yum Tree.

We’ve always liked Uno Restaurant on Tomas Morato in Quezon City: the food is great, the quality consistent, the place elegant but unpretentious, the service reliable. There’s also a better than average chance of running into friends who live or work in the neighborhood.

We hadn’t eaten there for a few months so when work brought us to QC last Friday we decided to drop in. After the excellent main course we looked at the dessert menu and did a double take. Then our double take did a double take.

Their cakes cost less than 100 pesos. We’ve gotten so used to getting gouged overpriced desserts that an inexpensive cake nearly makes us burst into tears. And the cakes were good—light, not teeth-wreckingly sweet, excellent companions for their non-overpriced coffee.

Lucky QC folk.