Down the Rabbit Hole

Starbucks branch in Pleasant Hill, CA. When Starbucks was still a new coffee shop in the Philippines, my extended family would go there for drinks and pastries after dinner or for desserts after lunch at Lola Bats' house . I used to stop at one of its branches to eat while taking a break from long drives . I also made sure to stop by a branch somewhere in Loyola Heights to have my venti signature hot chocolate with peppermint syrup to drink during my lecture class at the Ateneo de Manila University . In short, Starbucks was my "third place", or a location other than home (the first place) and office (the second place) where people gather to socialise and/or people-watch. In fact, Starbucks was one of the first places I visited with Sherry Lou, a classmate in the BSc Biology program at UPLB, on my first evening in Sydney ! I was culture-shocked to learn that my third place in the Philippines was just a pitstop for many people in the USA. The classy coffee shops I was a...

Since I was exposed to Filipino gastronomy movements , I have visited Filipino-owned restaurants featuring Filipino cuisine in each city I explore. This hobby led me to insist upon dining at Kaya in Orlando, Florida , during my family's trip there in December 2024. Although I had difficulty finding time for our Kaya dinner, there was availability for our group on our last night in the city! (Kaya's signpost by the sidewalk. ) We went to Kaya straight after our gator adventure in Lake Tohopekaliga and arcade time at WonderWorks. The restaurant's façade was a welcome sight: a parol with twinkling fairy lights, kids playing street games in the parking lot, and a party in the front yard. The scene was the closest I could get to a fiesta in the Philippines. It was good that we had snacks before travelling to Kaya because the wait was long! Chef Lo Lalicon and General Manager Jamilyn Salonga Bailey brought over salabat to ensure we were warm and cozy while waiting for our tab...

(screenshot from  https://www.restaurantmaligne.com/ ) Anna and I have always looked for opportunities to eat delicious food. During our most recent trip to Monterey , our research led us to Maligne, a restaurant in Seaside, CA. The restaurant is located at the corner of Broadway Ave and Hillsdale St. We were expecting Danville or Walnut Creek vibes (e.g., brightly lit streets with a bustling restaurant scene). Instead, we drove into a quiet city where the shops were closed when we arrived. The corner street lamp highlighted Maligne's minimalist (or brutalist) concrete façade (it was hard to tell; I'm not an architecture expert).  Maligne is small, with about 10 to 12 tables (if I remember correctly). The distance from the door to the open kitchen and the dining area was so short that I felt awkward standing there, not wanting to seem like I was ogling at people eating their dinner while waiting an hour for my family's table to get ready. To me, the wait meant that this res...

We drove for about three or four hours (~250 miles) en route to San Diego when we decided to take a stretch and snack break. We happened to be close to San Luis Obispo, so we searched for any familiar coffee shop franchise with vacant parking spots. After driving around the downtown area and not finding a suitable place to stop, we headed back towards Highway 101 and discovered the House of Bread Bakery and Cafe. The interiors smelled delicious! Just outside the open kitchen area, there was a good selection of freshly baked breads and pastries. The staff had us try several of their bread samples, which were so yummy! I ended up buying the chocolate zucchini bread. It contains unbleached flour, zucchini, and cocoa. Donan had no qualms about eating the bread despite the presence of zucchini because of the rich chocolate flavour. The texture was soft, chewy, and easy on the palate after a long drive. Mommy, on the other hand, got a prairie bread. It contains a wheat and rye flour blend, h...

Before we visited Biboy, Barbara, and Gabriel (to give them some macarons from Bouchon Bakery), we made a pit stop at the V Marketplace. I originally just wanted to browse the truffle selections but I found gelato at Kollar Chocolates. View this post on Instagram Sunday afternoon: I went to @kollarchocolates to check out the famous artisanal truffles. But the gelatos caught my attention, so I ended up with stracciatella and vanilla bean scoops in a choco-dipped waffle cone. 😋😋😋 . The wee one was kicking up a storm while I savoured my gelatos; probably will develop a taste for fine dining and high-quality food. . My pregnancy ice cream game is strong. 😅 A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Mar 8, 2020 at 3:58pm PDT The gelato flavours I tried were delicious! Even the wee one seemed to approve, based on how active he was while I was eating my gelato cone. Next time we're back in Yountville, I'm ...

Ever since my professional growth has led me to meet some of the world's best chefs  and my friends and I used to go the extra mile to eat at the best restaurants in the Philippines we could afford (including holes-in-the-wall, take note), I became curious about restaurant with Michelin star ratings. Source: The Michelin Guide's To the Stars and Beyond Because I'm now based in the SF Bay Area, I've been scouting for restaurants with Michelin ratings BUT have remained reasonably priced for regular folk. The first one I tried with Anna (as always, wanting to eat "sa masarap") was Bouchon Bistro in Yountville CA. We ended up talking ad nauseam  about how great the lunch menu was with our parents that they wanted to experience the one-Michelin star dining experience too. Take note that the food options there are within the same price range as the high-quality but not exorbitant restaurants in Concord. In other words, a place we could eat at once ...

Ninang Trining stayed long enough in California to celebrate Christmas with us. Instead of giving gifts, she hosted a family lunch for us. Ate Maddie and I discussed possible restaurant options and decided that introducing the rest of the clan (those who haven't tried it) to Burmese cuisine . Obviously, we still couldn't get over the tea leaf salad and were raring to have the others try it as well.  The restaurant we chose for our family lunch was a restaurant called Burma Unique , which is located in Walnut Creek. The lunch menu already included Jasmine rice, a salad, and a bowl of soup. But because we loved the tea leaf salad, I pre-ordered a few servings of it for the family to share. I just couldn't partake of the salad because I'm not supposed to eat raw vegetables until I give birth.  The kitchen actually ran out of Jasmine rice during the lunch service so the staff started serving us coconut rice and brown rice! I opted to pair my green curry with coconu...

Mommy was watching a "Worth It" food video blog on Youtube by Steven Lim,  Andrew Ilnyckyj, and Adam Bianchi ... something about trying out cakes of different price points baked by various bakeries in SoCal. A few days later, I was  in SoCal, attending Matthew's graduation . Mommy requested me to shop at Porto's, one of the bakeries featured in the video blog, for pasalubong. Biboy already had a ready list of pastries to buy and was just waiting for me to call him up.  I didn't realise just how famous this bakery is until I saw a parking lot sign. It said, "Porto's customers have a two-hour limit in the parking lot", or something to that effect. The queue was that long??? Yes, the bakery was crowded when we arrived. There was a surprisingly long queue for food to-go! I noted that the café was not as filled as the take-out counter when we popped in... perhaps, people buying at the same we were there were more interested in buying pasalubong...

We couldn't get enough of Burmese food... so on Memorial Day, the family (including JP, Ate Maddie, and Kuya Allan this time) trooped to Aung MayLika one more time to savour the unique flavours of Burmese cuisine.  Our lunch started off with lahpet thoke (tea leaf salad), which is a mix of lettuce, tomatoes, nuts, pulses, and fermented tea leaves, with a dash of freshly squeezed lemon juice. According to the server, the salad typically also contains shrimp paste; but because of my allergies, this was removed from the salad. Ate Maddie doesn't like spicy food so the jalapeños were removed as well. This dish was so good... we ordered it three times over the course of our meal! Aside from lahpet thoke, we also had samusas  paired with chili sauce. This is a mix of mashed potatoes, peas, and spices wrapped in a thin wheat-flour pastry sheet and deep-fried. It's savoury but the flavours didn't pack the strong punch I've learned to expect from Indian samosas...

I haven't travelled to Myanmar but I'm intrigued by its cuisine because it sounds like a melting pot containing generous helpings of Thai, Indian, and Chinese cuisine influences. When Biboy proposed that we try Burma Superstar in San Francisco, it opened up a whole new adventure for me and the family.  Burma Superstar ** Ate Maddie took photos of the food via Instagram. See them here . ** This is one of the highly recommended restaurants to visit in San Francisco... and the one that started my journey into discovering Burmese cuisine. We trusted Biboy with the food choice because he's been there before. My two favourite dishes on this trip were: Lahpet thoke  (tea leaf salad). It had romaine lettuce, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, chickpeas, sesame seeds, peanuts, pine nuts, fermented tea leaves, and lemon juice. I was expecting this salad to taste like the salads I've tasted in Thailand but the Burmese have their own unique way of seasoning their food. The ...

Anna insisted that we try this restaurant in Calistoga she had spotted on an earlier trip to the city (while Val and I were in D.C.). So right after seeing Old Faithful , we dropped by Lovina , whose sign promised great food and whose building promised of a cozy dining experience. We just wanted to have a light snack before we drove back to the Bay Area. Lovina was good on all its promises. Though the restaurant had a low ceiling, it didn't feel cramped (but also may because we arrived just before the dinner rush). The spring sunset made the interiors and the food look pretty as well. The staff were friendly too. Most importantly, the food we ordered was delicious.  We started off with a jar of kimchi, which was kind of a surprise because I didn't expect to find Asian influences to Lovina's offerings. It was not as spicy as the kimchi I've tried in Korea  or in the Philippines , even. However, it was a great appetiser since the rest of our food were sav...

The San Francisco Chinatown is touted as the largest Chinese community outside Asia and the oldest one in North America. Based on my experience, frequenting the oldest  Chinatown in the world ( Binondo ) when I was still based in the Philippines, there should be a lot of great restaurants in the Chinatown in SF. But I didn't get a chance to try one out (if I'm not counting the delicious boba tea I bought in a shop near the Dragon Gate ) until one Saturday afternoon when my classmates and I walked from Main Street to Kearny Street in search of affordable noodle soup.  Grace, one of my classmates, directed us to  Joy Hing   BBQ Noodle House  along Kearny St. I chose the pho ga with ginger scallion dip (yes... it looks like the Chinese restaurant is serving up some Vietnamese fare). I have to say that it was the best pho ga I have tasted outside of Hanoi !  Grace and Janel had similar soups but with different noodles while Andrew (our instructor at t...

A few months ago, I wanted to eat at Gallery Vask , only to find out that it was closed for renovation . Little did I know that Chele was actually revamping the Gallery dining experience. And as my days in Manila were winding down, I really wanted to eat there before I left. It was kind of him to arrange a table for me and my friends on opening night; in this particular dining experience, my group included Matty, Man, and Neil (all foodies with different perspectives on food appreciation). Chele now calls the restaurant Gallery by Chele . And with the change in name came a change in concept. He now wants his clients to experience modern cuisine made with local ingredients. It sounds like a passion project done right.  This new restaurant is more cozy and casual, perfect for relaxing dinners with friends. There's more wood and stone installations and the lighting allowed us to see the best angles of our food. Aside from this, we were told that some of the furniture w...

Just a few hours after Ninang Trining and Ninong Romy arrived from their short visit to Australia, I was already inviting them to dinner because I knew that their schedule was very tight for this Philippine stopover... Ninang Trining was participating the next day in an outreach program in Central Luzon the next morning. I'm just not sure if they went back to Tarlac , to the same hospital they visited in 2010.  But because Lola Bats is at a ripe old age of (almost) 102 years, they suggested that we eat dinner at the Mandarin Palace instead of the Black Pig ... the Mandarin Palace is just five minutes away from Lola's place, after all. The place has definitely improved its service by leaps and bounds since the first time I was here. The food was also very delicious. Most importantly, Lola Bats was very happy to see us (I haven't given her her Christmas gift yet... that made her even happier) and I was able to seize the opportunity to spend a bit of time with Nin...

On the long drive south from the Ateneo de Manila University , Neil started sharing stories about dining in some of the world's best restaurants... those that I could only dream of going. We thought that we could eat at Vask , which was closed so we decided to drive further south, to the Black Pig .  It was an interesting experience, eating with a bonafide foodie. He was quite particular with where the vegetables were sourced, for instance. He tasted bitter flavours in the cauliflower, which prompted him to ask where the cauliflowers were sourced. He told me that local cauliflowers were bitter; those from Japan were sweet; US cauliflower tasted "industrial". He also was into beef . Apparently, Kobe beef came in grades; he was willing to pay for the most expensive grades and cuts when he was in Japan. He also bought exorbitantly priced fruit while in Japan: he was willing to shell out $200 each for a melon, a box of cherries, and an apple. He shared stories about the...

"Isang araw na lang, Jollibee nanaman. Ang araw lulubog; bukas mabubusog sa ChickenJoy manok at YumBurger bilog. I love you, Sabado, pati na rin Linggo! Antay ka lang Jollibee, andyan na ako! Panlasang Pilipino, at home sa Jollibee!" Biboy was craving for some langhap sarap goodness because he's already missing it. We met him at Seafood City's Jollibee branch  for dinner. Anna didn't join us because she's reviewing for her certification exam at the time. When we entered Jollibee, the company's jingle when I was a kid suddenly started playing in my head. It reminded me of the time when Saturday and Sunday were exciting because that's when the whole family went to Manila to eat out... yes, back in the day, fastfood chains hadn't penetrated my hometown yet so eating at Jollibee was a whole-day affair in Manila.  A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Jan 19, 2018 at 1:09am PST I guess that's the staying ...

If I kept eating the way I've been eating all that yummy food in India , I'd be fat by now. Note: I am  gaining weight! Indian cuisine proves to be a very interesting and delicious study for me and my teammates in the Drivers of Food Choice project. But at some point during our expert elicitation workshops trip, we had our fill of flavourful and complex Indian food and wanted to calm our palates with food that shocked and awed with the seeming simplicity of its flavours and textures.  With that thought in mind, I discovered that Chef Morimoto, who I know from all the nights I've been watching  Iron Chef , has a restaurant called Wasabi in the hotel we were bunked in in New Delhi!  Subtlety via Japanese food: check!  Quality indicator via the chef's name: check!! It didn't take me a long time to convince Matty and Jhoanne that we should try Wasabi because they were also feeling the effects of eating exclusively Indian food on them. Th...

A few months ago, I brought Biboy to Vask Tapas Bar . He liked the food and enjoyed the place that he made me promise to bring him there again when he visits with Barbara. Of course, I had to oblige! Vask is one of my favourite places to eat in at the Bonifacio Global City.  They just had to try some of my go-to dishes here, like the foie gras on mango toast and the Wagyu beef carpaccio .  I just have to say that a meal that starts with these two dishes cannot go wrong. But we also ventured out with dishes that I tried for the first time during Biboy's visit, like these cochinillo tacos. Since Biboy and Barbara are based in the Bay Area , which is also a melting pot of food, particularly of cuisines within the Americas, it's quite natural that they've tasted better tacos. BUT, these Vask tacos were also delicious, thanks to the tasty pork that was used. This is the first time I've tried the oysters at Vask, I think. It's delicious but it wasn...

I like eating Japanese food. Most of my exposure to the cuisine, though, has been limited to sushi , ramen , and salmon sashimi. So when Arindam invited me to go to dinner at a Japanese restaurant with him and another anthropologist (who is also a bonafide foodie), I was excited. We went to Isshin, which is located along Pasay Road. We had good timing because I was able to park immediately while restaurants in this area typically didn't have enough parking lots for patrons who drove over.  The second anthropologist I met is Gayia Beyer of Havas Media Ortega, a colleague of Arindam's. Aside from introducing Arindam and me to Isshin, she also ordered food to be prepared on a teppanyaki, a steel griddle on which food could be cooked, heated, and served. Another first for me. The nice thing about eating at a teppanyaki table was that we got a close look at how our food was being made. Our friendly chef even customised my food so that I didn't get food allergies...