Maria Cut My Evening Walk Short

After office evening walk, sosy ako this evening, Ortigas Center eh! Not that I crave to live anywhere in Metro Manila again.., but at times I feel this little 'kick' at being back and walking around like a tourist!

So there I went, strolling along a pre-determined route: from Holiday Inn, walk eastwards along Garnet Road, turn right at Emerald Ave., right again at Ortigas Park straight to Opal Road, another right turn at ADB Ave., and back to Holiday Inn Manila Galleria! That's only about 1km, but a pleasing enough stroll.

But.., the only thing constant in this world is change, right? Indeed it is. And it happened tonight!

As I stood at the sidewalk of Citiland Grand Emerald Tower (Emerald cor Garnet), I looked diagonally across to that fairly new Eton Emerald Lofts (I often passed here when it was still being constructed) and wondered how their condo units looked like (I like lofts). So I crossed perchance get information!

Eto na.., at ground-level corner of the building, I saw this homey-looking restaurant named Maria's..,

It didn't look 'very' native-Pinoy in furnishings, but it's some kind of a fusion of Filipino dwellings of the past - like extensive use of wood and earthen colors. And it didn't look like high-end too. Casual lang!

Make the long story short.., I cut the walk short.., entered the restaurant in my shorts, and.., voila!

I peeped at their menu, aba Pinoy nga! they have rice meals at almost tapsilogan rates, 140 to 190!

Nag-dinner na hahaha! Oh eh bakit ba, I intended to have 'silog' at Army Navy for dinner anyway!

'Di masarap? Walang gana? Masakit ang ngipin? You be the judge, ba't dumating ito, eh mag-isa ako!

Yes, I was alone (as usual).., but my table eventually looked like 'namamangka sa dalawang ilog'!

Look at the arrows I drew on the pic! Dark-blue arrow (at left) points to my original order (that's fish). The red arrow (at right) points to longganisa, which came from that 'other' plate above (yellow arrow)!

There's a saying.., 'if you use two plates in one meal, you'll never be married'. Da!

And I stayed on for more of SML after the mealS - plural, dalawang order eh! So, what happened to my walk? Wala na, hahaha! This place is less than 300 meters on Garnet Road from Galleria. So, yun lang ang nilakad ko! I got back to my hotel room at about 2300H! Eh I started on my stroll at nearly 1900H.

So, 600 meters in 4 hours? Nice wonderful walk hahaha! Si Maria kasi eh, hehehe!