Mr. Kim Bop

My lunch today was at Mr. Kim Bop. A Korean restaurant that served just so-so food - plain and ordinary - nothing to write home about kinda-food.

Anyways, Gentley joined for lunch together with Mimi. As always, Jimmy drove us to the mall. We decided to hit the food court of SM-Makati. Mimi however, decided to get a to-go order from Delifrance for her salmon salad and joined us in the foodcourt for lunch.

Gentley was relaying to us the story of his cousin's death during the weekend. Alledgedly, many believed that the late Ana (his cousin) did not commit suicide at all, but rather may have been a murder victim. The alledged perpetrator is no other than the husband. Anyways, to make the riveting story short, Ana was married to a Neri from Cebu whose family was also related to the Garcia's, a huge and highly political family in Cebu. It was noted that the political family also owns Sunstar, a local publication in the Visayas.

Ana was described as a poet, journalist and a contributor to the local newspaper who adored diving. As a poet, she joined the prestigious Carlos Palanca competition for her poems but was only adjudged 2nd place. I thought, that's a great feat already, considering that so many talented individuals do not even get the chance to be entered in that awards.

Ana's story was a bit complicated as the husband's family brought in the NBI for the documentation of the case. It was alledged that maybe the Neri family must have some connections in the NBI as it is not normal to go directly to the NBI for domestic cases, but rather, that case would have been referred to the local police. Well, to complicate things further, the family of Gentley was related to the Police Superintendent in Cebu City, which prompted them to bring the guy along. The presence of the police superintendent added tension to the otherwise sensitive situation, as the husbands' family felt they're not trusted by the family of the deceased. Well, the story has the trappings of a soap opera complete with an evil mother in-law, dreams and sightings of the deceased to their love ones, different versions of the story by the husband on how he discovered the body, etc. etc.

Well, back to my lunch. I had the set meal with tempura, jap chae (the potato noddles), sauteed bean sprouts, egg and tofu soup and a cup of rice. I ordered on the side, samurai balls and bottled of mineral water.

The soup was good and the noodles was ok. It is not as good as the jap chae of Kaya though. The shrimp tempura was a bit hard, I mean the batter did not resemble the japanese style that I am accustomed to. (Note to self, why order tempura in a Korean resto?) The samurai balls was wanting a little spicyness. At the end of the routine, I felt like I need to eat something more.

Hence, at the egging of Gentley, we ordered Halo-halo at Razon's. Oh, as always, it was heavenly. The carabao's milk was just creamy and the crushed ice, melt's in your mouth. I loved the leche flan as well together with the sweetened bananas, and other beans that got added into my halo-halo cup.

Well, I spent Php137 for my Korean meal and another Php65 for my Razon's halo-halo. I will call it another day in paradise. I really need to watch out for my weight, my tummy seemed to buldged a little bigger each day.

I asked Jimmy as well, during the lunch break to bring my car to the vulcanizing shop. I noticed, it was punctured by some nail which makes my tire to ran flat at the end of the day. It was my second time visiting the nearest gas station to pump more air into my tire.

Gentley suggested that I should try out using Nitrogen instead of the ordinary air to inflate my tire. Nitrogen being bigger in molecule size (I don't know what I'm talking about here?)does not escape so easily hence, I don't need to check for pressure as often as using ordinary air. O Drive and Bridgestone do inflate tires using Nitrogen. At O Drive, according to Gentley, the charge is something like Php50 per tire with free top-ups. Bridgestone charges twice the amount though. I will think about it.