Friday, November 08, 2013

FROM FISH HEADS IN MANILA TO POTATO PANCAKES IN WARSAW

It must be the wear-and-tear of 43 years.

Or the 3-days-and-2-nights in the hospital and a draconian no-fat-and-alcohol diet imposed in its aftermath.

The burden and reluctance of travelling has never been this pronounced as starkly illustrated by the boiled eggs and tomatoes I have to do for breakfast while Moi and Bong feasted on an additional platter of fried dried fish swimming in a vinegar-garlic dip and fried eggplants liberally drenched in a bagoong-and-calamansi dressing during a pit stop in Zaragoza.

Manila is more forgiving as we lunched in equal footing on huge bowls of fish heads in sour broth that were surgically deconstructed into bits and heaps of bones even a cat will find too clean to eat.

Then a total culinary self-flagellation on air as meat was discarded in favor of a tasteless combo of boiled broccoli and young corn during the Manila-Taipei leg, a more palatable bit of baked potato cubes minus the chicken somewhere above China then a sausage-less breakfast of an egg omelet just before touchdown in Amsterdam, and finally a welcome egg sandwich on the connecting flight to Warsaw.

The cold and dank Polish weather does not help.

But the waiter at the Hotel Metropol restaurant did with his recommendation of a Polish dish of potato pancakes with spinach in feta cheese when I told him I don't eat meat...

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