THE HAUNTING IN PANAY AVENUE (Roces, Cubao III and Binondo)

The Holy Man from Brussels was in Bacayao with a bottle of blended holy water by himself to bless The Unholy gathered for a drink in that unholy hour while somewhere, the disgraced reporter and fake visionary from Banfield shared a plate of lechon, inihaw na pabo, adobong kambing and kalderetang manok tagalog while being serenaded with a Hillbilly Elegy by a two-man band from Kentucky's hill country and a strip of Ohio's Rust Belt.

Sure, the Black Crab from Sweden painted Wednesday night's barbecue and isaw with Munoz green but it was in Pochok Bangusan where Don Alejandro Roces wrote the story of a grilled milkfish drowned in a green tomato-celery (and bits of onion) garnish and drunk memories from the kitchen of Ihaw Balot Plaza that was displaced by baked green mussels and calamares from the paluto stalls of the Dampa sa Farmers Market in gentrified Cubao.   

Thus was how the cards played in Panay Avenue when the Snowpiercer reached Manila as LRT 2 but Jolly Dada Eatery's palabok and halo-halo were gone when it reached Recto via MRT 3 and LRT 1  where the saints of Tayuman played with the surgical tools from Bambang before Melanie's coup d'etat in Episode 9 of Season 3 and a lunch of Delicious' chami, asado and dry kikiam in Binondo as Room 101 was finally secured and furnished. 

Thus was how Part 1 of Season 4 concluded  when the citizens of Ozark descended upon the SIDCOR Sunday Market for an all-Ilocano breakfast of inferior dinakdakan, authentic dinardaraan and tinuno nga tarong nga naidumudom ti bugguong.   

On this week, the Phantom Biker left the pieces of broken friendships along his usual trails before escaping the weariness of the pandemic with a third trip to the capital and returning to the company of real friends and a really good bilao of pansit malabon that will put Pastora and Jolly Dada to shame.   

THE COMING OF SIDCOR (Kapitolyo II, Cubao II and Quiapo)

The Snowpiercer first detected a weak signal from the Five Star bus to Cubao but it was enough for Hopp Inn and Red Planet-Aurora to confirm that the SIDCOR Sunday Market is back in Episode 8 of Season 3! 

This was leaked to the shady residents of Ozark who then recruited the Kill Team from Afghanistan to have Ben and Helen liquidated so Wyatt can continue fucking Darlene for the perverse enjoyment of Sgt. Deeks in Season 3.

It was a Sunday morning when the Phantom Biker reached Eton Centris, an hour before the bus trip to Bambang but enough for Bulan to snare a breakfast of igado, inihaw na talong and Lechon Bicol Express from the food stalls.

SIDCOR came four days after a feast of nilagang mani, pritong tilapia, kinilaw na tuna and sisig with the Thursday Group of Bakal 2, almost 23 days after a Winter on Fire and Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, and three days after a lunch of lechong kawali and tinolang manok in East Kamias and a dinner of a delighful pork barbecue and pansit bihon at the Three Sisters Restaurant of Pasig (circa 1941) in Kapitolyo. 

Before SIDCOR, the Phantom Biker took Track 3 from Don Francisco Ortigas Sr.'s estate to reminisce William James Shaw teeing off for Mayor Bonifacio Javier's war medals and a pew in Sen. Nicolas Buendia's independent church where the Zobel de Ayalas venerate Fernando de Magallanes for claiming the Philippines (and esuring their fortune) which William Howard Taft would rule as Civil Governor while in Track 1, Sen. Gil Puyat traded some of his Loyola companies for a membership in Mayor Hermogenes Vito Cruz's Church of the Katipunan, an arrangement that Pres. Elpidio Quirino relayed to Dr. Pedro Gil for legislation in the National Assembly as the bust of the original rebel priest stared hard in contempt.  

 

Some of them are of the Craft where the Phantom Biker attended to one last unfinished business before time travelling in 1851 to Capitan General Francisco Carriedo's time as he was establishing the Quinta Market where the halo-halo would later evolve from the mitsumame that Pastora Special Palabok paired with what is said to be the best pancit palabok in Manila to which I strongly disagree. 

Bulan boarded the train on SIDCOR's Eve for a clearance sale and food crawl along old Echague where the aroma of baking bread announced that Vienna Bakery's hot pandesal is ready to be filled with sweet scraps from Excelente's pineapple ham that has been curing since 1963 and between the bakery and the meat shop, Ong Pei Pee has been pugon-baking a flaky pastry for the Kim Chong Tin Hopia Factory since 1927, a brunch set that went quite well with a bowl of beef mami with a bland soup but al dente egg noodles.

They parted under the shadow of Doroteo Jose's anti-church sentiments: Bulan through the remembrances of Sen. Claro M. Recto, Amb. Benito Legarda, Chief Justice Victorino Mapa, Katipunero Juan Ruiz, Vice Governor-General Eugene Allen Gilmore and Publisher Betty Go-Belmonte on the way to Cubao; the Phantom Biker to Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos and Gen. Ricardo Papa who escorted him to the watchmaker of North Avenue.   

That night, the Phantom Biker walked Bulan through the class divide of Friday night specials in Cubao --- first to the working class enclave of the Araneta Times Square Food Park where a serving of dinakdakan and two pieces each of grilled isaw and bulaklak washed down with cold Red Horse extra strong beer is a filling meal for just P400; then to Fred's Revolucion at the yuppie neighborhood of nearby Cubao Expo where three bottles of San Miguel pale pilsen, a plate of average Hoi Chi Wings and Bellini's overrated special pizza cost almost a grand. 

The SIDCOR Suday Market is 167 kilometers aways from bike trails of Munoz where the Phantom Biker rewinded the week's voluptuous images of the MILF from Bakal 2 four days before D-Day... 

THE EPIPHANY (How We Ate Kapitolyo, Sta. Cruz and Cubao)

The darkness of Ozark enveloped the Temple in Baloc as Marty, Wendy and the Snells battled the cartel of a scornful lackey and his deceiful tattler who in Season 2 laundered rumors into truth to plague Layton's dream with discord and conspiracy theories.

In protest, the Phantom Biker took to the bus with an unexpected detour in Baliuag which brought him to a refuge in Ortigas where the Snowpiercer collected garbage in Kapitolyo for Episode 7 of Season 3 in exchange for a dinner of nasi goreng with sate ayam, sop buntut and pecel lele after a sinadag of pritong tilapya and tokwa't baboy from the Thursday Group of Bakal 2.

Warung was a long walk from the blue colors of the Hop Inn Hotel, almost Jakarta but not quite, the main course after Thursday's lunch of xialongbao, shaomai and braised beef with soy sauce from LaoBeijing in Makati that was the entree for Friday's lunch of a Kebab Platter (beef and chicken, saffron rice, grilled onion and tomato) from Arabo Knights in Quezon City after a breakfast of Kanto Freestyle's Vigan longganisa and crispy corned beef balls in Kapitolyo.  

Perhaps, the misdeed on St. Piran's feast day is a calling to cut clean and join Harriet in Minty's Underground Railroad to Philadelphia, a most likely prospect divined at Poco Deli in Kapitolyo during a dinner of Nurnberger Breakfast, half of a pastrami sandwich and a delectable bowl of callos where Saturday's viewing of the house along Legarda Street in Sampaloc was hatched, a train ride from Cubao to Recto to the peculiar Maria Clara Church in Concepcion Street where Aglipayan saints were tempted by the aroma of cooking fried chicken, pancit canton and lumpiang shanghai from the Ramon Lee Panciteria in Sta. Cruz. 

"So My Wonderful Life in the Craft came down to this" mulled the Phantom Biker as Jo soothed him with an assortment of grilled meat from the Times Square Food Park at the Araneta Center, her secret apartment in Nysa insipiring him to enlist Valentin of The Parisian Agency in finding a "small gem with sweeping views" at the Ile Saint-Louis where he can entertain true friends in Season 2 with servings of fully loaded nachos from Cubao Expo's INT.Bar and breakfast plates from Tropical Hut.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, life is a bike trail, and you never know where you're going which can be a paved road in Matingkis adorned with sunflowers, a dusty trail through the ricefields of Mapak-ol, a hidden pond along a river in Gabaldon or the steep climbs of the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes et du Var and Tour de la Provence where Nario Quintana scored back-to-back victories before settling for a 5th place finish at Paris-Nice.     

THE BETRAYAL OF THE TRAIL PIERCER

Mr. Wilford is the Lord of the Snowpiercer in Season 1, all 60 carriages of it and 5 years after CW-7 froze the world, but it was the Head of Hospitality that drives the Eternal Engine, the scheming Voice of the Train who ambushed the Train Detectives 10 days before the Ides of March when Big Alice and 40 more cars were pulled by the Brakemen in Season 2 that resulted in a resignation and a walk out into the New Eden of Season 3 where true friends reminisce the pandemic over pork barbecue, lamb curry, imitation pigar-pigar and kinilaw na tanigue, and a really good pot of sotanghon guisado. 

And there was Thursday's Season 2 of the Swap Shop when the MILF of Bakal 2 flashed Tori's leg from a kitchen that smelled of the night's pinangat na ayungin, ginataang langka, samgyupsal gui and nilagang mani, prelude to an unexpected meeting among the Vikings of Valhalla that was convened by the Greenlander and the Last Daughter of Uppsala by baring her tits for Friday's fried Spam and the good intentions that were derailed in Baloc on Saturday.

In Chicago, Bruce was the Head of Hospitality whose schemes exiled the Byrdes to Ozark where the Phantom Biker from Bakal 2 pierced through the trails of Munoz and a highway between Lupao and Umingan as Wendy's ass was slapped by a money launderer while at the Lickety Splitz, neon images of the blowjobs Marty could have had from Ruth and Rachel flashed around the strippers' stage.