Now that all of the news has gotten old, I can finally blog about it. After hours on end of work…making salads, running to check if the buffet is good, transporting bowls and plates of food up and down a cliff, Juday’s wedding was definitely a catering for the books. Not only was it something that felt impossible to pull off, it was an entirely different event altogether.
But I am not going to write and entry about that. I think the pictures would be enough on how work hard, play hard everyone was from the students down to the service. I want to write about the fabulous discovery we made because of this trip to Balai, Batangas…or the trip back rather
We were all VERY hungry. At one point my dad was entertaining the thought of just stopping by some fastfood and getting a quick bite just to get us out of the hunger and traffic…but with a trip back as special as this…that would be boring. So we drove, we drove hours on end trying to get our way out of batangas and hopefully finding some magical place that would make the entire gut-wrenching trip back home worthwhile.
And there it was…right in front of a batangas sports complex…The 4 very large and distinct kalderos stood in front of this hole in the wall, the place was buzzing with eaters..and their bowls of whatever it was that came from the pots. Instantly, I knew it was lunch time!
The place had a sign outside “Jorjhane’s Lomi House Eatery” and below was quite a long list of products listed under “specialty”. The place was painted yellow, and inside were these massive pictures of “lomi”, “soup # 5” and bulalo. My dad quickly trotted to the counter and began pointing on everything that looked good. Our chefs and I and the drivers looked like a bunch of hungry vikings waiting for food. As soon as the first lomi landed on the table, we had to order 2 more.
Lomi: thick eggnoodles with this thick sauce that resembled maki. It had cutlets of crispy pork, vegetables, quail eggs and an extremely generous mount of chicharon on top. This was the best lomi I had ever tasted. There were tiny pieces of liver. The texture was perfect, the taste was unforgettable. It just makes my mouth water till now.
Bulalo: definitely, the stock had been simmered for hours on end. The meat and bulalo was slowly cooked and was fork tender. There were tendons that were deliciously crisp which hung onto the giant beef bone. The vegetables were still crisp, like it was just cooked in the stock when we ordered it. It had lots of fat but I didn’t care. It even had a lovely, buttery taste (take note, buttery and not margarine-y). Eating so much of this one made me dizzy, but it was so good, I’d risk my heart for a day. Along with a little fish sauce, calamansi and chopped chili…it was risk-able!
Soup #5. It had a perfectly had-boiled egg on top. It had those wonderful pieces of innards that you could only distinguish from the texture. Perfectly salted, and they probably used part of the stock from the bulalo, this was the first soup #5 I’ve tasted and I liked it a lot.
We came out of the “eatery” with a smile. Up until now, I am still looking for an excuse to go back to batangas and do something “official” just to be able to go back and have the soups! What a wonderful discovery we made!
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