I'm Totally Wired With "The Wire".

They have been sitting in my dvd shelf for a few years now.  All four seasons of it.  Ever since "The Sopranos" ended, I couldn't find another show that can hook me as much as this one.

Sure I finished "Hung" and "The Good Wife", all them seasons.  "Law And Order" from UK to LA.  But nothing really like how "The Wire" from HBO got me fuckin' addicted.

It's just so well written.  The characters are fully fleshed out.  No pretty faces, no named actors.

Baltimore City is like Manila.  Nothing happens to solving the crime because the government is so fucked up that nothing is really getting done.

Just like "The Sopranos", this show is a slow burn.  No cheap tricks, no plot manipulations and no cliffhangers(at least, not that I'm aware of).  Just total trust on the story and you just ride with it to the end.

Not too many shows are like this anymore.  Some rely on quick jokes, others on sex, some, too, on its fantasy elements or it's computer graphics.  This one is just about people trying to get things done.  And what a wonderful bunch of interesting characters there are.

I am ending my third season.  And I am about to start the fourth one.  I already got the last season.  Even as early as now, like a little boy doing small bites of his favorite chocolate just to prolong having it, I am taking the watching bit by bit because I hate the thought that I am about to finish such a good show and will again start hunting for a new one.  And it's just hard to look for a new tv show to like these days.  Like what happened to me and House.  The first three seasons were great.  I love his cynical, jaded, bitter and arrogant quips.  But as the seasons progressed, he has become too funny and quirky.  He started to lose his angst and his bite.  He has become this cute puppy suddenly.

My favorite characters are McNulty, Omar, Stringer, Prez and the new councilman Carcetti.

I don't really care for Avon Barksdale.  I'm beginning to like Bodie, the street corner punk running at Barksdale's camp.

Seasons 1 and 2 are great!  The 3rd season is like an intro to a big story.  The way it's going now is that they're wrapping up the drug/street angle and is slowly moving into the higher government plot lines.  And anything about government corruption could only be better for any show.

Except for Flor De Luna and Calvento Files, I can't think of any local tv series that had me on a can't-miss mode.  Nothing to drool over.

I remember ABS-CBN doing a lame courtroom drama that has no drama whatsoever.  I think it's called Ipaglaban Mo, way back in the 90's.

All our shows are not into characters and stories.  They're into plot gimmickries like seeing a 2 headed freak in a circus.  No solid story.  They are all scared to invest on a good story.  And they don't want to wait too.  They just want to pile up conflict after conflict hoping their viewers don't switch channels.  You can feel that they don't really care about their stories.  They just care about instant plot twists and turns trying to get ahead of their viewers thinking that's how to get them glued to their sets.

How many times have we seen the plot of the adopted sister who has rich birth parents but ended up in a poor couple's house?  How many times did we see a twin Judy Ann Santos torn apart when they were still babies?  How many big wedding scenes ending in an explosion do we need to see?  How many more newly bought ethnic costume dramas do we need to endure?  How many mansions and scarred faces (using crumpled tissue papers) do we need to see in order to get an honest-to-goodness tv series that is worth spending millions of money to tell a great story that brings out the true Filipino psyche?

I guess not soon.

With the entry of ABC 5 as a major network, I thought that it was going to be a game changer.  I thought that they will be different.  That they'll be the alternative.  Because they can afford to be different because they have good financial backing.  But no.  With the way their shows are going, it seems like they're hitting their competition following the same game plan their competition laid out for them.  The same old soap operas with the same kind of over-the-top plot points and melodramatic tearjerkers that's meant for the dumb and the dumber.

I hate to finish "The Wire".  I hate to be looking for another sensible tv show out there.  "The Good Wife" is just about to start its 3rd season.  Maybe if I watch the remaining episodes of "The Wire" in snail's pace, I can have "The Good Wife" just in time.

If not, I guess I'll be in the cooking channels again.

The Egg

There's no other like it.  


Anthony Bourdain would always ask chefs what their last supper would be. Let's just say I'm one of them and if Tony took the time to ask me the same question as well, my answer would be, somewhere in the clutter of must-eats-before-I-die, egg.  The egg!


Cook it mushy, scrambly wet, sunny side up, over easy, hard boiled, soft boiled.


I remember when I went to Amsterdam somewhere between 1994 and 1995 to subtitle a movie, I stayed in some hostel and their breakfast, as in most parts of Europe, consists mainly of just bread, cold cuts, cheese, orange juice and egg.  Hard boiled egg with a soft center.  I probably embarrassed myself because I'd always eat 3 or 4 of those soft centered shit each time I had breakfast.  And this was way before news of its cholesterol content ruined my little egg's rep.


And even when news came out of some health scientists findings that a chicken egg has so much cholesterol especially the yolk(why is it that all the best part of food is always the most unhealthy?), I can still eat 2 or 3 eggs a day and I wouldn't feel an ounce of guilt whatsoever.


On breakfast buffets, even if there are loads of other stuff I haven't yet tasted, I'd really fill up my plate with either an omelette or those runny scrambled eggs.  That's first things first.  For omelette, I love those mushroom and cheese combos.  The cheese that's either gruyere or emmental, nutty and slightly bitter.  I could just eat that for breakfast.  No meats, no fancy jams or healthy yoghurts.  Just plain eggs and bread.
And lots of butter, of course.  And with a dose of heavy caffeine to go with it.


I can't have just one egg.  I grew up with two eggs on my plate each time.  My family always have two eggs on their plates, too.  Sunny side up mostly.  


When my dad gets his eggs, he uses his spoon and fork to slice the egg to pieces using it like a knife constantly crisscrossing the spoon and fork until it's cut into little bits and the yolk and the whites are mixed evenly.  On a busy morning, the neighbors could hear this cacophony of percussive spoons and forks slicing the eggs on the plate with me and my siblings going at the cutting with intent to kill.  Actually, it was only when I moved to Manila that I've found out that such a routine of slicing the eggs without any care for the world is rude to other people.  But for me and my sibs, that's music to our ears.


Sometimes, one would think that they have tasted every way there is to cook an egg.  But there is one way to cook an egg in Thailand that got me looking for it when I got back to Manila.  They cook the scrambled egg on high heat and come up with a sort of dried out, overcooked plain omelette and then they serve it with their classic Thai condiment of lime, nam pla and chopped chilis.  Shit, it was so good!  I was eating the egg with rice with no other dishes with it.  Just egg and rice with that sauce.  Fuck!  Of course, I tried it at home and I didn't get it.  Sorry me!  Now, I just daydream once in awhile about  it, doing a bit of Lee Strasberg Method sense memory thingy just to scramble through my memory bank and get back the exact taste of that heavenly egg dish!  And memories can fade...sob, sob, sob.


But, like all success stories, when you're down and crawling on the pavement trying to get back the glory days of that one Thai egg dish you tasted, here comes along another egg dish that erases all desperate wanting you have for that spicy Bangkok egg.  This time, it's a Chinese concoction!


In front of Rockwell, in a small street in a plush Makati village, there is a house that serves home-cooked Chinese dishes.  I know what you guys are thinking, it's not that over-rated Som's, sorry.  Hell, I don't even know the name of this restaurant/carinderia.  Anyway, they serve this scrambled egg dish with spring onions.  That's it!  Eggs...and spring onions!  Puta!  The best!  Of course, maybe there's a dash of glutamate umami thing there somewhere but who cares!  I like vetsin!  It tastes so good!  Again, have it with just rice!  Piping hot rice!


Now, for the sophisticated in the palate who wants their egg dish a bit expensive, there is this beautiful, comforting egg dish at Lusso in Greenbelt 5.  It's the egg en cocotte.  Simply, a baked egg with a soft center with some surprise at the bottom when you dig your spoon deep into the baking dish.  I only tried the one with foie gras and I keep coming back to have it each time.     


I have a secret to tell you that I would not dare say if I wasn't proven right.  I love my eggs served as the main ingredient.  An egg dish with just butter and toast.  But the secret cooking for my perfect egg is really a sunny side up with the whites burned on the edges but the yolk is still wet and medium rare.  


All these years, I thought that I am enjoying my sunny side up eggs but cooking it wrong and I don't dare tell anyone about it..  I thought that if the chefs of the world that I respect and worship eat breakfast at my table and I cook the same egg, they'd sneer at my preparation and tell me that for someone who claims to adore eggs, I don't really know how to cook one.  


But no, I was wrong...er, right.  Until recently, browsing through the upcoming books at Amazon, I chanced upon the latest cookbook from the best chef of the world, Ferran Adria.  Flipping through the 3-page preview of his latest book, The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria, I saw his sunny side up recipe for the glorious egg.  And, he too, just like me, prepares his egg with the overcooked crispy edges and the soft yolk center.  God damn!  That's Ferran, man!  And we cook our eggs the same way!  No, shit!


I love eggs!  I love everything about it.  Seeing it makes my day bright and sunny, pardon the pun.  Fluffy whites with that ultra-dainty yellow center looking right back at you almost like greeting you a good morning.  Too bad that it has suffered the wrath of those stupid food scientists over the years and I sure hope that my beloved egg recovers from it.  


Oh, egg!  I know that the white hates to be separated from its yolk.  Each time an omelette is made using only the whites of the egg, somewhere there in the dark recesses of the kitchen in some dunk bin there is a yolk weeping at being left out and unwanted.  Don't worry, my darling.  So long as you're in my household, in the egg tray of my cold ref, whether you're organic or not, you will always have a place in my dining table.  You are family.  And even as I grow old, alone, diabetic or arthritic and all, I will be with you 'til the day I die.  You will be at my last supper, remember? 

My 5 Favorite Comfort Restaurants

Nanbantei.  I could eat here everyday.  No frills Japanese grill house at the 3rd level of Greenbelt 3 Makati.  

     Favorite items:

•  shake onigiri (rice with salmon)
•  best seller platter- a combination of chicken and pork grilled meats.  Chicken wings  and any  of the grilled pork are great.
•  tori platter- everything chicken.  Chicken ass is the best.  And the skin too!
•  vegetable appetizer with the tangy-smoky Japanese sauce.  Jikama, carrots and cucumber         
•  grilled shitake mushrooms

Luk Foo Shabu-Shabu Restaurant.  Eat here when you don't have anything scheduled after.  Why?  Because you'll smell of food when you get out of the place.  This is located anywhere where there is Pure Gold supermarkets.

     Favorite Items:

• all kinds of balls in the shabu-shabu + fresh leafy greens
• crispy beancurd skin (dunk it in the broth and it's unforgettable)
• prawns sauteed in salted eggs

Gustavus Steakhouse.  Simple, clean, fresh tasting food.  F and M Lopez Building, Carlos Palanca St.  The best steak in Manila!  

     Favorite Items:

• ceasar salad (their lettuce is grilled.  Nice smoky veggie)
• fresh oysters mixed with casino oysters
• steak, of course

Abe.  I'm not the pinoy-food kinda guy but Abe, I'll go to anytime.  You just need to be with a big group each time you eat here because the servings are a lot and also, so you can order more than two dishes for sharing.

     Favorite items:

• kilawin tanguigue (make sure that it's prepared fresh).  I returned my other orders on this because the fish has been prepared in advance and the vinegar already cooked the fish.
• bicol express.  All veggies with only shrimp.  No pork.  Shit, I can eat two orders of this!
• bamboo rice.  I hate fancy rice but this one works with the viands.
• chicharon bulaklak.  How could you go wrong!

Shang Palace Makati.  Eat-all-you-can dimsum lunch time.  Weekdays.  I simply love dimsum!  The Chinese version of a Spanish Tapas bar.  From 11:30 to 2:30.

     Favorite items:

• taro puff
• all kinds siomai
• congee