Sunday, January 11, 2009

Garando's Kawawang Trip to Batangas City - part 2

read part one

Our drive to Batangas city was like a scene from one of my favorite cartoons. That scene where a little raincloud would persistently follow Wile E. Coyote, dropping rain and lightning wherever he went.

The weather was so wet & gloomy that the only stopovers we made were at restrooms, washrooms, and toilets. We even had to buy a Kit-Kat to cheer us up.

No matter, after about 3 hours and a few wrong turns we finally reached our objective.

NSO 01

NSO 02

Boy, was this NSO office tough to find! After all that searching apparently it was just right between the garbage dump and the two homeless dudes. Who would've thought of that? They should've just given me those landmarks instead of the postal address. It would've been easier to find...


After finishing our business with the NSO, Garandee and I hit the road again. It was getting late, but we were determined to experience an authentic Batangas Bulalo!

Bulalo Restaurant

We checked out "Grace - Sister of Rose" Restaurant after seeing 3 vehicles parked outside. If these people were eating Bulalo and rice at 4:00PM, then it must be good!

There were about three big families in the restaurant feasting on a humongous bowl of Bulalo: Generous portions of vegetables and beef shanks boiled for hours in a delicious beef broth.

But when we got served, we ended up with this...

bulalo 01
Bulalito (Bulalo Jr.)

Garandee and I just sat there, staring at it. Is this a joke or is it because there were only two of us, so we got a bowl half the size of the one the families had? It didn't even have any vegetables in it! I felt like reporting Grace to her sister Rose because I don't remember seeing a "Mini-Bulalo" on the menu. In fact, I don't even remember seeing a menu. I just told them I wanted Bulalo.

Out of sheer greed, I asked the waitress to be fair and serve us THE Bulalo. She took our bulalito away and came back with this...

bulalo 02

Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! It was Bulalo with the works! We finally felt like we belonged. We felt accepted in the Bulalo eating society of Batangas City.

bulalo 03

So how did it score? Well the broth was great, it tasted fresh. The meat was a little tough, I was hoping it would fall off the bone but I ended up struggling to slice the meat off with a tiny bread knife. Garandee on the other hand, was watching me mutilate that bone, realizing that she married a savage Neanderthal.

There was no way I could finish it... Garandee ate mostly vegetables like a good vegetarian. We just had the bone put in a doggie bag and brought it home.

Well that's it folks! That just about sums up our kawawang trip.

Total time on the road: 5.5 hours
Total time in Batangas City: 50 minutes


Garando mode:
My butt's still flat from all that driving...

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

what the!!??
It's right you asked the waitress to replace it...it's not bulalo eh, it's more of nilagang baka hehehe!!!

Natawa naman ako sa landmark mo for the NSO Office lolz :)

Anonymous said...

"Total time on the road: 5.5 hours
Total time in Batangas City: 50 minutes
Garando mode:
My butt's still flat from all that driving..."

I feel the pain, my friend hahaha. Hirap talaga magdrive :) Buti na lang may bulalo ka by the end ;-)

Garando said...

@Jeanny
LOL! You are so right about the bulalito! Para ngang nilagang baka! Mukha yata kaming mahina kumain kaya siguro yun ang binigay. :D

@Jonie
Yup, yung Bulalo na naging pinaka highlight ng trip namin. :D
Grabe traffic sa SLEX because of the ongoing construction eh.

Anonymous said...

Rose and Grace are famous in Batangas. They have restaurants everywhere. Meron din yan Rose & Grace na restaurant. :) But what a nice treat...bulalo on a cold day! Sarap! :)

I agree with jeannie...funny yung landmark ng NSO. Baka mas madali pa mahanap ano, kung yun ang ginamit nila. :)

AngelMD-No-More said...

hahahaha nice name you have there for the mini-bulalo...bulalito...hahahaha didnt you eat the marrow, manong? ohhhh so sinful....all the cholesterol and stuffs? namets!hehehe reminds me of the kansi here at sharyns at shopping minus the veggies though...i guess you're familiar with it.hehehe

Garando said...

@Kg
It's interesting how they name their restaurants "Rose & Grace", "Grace Sister of Rose", and there's probably a "Rose Sister of Grace"! I hope they open up a small resto in Manila and call it "Neneng Yaya of Rose & Grace". :)

@AngelMD
How can I let the marrow go to waste? Shempre I scooped every bit of that sucker out of the bone! Namets Guid! I felt queasy after leaving the resto though. :D
Oh, I miss Kansi! Thanks for reminding me, I'll go eat at Marina next week! It's the only place I know that serves good Kansi, but Sharyn's and Conee's are still THE BEST!

lenj said...

Garando mode:
My butt's still flat from all that driving..."

i feel for you Garando! kami naman 2.5hrs sometimes even 3 hours kami nakaupo sa byahe pauwi laguna! ewan ko ba kung kailan matatapos ang SLEX na yan. good thing may bulalito-turned-bulalo. ^__^

Dennis Villegas said...

Excellent travelogue, Garando! Parang pang-Lonely Planet ang narrative. I enjoy your write-ups a lot ;)
Hi to Garandee!

Dennis Villegas said...

Only I will skip that Bulalo if it was not so tender. Maybe the best Bulalo is in the Tagaytay Highlands ;)

Anonymous said...

Lol! I swear, your blog never fails to make me collapse into laughter. Bulalito... I should remember that.

Speaking of bulalo, shouldn't the heart stopping place be @ Leslie's? But the one I know is in tagaytay, unfortunately.

Happy bulaloful day then :)

Anonymous said...

eh, forgot, listening to a song right now that reminded me of you.... Over Tokyo by Collective Soul. Kinda folkish but for soem reason it works for me ;)

Anonymous said...

Akala nga yata nila Rose at Grace, mahina kayong kumain, ergo, the Bulalito. But still, you're both paying customers so dapat fair. Mas masarap pa yata ang Bulalo ng Leslie's sa Tagaytay kesa kina Sister of Rose na si Grace.

Garando said...

@Lenj
OO nga eh, nahihilo ako sa pa sikot-sikot ng lane sa bandang Laguna. Hopefully SLEX won't charge us 3X higher pag natapos na yung gawa. :D

@Dennnis
Thank you for your nice comment! I'm glad you are enjoying my little stories. :D
Wow! Thanks for the reco, Tagaytay Highlands ba naman, siguradong masarap yan!! :D I haven't tried their bulalo yet, but I also heard their steak's excellent! Meron kayang bulalo sa SM MOA branch nila? Hmmm...

@Twishinky
LOL! If you look closely at the pic with the signage, Leslie's yung nasa likod nila. We wanted to go to there first pero walang kumakain eh, so nag Grace na lang kami. Will try Leslie's next! :)
I used to listen to Collective Soul a lot! Is that a new song? Will check it out! Ma Google nga... Check out rin my flash music player, you might find some good stuff there.

@Dyosa
OO nga raw... Sige will definitely try Leslie's next time we go to Tagaytay! :) In fairness nag half-rice lang ako dun sa Grace. LOL!

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Anonymous said...

I was laughing my heart out reading this post, bulalito, haha... good thing after asking for justice, you were given what you ordered: bulalo! Haha... coolness.

Garando said...

@Siriam
Thanks for dropping by and for adding me to your blog list. :)

@Sheng
Yeah, we were shocked talaga kase around our table were huge servings of bulalo. Samin, bulalito. Kala ko pa nga na "Wow Mali" kami eh. :D

Alice said...

I would also attack just the vege if I were eating that dish...

Jenny said...

hi! stumbled upon your blog and i enjoyed reading your posts! :D i've several japanese friends and a pinoy friend with a japanese wife! will share your blog with him. btw, where'd you get that "mood" moving avatar? (is that the right term?)

Garando said...

@AliceTeh
Yeah, I totally understand. That huge chunk of beef hardly looks appetizing... LOL! :D I probably do have strong carnal instincts to be able to eat it.

@Crazydigger
Hello! I am so delighted that you enjoyed my blog. Thanks for sharing it with your friends, I hope you all do visit regularly!

Yup, "Mood" works! :) Somebody emailed me those cute GIF's before I even started this blog. Unfortunately I have no idea who the author is, so I'm not sure who to give credit for it...

Anonymous said...

hi,

i was trying to find directions to grace sis of rose when i saw your blog.

can you give directions on how to get there? we are planning to be heading towards batangas next week.

you can reply to me through edwink@skybroadband.com.ph

Thanks
Edwin

BatangasNgaun said...

It looks delicious can somebody give direction were planning to head to agoncillo batangas and hoping to drop by to that place

Annie said...

Try to visit again in batangas city.. and taste once more the watery mouth feeling of bulalo, sometimes those long drives will fade again once you taste the bulalo here..

Unknown said...

masarap ang bulalo nmen dito sa batangas

im proud to be batangueno

Unknown said...

natikman ko na ang bulalo sa Santo Tomas,Taal,Talisay at Tanauan. naging paborito ko agad. sarap talaga ng pagkain sa batangas!

Unknown said...

natikman ko na ang bulalo sa Santo Tomas,Taal,Talisay at Tanauan. naging paborito ko agad. sarap talaga ng pagkain sa batangas!