Breakfast + Bahay Kubo in my Bahrain trip

No, it is not raining in Saudi Arabia. Not yet anyway.

This is a picture of how humid it is here. Just like a steam room in the gym, the water condensates on the windows making the weather uncomfortable and the air hard to breathe. My toxins are being released, yes, but does it have to be done so excruciatingly? I am blessed with genes that encode my body not to sweat profusely but with this humidity it's impossible not to.

My little rant. But this is also a picture of me inside the Dining Hall, where a couple off days ago I had a perfect breakfast by myself at 7 in the morning. Gives me time to think, read, and chill, literally - before I have to go out and brave the natural steam room outdoors.




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Breakfast is the top meal of my day. I'm one of those people who can have it morning, noon, 4;00 PM or midnight. A lot of my friends find it quite disgusting, but I love it. And what I love most of all is a nice, crispy, golden brown waffle with small squares, not the Belgian waffle types. The only place I've seen this type of waffle is surprisingly here in Saudi Arabia. There is no IHOP, Baker's Square, Marie Callendar's, or Denny's that carries this type of waffle in the States. This was the waffle I grew up eating at the Dining Hall here in Aramco.

Small squares is the way to go

There's just more crispiness in the waffle, which is the type of texture a waffle should have. Plus, you don't have to use as much syrup as with a Belgian waffle, so you're actually eating better. [Yeah, that is my rationalization and I'm sticking to it.] Another dish on the menu:

One egg white omelette with everything, please.

This one has mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, and low-fat cheese. Surprisingly good. It was the best way to start the day doing errands in Aramco. Waffles definitely a 9.5, while the omellete a 7. [I'm going to start rating food, now.]

My family decided we wanted to go to Bahrain for the day today. For those of you who aren't familiar with Bahrain, it is an island off the coast of Saudi Arabia but is a separate country both geographically and culturally. It's about half an hour away, but can take up to 4-5 hours to get to with all the traffic and gates you have to pass.

Today we ate at a Filipino restaurant deep in the curves and turns of Bahrain, but it was worth getting sort of lost. The place was called Bahay Kubo which plainly means "hut house", and is the national house of the Philippines. The interior was made to look like the old Spanish houses that you can still find in some parts of the Philippines.

The outside and the inside

Old school ladles and small baskets when you first enter

We ordered a bunch of stuff. Pay attention, there will be a lot of Tagalog words:




Lumpiang sariwa:
"Fresh spring roll" in English. This type of lumpia is delicately wrapped with a thin wrapper that has the consistency much like that of a crepe. It's stuffed with carrots, string beans, lettuce, and sometimes sweet potato and bean sprouts.

7.5/10

This is the sauce that is served with the lumpia. It's made out of soy sauce, cornstarch to make it thick, and topped with crushed peanuts. It brings out the flavors in the lumpia and the peanuts give it more texture. It's more sweet than it is salty, but blends well with the lumpia.

Sotanghon soup:

Sotanghon is a transparent type of noodle used in soups, not to be confused with bihon noodles. The soup we had contained green onions, white onions and chicken, but it was way too salty. I didn't care much for this dish.

3/10






Beef tapa

This beef is marinated in spices and then dried to preserve its flavors. Then it is either grilled or fried (this one was fried) and usually eaten with fried egg and rice resulting in tapsilog: an abbreviated form of tapa, sinangag (fried rice), and itlog (egg). My brother ordered the tapa, and we all had low expectations since it's been a long while since we've had really good tapa, but the spices on this beef married well with each other. Not to mention the beef was just the right texture - not too hard but had a good bite to it. The only thing I disliked was the excessive amount of oil the dish was dripping with. Other than that, it was the best tapa I've had in a long, long time.

9/10

Fried Bangus:

Known as fried milkfish in the English, it is probably the most popular fish in the Philippines as it is relatively inexpensive and is very nutritious. Sometimes the bangus can be marinated in vinegar and garlic such as this one, which tasted pretty good. It was served with grilled eggplant, which was a good side to this fish. (Sorry the picture is a little blurry; the fish is the top part, while the eggplant is the bottom left)

7.5/10

Relyenong alimasag:

When I saw this on the menu, I didn't know how the crab (alimasag) would be cooked. When it came in, I understood. Just like the way a Mexican chile relleno is prepared where the chile is first stuffed and then dipped in the egg batter and fried - the cooked crabmeat is stuffed back into its shell together with some peas, onions, and diced tomatoes, dipped into the egg batter and fried.

I ordered this dish. I really liked the way it was presented, in the mini wok it was cooked in. The egg was fried just right, and the crabmeat was soft and tasty. They served it with bagoong - a salty shrimp paste - which I would have probably used if the crab wasn't already salty.

7.5/10

Ampalaya with beef:

Ampalaya is basically bitter gourd, a green vegetable used in a lot of dishes in the Philippines. You have to have an acquired taste for ampalaya as it is very bitter. In this dish that my dad ordered, it is sauteed with onions, garlic, bell peppers, and beef. Overall, the dish was okay but what I liked about it was that the beef in this dish was very tender.

7.0/10

and for dessert...

Mais con hielo:

The simplest after lunch dessert ever. The cousin of the ever popular halo-halo, mais con hielo translated is corn with ice. Really. I've always preferred this one over halo-halo for some reason, but don't worry, halo-halo will be debuted in the near future. Crushed ice, creamed corn, a little sugar, and some evaporated milk are usually the base ingredients of mais con hielo. However, the cunning chefs of Bahay Kubo decided to add a little something. It had the slightest hint of coconut, which might have been from a type of syrup. Whatever it was, it made it more different from what I'm accustomed to, and it was heavenly. God knew I was going to be eating there that day. Although it was a little on the sweet side, it gets props for the secret coconut essence that made it just a little bit better.

9.7/10

Such a good lunch.

We went to the mall to walk off what we ate and window shop. And I couldn't help but pick up a smart vest that was on sale at Zara. Silly me.

More to come soon!