Tom, whoever he is, Rang Me. He called?
The day began with a full breakfast, something I eat only once in a while. But two cousins were meeting and they invited me to a place near enough for me to walk to and I had been planning for days to have waffles and bacon. As I was finishing, one cousin said, “Ang sarap mong kumain,†meaning I looked like I was really enjoying my meal. I gave her a mischievous grin. I really, really enjoy my food. That’s why I’ve always run to chubby. I love to eat a lot.
Eating a lot was what I would do that day. Usually I have only one big meal —lunch. I have a cup of coffee for breakfast, a huge lunch, and a light dinner of bread and cheese. But today was going to be different. Today I had two invitations — breakfast and lunch.
I was meeting two friends at Bawai’s, a new Vietnamese restaurant on Katipunan Avenue in White Plains. We were supposed to get back on track on some business scheme we had thought up months ago then lost track of because of so many reasons. We were going to try to get started again.
Dale Liwanag, on the other hand, had been inviting to his new Vietnamese restaurant. Actually, it is new to Quezon City or maybe even Metro Manila, but not new to Tagaytay. I remember lunching at Bawai’s in Tagaytay maybe four years ago. I enjoyed the food but won’t travel that far to eat alone.
It’s 79 Katipunan Avenue, that’s the address. I am quite familiar with White Plains but we could not find No. 79. So we asked one of the valets if they knew where the Vietnamese restaurant was and he pointed us to the place. It looked like a mini-mall and Bawai’s was the last restaurant inside. You go down a few stone steps and there it is, a charming place, like a cozy home, similar to Bawai’s in Tagaytay. Bawai apparently is grandmother in Vietnamese.
It has big picture windows where you can catch a view of a koi pond. This pond is six feet deep, Dale explained. I looked at the beautiful huge fish that swam in it, remembered when I was building my pond in Calamba, someone who had a beautiful pond in Antipolo said, “Tell her the pond has to be six feet if she wants to grow koi.†But that was before I had my fish. I didn’t even know what koi was. So my pond was only a foot-and-a-half and I grew only carp. They were small and beautiful too. When they all died after a torrential rain my heart broke into a hundred little pieces.
We were served wonderful appetizers — Vietnamese rolls and something that tasted like the Chinese quequiam. Then came what they call Tom Rang Me. No, Tom did not call. Tom Rang Me is tiger prawns with tamarind sauce. For all three of us, this brought the house down. It was delicious. I promised myself I would return and order more of the Tom Rang Me for me only. We also had Com Suan Cha, which was grilled pork belly with lemongrass marinade, also very good, but the shrimp was the clear winner of the lunch. It was maddeningly delicious.
I don’t know. I have grown to love what the Vietnamese do with tamarind. We use it mostly for sinigang until it was sort of reintroduced by Vietnamese and Thai restaurants. Then suddenly now we have tamarind juice or some kind of tamarind iced tea. It makes a wonderful sauce, too. The tamarind iced tea we were served was wonderful.
In the end, I finally learned how to drink Vietnamese hot drip coffee with condensed milk, a triumph for me. I taught myself to drink black coffee decades ago. Before then I took my coffee with sugar and a few drops of milk. Then I went on a diet that recommended black coffee or with chemical sweeteners. I used to take my coffee with the sweeteners but those were the days before hotels had them (how did I get so old?) so I used to bring my own. But even if I was in my 20s, I kept forgetting to bring the sweeteners with me. I taught myself to enjoy black coffee instead.
Well, I learned. You let the coffee drip slowly and when it’s done dripping you drink without stirring the condensed milk so it only flavors the coffee slightly. It tastes very good.
I enjoyed that day of heavy eating. And I recommend Bawai’s. It’s an outstanding Vietnamese restaurant close enough for you to explore. When you go, don’t forget to order the Tom Rang Me and please think of me when you enjoy it. Then maybe you can say that Tom Rang You. Just being silly.
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