Food!!

"Hey Mart, You broke?"  My friend Kidd asked me one day during lunch. "Yeah, very." I replied. "I know this neat place, man!! You can eat like a king for only 25 pesos!" (around 50 cents USD). "No way man!!" I gasped. I had every reason to be skeptical, everything in Manila was over priced and eating out was sure to drain a poor student's pocket. Kidd smiled and led the way to Singalong street that was behind our dorm. He brought me to this little restaurant called Mings.  It was a typical filipino "street" restaurant (Flies, rats. roaches)but a little on the classy side. (it had an airconditioner and a karaoke machine.)

Tosilog is a combination of the words, Tosino (sweet ham/pork) Sinangag (Fried rice) and Itlog (egg).  It is a typical Filipino breakfast.

Kidd ordered tosilog and extra soup.  I did the same.  True to his word, everything was only 25 pesos and you could ask for as much soup as you wanted!! But the most important thing was that the food was actually filling unlike the overpriced hash that they served in the dorm canteen. I spread the word among the dorm residents and soon Mings was one of the places that the dorm residents frequented. Late at night, or just for a snack, Mings tosilog just filled the spot.

Kidd playing the guitar in his room. Playing the guitar was also banned in our dorm!!

One day Kidd called me to his room and showed me a little electric pot. (smuggled in since cooking was banned in the dorm.) "Wow! We can cook in this!" I said. "What shall we cook??" Kidd asked. I suggested Fried lumpia!  I got all the ingredients ready and then we tried to cook up the delicious vegetarian treats. However we must have did somethnig wrong while frying since instead of turning out crisp and brown our lumpia fell apart and became black and charred instead. That didn't deter us in the least.  We settled for cooking canned food instead. However the dishes that we cooked turned out to be so delicious and appetizing that the guard smelled the food one night and he promptly marched in and confiscated the cooking pot!

Lumpia is chinese spring rolls stuffed with vegetables then fried.

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