Brunch with Ma

I was on the way to the palengke (wet market) this morning and I decided to pick up my mom from her house so that we could shop together.

Since I haven't had breakfast yet, mom suggested we eat at Pancake House. Mom is on a "diet" so she just ordered the Tuna Macaroni Salad. I was biting my tongue to tell her that the mayonnaise in her "light" salad is loaded with fat. She would have been better off eating fried pork chops or something. Anyway, she was full and just wanted to eat something light. The verdict on her tuna macaroni salad? Ordinary and she laments, "I can make it better". No surprise there. The egg on top is overcooked, you can tell by the dark ring around the yolk.

I ordered the taco and the Gambero because the picture on the menu looked good.

The Taco was the usual. I particularly like their version because I can specify to hold the onions. I also like the taco shell that they use. It's not tortilla but a crackly shell that's crispy and tastes better (for me at least).

The Gambero was a huge mistake. The garlic is too burnt, the sauce is awful and bitter and the shrimps were too tough. Don't order this, you'll just waste your money. Pancake House is yet to come up with a nice pasta dish. None of the pasta dishes that I've ordered in the past were good.

I love having moments like these with my mom (despite the bad food). It gives us "girl" time, just the two of us to catch up on family matters and we always talk about food!

Our next step was of course, the wet market. Mom had a plastic container with her. It was for the prawns that she will buy. It's to make sure that the heads are not damaged during freezing. Makes sense. I'll bring my own next time.

The wet market is always always a source of temptation for me. I always buy more than what I had planned. The fish are so fresh compared to the supermarket. My market list was just for prawns (P450/kilo) and some squid (P180/Kilo). I ended up buying tilapia (whole and fillet) and I was conned into buying a ridiculously expensive piece of lapu-lapu (red snapper) by my mom.




The tilapia are sold live and they clean and fillet it for you. The tilapia are so cheap only at P95 a kilo. I knew I couldn't resist. I would have bought more stuff but my freezer is already crammed and couldn't take any more. Mom ended up buying more stuff too. We always get inspired when we're at the palengke. Everything looks so fresh and the variety of seafood there makes my head spin.