FN Blog - Seven heads are better than one!

After doing Guijo a few times early part of last week (with my good bud Koop saying, “You know, these ‘artists’ have to realize that there’s more to art than getting stoned…”), then paying a vulgar amount for booze at this posh Japanese bar along Kalayaan, we suffered a severe case of Makati-overkill.

It was time to detox with a proper roadtrip over the weekend.

So Sunday morning, we rolled out to famed Quezon culinary hotspot Kusina Salud.

The Sunday buffet lunch at Kusina Salud was a spread of gourmetized traditional Pinoy fare: escabecheng fish fillet, ginataang pork adobo, pako salad with cheese and slivers of salted egg, veggie spring rolls with homemade vinegar, real corn soup with mussels, and chilled cubed minatamis na saging na saba with crushed ice and milk for dessert.

Pako Salad. This modest little fern gained its culinary chic rep around three years ago. “Iceberg lettuce? That’s like soooo foo-co!” (foo-KOW, n. abbreviated term for “food court,” but pronounced as “foo-KOW,” accent on the second syllable, yeah, like that French philosopher. Etymology: Emma’s lexicon of randomly made-up words coz she’s not cool enough to know any real slang).

Veggie lumpia even the most hardcore of carnivores would heap their plates with after taking one bite. The lumpia wrapper’s light and flaky, almost like phylo, and the veggie filling’s crisp and just lightly seasoned—none of that soggy plant life drowning in sauce.

Any sort of buffet below P500, even those that rival all the culinary aptitude of a quarter pounder meal, is already sort of a steal considering today’s average eat-all-you-can rates. Kusina’s lunch buffet at P350 per head, with its homecooked gourmetized Pinoy-dish offerings, is definitely bang for buck. But since you are going out of town, it’s your gas bill that’s gonna power-chomp its way through your wallet. Unless you’re burning wheels on LPG, or the latest breakthroughs in fuel-efficient diesel engines, or…oh…COMPOST, then you best let two to three of your friends tag along and split petrol costs with you. Don’t worry, there are lots of places to go and things to do in Quezon so that you don’t end up spending gas on just one place. (But more on other Deeds To Do in Quezon later.)

Get in touch with Kusina Salud: 0921-7726985 (mobile), 049-2466878 (Laguna landline), 6995035 (Manila landline), 6995036 (fax), kusinasalud@gmail.com (email). Or get your cursor over at www.kusinasalud.com (from where I nicked these directions and the map!)