ESSAY: THE BARS ( AND BAR CHOW) THAT SAVE
are more than drinking places. These neon-lit corners of the world provide refuge for broken hearts and even forge closer bonds.
We only had one kind of beer, and only one pulutan: fried liver served in adobo gravy, topped wit h sautéed white onions. It was the stuff of uric acid nightmares, but it kept us sane.
used to be a barfly. During a particularly stressful period during my corporate slave days, when my boss and mentor was, like Steve Jobs, being eased out of the company he founded, I took to drinking nightly with my friends from the mancom; all of us were in limbo. We wished that our CEO would somehow survive and mount a comeback — again, just like Steve Jobs — so that we could decide whether we needed to type out our CVs for headhunters, or dig in our trenches and our office cubicles. And so, every night, in a bar in Legaspi Village called Bing Bing’s, we moaned, groaned, whined, plotted, backstabbed and ridiculed our work enemies, and at night’s end, when sufficiently tipsy, convinced ourselves that we the next day, the situation would resolve itself. I loved the camaraderie and the existential angst. I was the youngest senior manager, and I loved bonding with my former bosses, now my peers, as we drowned our sorrows in bottle after bottle of Super Dry, night after night, for over six months. We only had one kind of beer, and only one pulutan: fried liver served in adobo gravy, topped with sautéed white onions. It was the stuff of uric acid nightmares, but it kept us sane.
It soon became apparent that our particular corporate story would not have a happy ending. The worse thing was the realization that our merry little band of barflies would soon have to go our
I still love bars, beer, and booze. I find peace when I’m sitting on a high barstool, my elbows on the counter, my eyes fixated on the hypnotic display of bottles.
ways. Which only gave us even more excuses to drink more beers and chow down on more of that irresistible sizzling liver platter, during the final weeks we worked together. That was 15 years ago, and to this day, Ludet, Vicky, Herbie, Manong Eric, and I still have yearly reunions. I’m pleased to say that we all survived, thanks to the psychological comfort and spiritual healing from those bottles of San Miguel.
I still love bars, beer, and booze. I find peace when I’m sitting on a high barstool, my elbows on the counter, my feet on the railings, my eyes fixated on the hypnotic display of bottles of all hues, shapes, sizes, and alcohol content. It’s one of my happy places, a true comfort zone. Many of the best bartenders in the city have become good friends. It’s not essential for me to bring a date or a drinking buddy to ABV, The Curator, or the Long Bar. Sometimes, the introvert in me comes to the fore, and I just need an uncomplicated Dry Martini or a classic Old Fashioned by my side. It doesn’t hurt that each of my three favorite bars also offers extremely good signature bar chow. ABV has the Honey Parmesan Dog, the undisputed best hotdog in Metro Manila, from the kitchen of Lazy Bastard next door. The Curator serves, until early evening, the most decadent tapa in the city: goose fat infused beef tapa served on a freshly baked brioche, topped with a 65 degree egg. It’s a stunning achievement, really. Over at the Raffles, aside from the endless shelling of sung-sung peanuts, there’s the wonderfully flavorful and fabulously fatty house chicharon, deep fried then dusted with a chili and tamarind rub. One of these days, I should throw caution to the wind and order this with a bowl of piping hot white rice.
That’s the thing with the best of bars. They’re lovely places to meet someone and begin a relationship, and yet, they’re also the most soothing refuge if relationships end badly, and you just need to nurse a broken heart, alone with only a stiff drink for company. Either way, the perfect bars will give you exactly what you need.