kikiam

Saturday, June 2nd. After a day of painting walls at BASECO, Master and I headed to my second favorite place in the city -- Binondo. Of course:)

We took the usual route: stopped right in front of the church with the octagonal dome and headed towards the most delectable street on earth -- Ongpin. We prayed for some minutes inside this church that seemed like a fusion of Christian and Buddhist worship. Then we proceeded and gulped our halo-halo before we lazily strolled down those streets that were my "playground" for almost six years.

What made this walk memorable was the store that sells bicho-bicho, kikiam and pumpkin cakes at the corner of the street to the left of Ongpin. Benavidez ba yun? There works Jayson-- a chinoy doing his usual salestalk. He spoke Tagalog with that nasal Chinese accent that never fails to blow me away. I was so laughing 'cause he did not actually need to persuade me at all. Accent pa lang niya bibili na ako eh. But he construed my loud bursts as expressions of doubt. So he talked and talked about the bicho-bicho even more.

Master was eventually persuaded to buy, so I also purchased one pack of kikiam and two pieces of bicho-bicho. While he was cutting the bicho-bicho, he said he'd let us try it for us to see right there and then that it tasted really good. He handed me a piece which I instantly dropped because it was too hot. Bagong luto. Then he said, in THAT accent: sabi ko sa 'yo mainit eh, subuan na lang kita. Ooops. My world stopped. Game siya, ha. Hikhikhik. Time started rolling again and I said: Naku, pag sinubuan mo ako, mas mainit 'yun. Hahahaha! Everyone, even the cooks, roared with laughter. Jayson's sister was furious as her brother was no longer tending to the kikiam, the siomai, the siopao, etc. Master could not believe I could muster to say something like that. But for me, oh well, that was just natural. Whenever I am in a place like this, it takes so little to make me happy. Or to make me flirt. LOL. Hikhikhik.

That was really fun. Not even the bestselling eel dish at President could make me forget. The bicho-bicho. Of course:)

The following day, Sunday, the Pistons lost to the Cavs. Billups quite said it all. It makes you mad when you are beaten not by a better team, but by a team that just played better than your team for THAT week. The loss was a shock to all of us Detroit fans. The game was so close for the first three quarters. But eight minutes into the fourth, Cavs' Gibson sank those three-point shots that sealed their victory and made the Pistons, in Eric's words, run out of steam. The moment I began to smell defeat, I rushed to my fridge to heat the kikiam, micro-grilled all three pieces and sliced and dunked them into a big bowl.

I withstood watching with the bowl on my lap. Up to the sound of the final buzzer. Scared that it would probably be the last time I saw those boys together on the floor again: Flip, Sheed, Chauncey, Rip, Tay, et al.

Then I started eating. My heart was still. And I couldn't taste the kikiam.