midnight mercato

weeeeee Off beat :)

just when i thought i was gonna spend another lazy leave day stuck at home, kuya sees me run off to the loo and bellows from his room, asking me if i had work that fateful friday night. of course, with a tiny smirk, i say "no, i don't" and await the next lines he'd throw. and then he asks if i wanted to go to the midnight mercato. my sleepy brain instantly went DUHHH and i coolly answered, "okay, in a minute" and made a beeline for the loo, quickly showered, and was nice and chill after a couple of minutes. :)

given that this was my maiden voyage to anything mercato centrale, i was definitely excited to see all the wonderful goodness that would kill me in more ways than one. and so the sojourn began with a flurry of crazy overtakes and ex-squeeze me moments until we got to the first destination: manang's chicken. :)

the line was looong, good Lord, and all we wanted to get were 2 glasses of freshly brewed pandan iced tea for the walk. so we waited -- ho-humm -- and finally got the iced tea and went on our way. kuya wanted me to scour the entirety of the tents before i made a decision, but lectured me on all the crispy-licious saucy goodness of manang's chicken.

okay, fine. so we're getting that. ;)

so we walked and squeezed in and did the whole nine yards. despite the almost workout that was finding a space to walk on, though, i still couldn't take that image out of my head:

ooey gooey giant cheese sticks from Off beat

since i originally thought they were mexican somethings, i wanted to get them badly. kuya hates mexican food [i have NO idea why], so that's a no. but i wanted them anyway, and being the good big brother that he is, we got them still ;)

a few minutes after, we realized they weren't actually mexican babies and found out they were giant cheese sticks. so kuya relaxed and i got my treat. :) there was a minute, though, when i semi-screamed at the poor boy preparing our cheese-infested goodness, because he was holding the ginormous mayo-filled squeeze bottle over the food. kuya let me go "WAAAAAIT!" and i asked what that white thing was. and because it was mayo [yechhh], it was definitely OUT of the question. :p

and as i waited and had fun checking out the sights, i got my Twilight moment [i tweaked the photo a bit so i'd look less pale and more human ;)]. and here's my lady-in-waiting photo:

as you can see, there were other things being served by these guys. and i checked them out while waiting for my delightful giants :) and, lo and behold, the things i DIDN'T eat: 

glazed doughnuts --obviously Krispy Kremes-- for bread [which i thought were bagels! ugh] and all the love inside. 

yikes to the BACON FAT that's slipping and sliding riiight there. #killmenow

i would eat this, ONLY without the bacon fat and with actual bagels for bread. *death*

moving on to the next victim.

burger patties that looked really inviting, sans the sliced BACON FAT that totally ruined everything for me.


can you say death by cholesterol? yechhh.

so, of of course, i didn't get that. ;) i just took my giant cheese sticks and we ran along. :)

we got another round of drinks-- fruit shakes this time --before the hard part of actually deciding on what to eat. kuya asked me to find seats while he queued for manang's chicken, and i asked him to get me the extra spicy sauce on the side [because he's not too much into intensely spicy things] instead. and so i went into the tent with the a/c [i reeked of grilled-ness already, thank you very much] and found a sweet spot and *finally* got to sit down. :) and when the manang's chicken arrived, yay! :D 'twas time to eat! :D

Happy Camper <3

sadly, though, the moist chocolate, vanilla-frosted muffins were sold out, so, boo-hoo to the dessert junkie. :( someday, when i return, i shall conquer that 9-piece box of vanilla frosted, moist chocolate muffins. *drool*

AND sooooo, i will definitely go back. ;) i'm feeling a little barx night out-slash-food frenzy soon. :D