SANINGS, finally!

If you happen to reside in Bacolod City, you might have heard of this infamous karenderia. Karenderia, carenderya, kalenderya or wahtever you want to call it. I do not exactly know what is the English equivalent for that. Let me just describe it. A karenderia is like a diner minus all the frills. It is often small in size. It usually got tables that are closely spaced with each other plus the chairs. The viands are in display for the people to choose what they want. It is always in a ala carte, if that helps. You aske for a serving of viand #1 and then a serving of viand #2. Everyday the viands are different except for a few favorites like Linagang baka (beef stew, maybe) and the adobo, perhaps. Some karenderia offers the meal package in where you it already includes a viand, rice, soup and maybe a soda. The rice are served by first shaping it in a tea cup and then the cup is turned upside down on a plate so the rice serving will transfer on you plate. Some cups are too small and some servers would loosely fit the rice inside the cup making you ask for an extra rice after you are done with your first. Karenderias are usually cheap. There are people who will never dare eat in one because they feel like it's dirty and unsanitized. (Are you people sure that restaurants are clean as you think they are supposed to?) I know some fairly clean karenderias. The thing is that they sould have clean water source (not those open buckets of water), food is served hot and so are the utensils. During my college days I can say that I ate to a fairly a lot of karenderias already. But, I never ate at Sanings. What is with Sanings?

I always hear it from friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. They would say that the people there are flocking and that you sometimes have to wait so you can get a table. The famous menu is the linaga and also the parpilya. It's a secret dining place (no more), they say. You get to eat there with students, yuppies, oldies, "rich kids", mountaineers, emloyees and employers. It is located somewhere in Banago alongside other stalls of vegetables and eateries among others. It is almost hard to miss if you've never been there.

March 14. I finally got there. My bestfriend Jen, woke me up by scratching my sole and told me that we have lunch at Sanings with nong Gene. It was lunch time and so I hurriedly dress up.

It was my first time and it thrills me because first times should always thrill you, right? It was a Saturday and the it was almost full of peole but we managed to get a table quick. We were served with 3 smoking bowls of what appears to be linagang baka, it was greatly decoarted with green onions. The rice are se