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Why are we frothing over Ricky Lo’s interview with Anne Hathaway? When I watched the video my first reaction was embarrassment. But who exactly was I embarrassed for: Lo, Hathaway, or myself?

As celebrity interviews go, this is not the most dumbass we’ve ever seen. On the scale of inanity, it’s average. Granted, we are connoisseurs at the cringe-making interview. (We remember the one where a local TV host talks to a Brazilian model and discovers that she is of German descent. “Heil Hitler!” he exclaims. And he does the Nazi salute. On television. I’m not sure, but there may have been a laugh track to go with it. Note: Never do that in Germany.)

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

Anyone with the budget for it can put on designer clothes and dine at an overpriced restaurant in a five-star hotel. The truly sosyal don’t worry about keeping up appearances or give a fig what other people think. We had lunch with Ren at Sosing’s last Saturday and felt sosyal.

Sosing’s, the roadside carinderia beside a talyer on the corner of Zobel Roxas and Dian in Makati, has been around for ages and still draws crowds. You want ambience? It’s on a sidewalk under a tin roof with an old tree growing through it. You sit at stackable plastic tables and chairs and eat off plastic plates while passing cars belch exhaust in your face. And you love it because the food is good, cheap and unpretentious.

While waiting for our orders we made the acquaintance of this rooster whom we hope is not headed for the kitchen and a pot of tinola.

We had rice, menudo, pork barbecue, adobong pusit and gulay for less than Php100 each. (We had four 7-Ups, bringing the total to Php270 for two.) The hell with gourmet, this is a meal. It’s been quite cool lately, perfect for dining outdoors.

The resident cat came over to nibble on some plants by the table. He is very well-behaved and doesn’t bother the diners for scraps.

Sorry the video disappeared. WordPress has been problematic. The other night we typed a 500-word piece and hit Publish. It vanished.

There must be something about us that reminds our friends of concussions, because they often give us skull-themed presents. (Left to right: Day of the Dead winged skull earrings from Mexico, a skull ring in semi-precious stones from Hong Kong, and skull earrings from an NGO called Dam Good Stuff.) Not to mention scarves.

The other day James Reyes made us this fabulous pair of earrings with tiny skulls and crosses. James, we really should open a store.

We like some musicals—Singin’ In The Rain, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Passion—but we’re not really into the genre. We are the only people we know who have never seen The Sound of Music in its entirety (We see the hills, we fall asleep). A few minutes into The Phantom of the Opera movie we had a giggling fit and removed ourselves from the theatre lest we be attacked by its devout fans. We’ve never seen Miss Saigon or had the slightest inclination to do so.

In short, we’re not the right person to review Les Miserables the movie. We’ll watch it eventually, when the crowds thin. If you’ve seen it, do us a favor and post your review. Bonus question: You lost 25 pounds for the role. How did you gain them back?

Actual conversation with Noel
– Umiiyak daw ang mga nanonood.
– Kung ganoon, opening credits pa lang, iiyak na ako.
– Sa umpisa pa lang daw, humahagulgol na.
– Pwes, habang bumibili ako ng tiket, meron nang papatak na isang luha sa mata ko.
– Competitive!

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Your reviews are fantastic. Thank you! From hereon we shall outsource all reviews of stage-to-film musical adaptations to you.

We love laing and will travel far and wide to get it. Recently we discovered that there is a Samareño version of laing, and we only had to travel as far as Dennis’s house in Makati to sample it.

Pinangat is basically laing and seafood wrapped in more laing. The Samar variation is like the Bikolano original, flavorful and intense, but not spicy. Knowing of our preference for laing that sets our hair on fire, our host served chilis on the side.

The pinangat tasted even better with a scrumptious Samar seafood spread: humongous prawns, crabs and slipper lobsters. When the seafood is this fresh, complicated recipes are unnecessary: serve immediately!

Slipper lobsters are not really lobsters, but “decapod crustaceans” doesn’t sound as tempting. They look like fossils from the Jurassic period, but are easy to open and eat—none of the slapstick comedy potential of eating crab in public (crab’s legs flying across the table, crabmeat landing in your seatmate’s hair and other disasters with pliers). Peel off the soft shell under the prehistoric bug, scoop up the meat and eat. Delicious.

Our host Dennis Lustico (the designer!) and his enormous Labrador Truman.