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[Flavors of La Salle] Solomon's Guest House

Be Our Guest @ Solomon’s

One of Malate's secret places is called Solomon's Guest House. It is the practicum restaurant of De La Salle - College of St. Benilde School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management. Only the creme dela creme of the batch are allowed to operate and run the restaurant for a particular term. Since it opened in May 2003 to the public, they now have 14 batches of students serving the Solomon Guest House. Batch-14's theme is Mediterranean Cuisine and Solomon's House Classics.

It is named after a De La Salle brother - Br. Solomon Nicholas Leclerq who was martyred during the French Revolution on September 2, 1792 and the first to be beatified among the La Sallian brothers on October 17, 1926. The Solomon Guest House is hidden along one of the side streets from the corner of De La Salle - College of St. Benilde Angelo King Building.

What we love about Solomon house is that you can eat their Parm Crusted Fish classic complete with presentation and ambiance for less than P100. Also, their paninis are sold for P65 only. The service is very good and the students are very professional. We love to bring our guests here. However, the Solomon House fails in comparison with all the other practicum restaurants that I have been to. That is sad because CSB's culinary arts has the highest tuition and they are on trimestral basis.

[Flavors of La Salle] Cerealicious

Cerealicious - Are you Delicious?

Cerealicious is still the first and only Cereal Cafe in the Philippines. One of their first few branches was located in Sherwood Place in front of DLSU. On a normal day, it is packed with students just hanging out and enjoying the healthy cereals. The marketing of using movie titles to package their cereal creations is brilliant. It is young, fun and makes you feel like a kid again. No wonder, Cerealicious continues to expand to other school vicinities and other areas outside Metro Manila like Cebu and Davao. We need to have more of these healthy alternatives to the fatty ice cream and fatty chocolate cakes. They deserve all the media attention they are getting for the past 3 years. Congratulations on your success!

[Flavors of La Salle] Mama V Resto

Beef Tapa (P89).

Mama V @ The Providence Tower is what I would call an All Filipino Restaurant. It probably serves all the Filipino food that we loved since our childhood. Beef tapa (in 12 special flavors), tocino, pork chop, corned beef, sisig, 9 pork variations (afritada, binagoongan, caldereta, kare kare, menudo, patatim, pochero, sinigang, sweet and sour), macaroni salad, spaghetti tomato, adobo, pork/chicken barbecue (in 12 special flavors) and chicharon. The menu is targeted to students and most of the dishes are less than P100.

It was established way after we graduated from DLSU and it caters to La Salle, CSB and St. Scho crowd. The place is not sossy but it is patronized by the students. Finding a parking is always a challenge so better avoid the heavy traffic hours (usually late afternoons)

Mama V Restaurant Menu | The Mama V Story

One interesting thing worth checking out is the P5/per song 24 hours a day Karaoke. There is no entrance fee, no cover charge, no person/per hour charge. The private air conditioned rooms can comfortably sit 5-10 persons but I usually see more people inside the room. I miss the college days where you hang out in a karaoke to celebrate someone's birthday and the more squeezed you are inside the room-- the better it is (if you know what I mean :)

(For room reservations with advance food orders, call Tita at 02 440 8749)

[Flavors of La Salle] Do you remember Garaje?

Garaje

We have always wondered what happened to our favorite Garaje turo turo place in La Salle. Garaje was the favorite food hang out place for DLSU engineering back then and most student raved about that place in the 1990s. Fast forward to 2000, it already moved to a nearby location where there are no signs and you can only see a small door beside a sari sari store. We actually got lost and had to call a few folks to give us direction. This place gave us an idea to do a series on restaurants/ food places around the La Salle area that is worth blogging about.

We lived in the Malate area near DLSU, so we decided to have our family lunch in Garaje. Rache was still pregnant with Josh but this did not stop us from reminiscing our college days ignited by the Garaje food.

'Nuf Said

Photo courtesy of Vic Icasas. This is the banner that started it...

The Ateneans are starting to celebrate the 2007 THES Top 500 Universities Rankings where Ateneo is the only University that improved its ranking from 488 to 451 while University of the Philippines is ranked 398 this year (from 299). De La Salle is ranked 519 and UST is ranked 535 out of 566 Universities. Spanx started to provoke Gang Green and Lasallians in his post Hail! Hail! Hail! Just remember, the last time La Salle was out of anything, we came back and became champions. Animo La Salle!!

Never Shall We Fail

Thank you to the De La Salle Green Archers for making us proud once again for winning the 2007 UAAP Basketball Championship! This 7th title is memorable because we swept the undefeated UE for two straight games in the finals. Even before the game started, most Lasalistas can already feel the championship. Even the players are confident the night before that they will win the Championship. The La Salle PEP squad also felt it and they enjoyed themselves before the game started. They even played the cheers of other schools during the mytical five awarding. I had fun cheering Goooo Uste and GO ATENEO! as the UST and Ateneo players received their awards. The La Salle Gallery, who occupied more than half of Araneta, was disciplined enough not to do the WAVE despite Randy Santiago's urge to respond to UE's WAVE. The WAVE should now be banned from our games.

For most of us, this is the best alma matter song we sang in our entire lives. Here is a final tribute:

De La Salle Alma Mater Hymn

Hail, Hail Alma Mater,

Hail to De La Salle!

We'll hold your banner high and bright,

A shield of green and white,

We'll fight to keep your glory bright,

And never shall we fail,

Hail to thee our Alma Mater!

Hail! Hail! Hail!

Related Posts:
I'd Rather Be Green Than Be Blue (You Tube)
UAAP Season 70 Finals: Green Archers breaks Red Warriors’ heart by Josef Ramos
DLSU: Season 70 Seniors Basketball Champions! by Vic Icasas

A Great Day for Philippines Sports

October 7, 2007 was a great day for Philippines Sports! It was a memorable day for me and let me tell you why...

First, La Salle won the 2007 UAAP Basketball Championship by defeating UE with 73-64 points (a convincing 9 points lead). Everybody thought that UE was unbeatable since they had swept the elimination rounds. If you look at each of the UE Red Warriors individually, La Salle Green Archers were no match for them. But we beat Red Warriors because of the heart and determination to win as one team. More than 1/2 of the Araneta was filled with Green Archers fan. The Green Archers had led the game all the way from the first to the last quarter. Thanks to MVP Jayvee Casio and MVP Cholo Villanueva for hitting the key shots when it mattered most.

I knew it when we beat Ateneo, we could win the UAAP Championship! ANIMO LA SALLE!!

P.S. Now I know why the WAVE is unlucky... Franz Pumaren was right and the only wave we saw yesterday was the one from UE. No more waves for the Green Archers gallery.

Second, Pacquiao retained his WBC International Super Featerweight Title by defeating Barrera in a 12 rounds unanimous decision. His new record is 45-3-2 with 34 KO's at the age of 28. All the Filipinos were hoping for a knockout but we saw how Barrera was avoiding Manny's punches. Barrera's goal was to survive his last 12 rounds of his career and enjoy his $2 Million dollars pay out. Thanks Manny for making us all proud once again.

Lastly, I achieved a personal best record for my 10k run at 1 hour and 15 minutes when I joined Soroptimist's Breast Cancer Run yesterday. Yahoo! My goal is to achieve a sub hour in 2008.

P.S. No, I'm not that guy! The photo above is Zorro from ABS-CBN running club (according to him) during yesterday's breast cancer run. He gives a comic relief in most of the major runs in Manila.

I'd rather be GREEN than be bluuue...

Congratulations to the La Salle Green Archers for beating "The" Mighty Ateneo and winning the last finals slot in the UAAP 2007 Season! It was great to be congratulated by Ateneans this morning :)

It was a great game and a definitive game that no one can contest if the Archers were just lucky. Despite the fact that Ateneo beat La Salle 3 times vs. 2 of La Salle, the Archers won both of the crucial games. The veterans played their best when it mattered most.

It does not matter if you watched in Araneta, in Restaurants, in Channel 23 or now online via ABS-CBN online, the entire La Salle community cheered and prayed for the Archers' victory.

Animo La Salle !! We will beat Dindo Pumaren's UE team in the finals...