Pampanga x Olympus PEN

Hubby has been harping for a mini-vacation for a while. Valentine's Day and his birthday provided the perfect opportunity to get away. At first, we thought of going to Tagaytay, then hubby said, why not a food trip in Subic/Clark? He saw a good deal on Agoda.com for an overnight stay at Fontana Hot Spring Leisure Parks - he was sold on the hot springs part - but more on that later.

After booking a room, I realized that it was the Hot Air Balloon week-end. However, we were too lazy to get up at 3AM. So instead, we set off to have breakfast at Pancake House NLEX first before heading to Clark.

Can I just digress and say I totally commandeered the car CD player on this road trip? And I played Taylor Swift and A Walk to Remember OST - props to hubby for not complaining. (Yay, true love!)

After breakfast, we headed straight to Fontana. We passed by the Hot Air Balloon thingie and encountered a bit of the traffic jam. For this trip, I brought the Olympus E-PL1 which is "on loan" from hubby. I am so in love with the in-camera art filters that I decided to shoot most pictures with them - specifically Diorama and Pinhole.

We were early for check-in so after registering we explored the grounds. (Note: I decided to post unedited pictures - save for cropping and resizing)

Is it just me or does the tree resemble a giraffe? (Diorama effect)

Hallway (Pinhole effect)

We had lunch at one of Fontana's restaurants - Red 8. It's a 24-hour Chinese restaurant.

Hubby brought his x100.

Pretty, but the food was just okay.

We then checked in, and after freshening up, decided to hit the hot springs. We were surprised to learn though that there was a fee, and at P375.00 per head, we found it quite steep. (No wonder the hot springs were deserted that time.) We consoled ourselves with a (free) dip in their Olympic-size swimming pool.

We had dinner reservations at C' Italian Dining but decided to seek out the other foodie places in Pampanga first. At first, hubby wanted to try Jun-Jun's Barbecue, because we had just finished swimming and swimming and barbecue make a good pair. But its main branch is in San Fernando and a quick check with iPhone's Maps reveals that it was a tad bit too far if we wanted to make it back to C' at 7:3oPM. There is a branch along Fil-Am Friendship Highway, but when we asked around in a Mercury Drugstore branch, nobody could point it out to us. After Google-ing in the car, I suggested that we go to Nepo Mart instead and try Susie's Cuisine. I told hubby one of their specialties was palabok and he was raring to go.

We arrived at Nepo Mart quarter to 6PM. The ladies there told us all orders are for take-out only because they were already closing shop. So I ordered two orders of palabok, a solo tibok-tibok and some moche.

We had our orders but we did not know where we could eat them. I suggested that we go to nearby Nepo Mall but after turning into a street, I spied a McDonald's and we decided it was a good place as any to eat.

Yummy.

The noodles are opaque and not the usual translucent sotanghon noodles. I loved it but I only ate half because I wanted to save room for the kakanin - which Susie's is famous for.

The tibok-tibok has been described in most blogs as a dense maja blanca because it is also topped with latik. After tasting it though, I agree more with one blogger who said it was like panna cotta.

Loved this. This is a solo order - also available in huge bilaos. We should've ordered more.

Palabok and kakanin in McDo.

I have no photos of the moche because it was difficult to photograph - rice dough shaped like gyoza with bean paste filling and swimming in gata.

Stomachs almost full, we set out for C'. The route suggested by Maps took us to the Fil-Am Friendship Highway. After seeing "Brgy. Anunas" in a billboard, I told hubby maybe we will finally find Jun-Jun's Barbecue, and we did. I was already almost full and wanted to save room for C' but hubby insisted on trying the barbecue. So we ordered two sticks of pork barbecue.

Shot this without any filter - posting it because of hubby's immense excitement.

The two sticks took around ten minutes to get to us but it was good. Juicy and a tad sweet. I think it would have been heaven with rice.

Pork barbecue

I was really really full by then, but we had reservations at C'. Side story: on the way to Fontana, we took note of C' beside a gas station. Later in the evening, we relied on Maps, and we thought we were on the other side of the road to C'. Then suddenly, we were beside C'. There are two branches pala?

Anyway, we could only eat soup and panizza by then.

Katrina Panizza

Tomato and pumpkin soup

With heavy stomachs, we made our way back to Fontana to turn in early. We tried to work off the pounds by taking some more pictures.

But I had trouble sleeping that night even after ordering a latte from room service. My stomach was working overtime to digest everything! I Google-d until I fell asleep at around 4AM.

The next day, we were supposed to have lunch at Aling Lucing's Sisig -home of the original sisig. Due to my early-morning Google-ing, I read in blogs that Aling Lucing's sisig was not as good as it used to after she passed away. Many bloggers were raving about Mila's Tokwa't Baboy. In my book, "best" trumps "original" so we sought to find Mila's.

Mila's is located in Angeles City, in a humble home inside a subdivision.

Yummy, crunchy, vinegar-y sisig with a kick of fresh red onion bits.

One order is good for three persons. We only stopped eating because we were getting quite dizzy haha But the sisig was really really good!

Hubby wanted more but I physically had to stop him from eating.

On the way to Mila's, we passed by A La Creme, which I remember reading in Anna's blog. We decided to have dessert there before going back to Manila. We ordered lattes, sans rival and the sinful chocolate cake.

I liked the sans rival cake more. The icing is not the usual buttery one, but more like the filling of a brazo de mercedes.

There were a couple of places we wanted to try but Pampanga, or even just Angeles City, is too big to conquer overnight. Besides, we had to go easy on our stomachs. There's always the next road trip. Hopefully next time, there will be shopping!