Food Trip

Two weeks ago, Nathan celebrated his birthday at Bellini's in Cubao. Bellini's is a quaint Italian restaurant at the back of the Marikina Shoe Expo, owned and managed by... whoelse but Mr. Bellini! Hehe.

I remember how we discovered that place almost ten years ago while I was still working at BMG. How Trec, Jojo, Jojet and I had nowhere to go for lunch and while walking along the streets of Cubao, we happened along the little restaurant.

It has come a long way. Before we were the only patrons there. Then came the time when we brought our artists to dine there and by word of mouth, Bellini's became somehow the talk of the town when it came to satisfying one's palate.

And satisfy us it did... once again.





The birthday celebrant...



...with his birthday cake!



I didn't have the chance to take a lot of photos as I was low batt that night. But I was able to take this crazy photo of me and Weng after dinner.



Afterwards, we went for coffee (whatelse?) at Coffee Bean in Gateway and reminisced about old friends, old times and well... a lot of other stuff.

To Anna--you were there in spirit, my friend! :-)


It's A Small Small World

I got these photos from Weng via email:





It made me realize just how small the world is.

And it truly is!

You see, after the Eternity premiere night and cast party, I found myself going with Mikko and Gaby to Goodyear in Libis. I didn't know what to expect there really but I wasn't prepared to find a bar (and then some) inside.

The funniest thing is half of the people Gaby knows, I knew as well. I saw Franco (Mabanta) and Little Joey of Magic. And I got the shock of my life when I saw Cheska (Inigo)! Haha. We both just came from Eternity and we never thought we'd see each other again so soon.

A small digression... Cheska is actually the wife of my cousin Francis Tiu Laurel, Jr. But since I'm not really close to that part of my family, I didn't bother telling her that. Hehe.

Anyhoo---the other cast of Eternity with Direk Mark Reyes came trickling in soon after. Gasp! First was Bobby Andrews, then Dingdong, Iza, Arthur and Michael Roy. Gaby was playing pool with some guy I didn't know then and when Iza saw her, they apparently knew each other from school! Yikes! Is it just me or did the world get much smaller still?

I finally got to convince Mikko to get me out of there. Hehe. Not that I don't like these people... it's just that my world was getting too small for comfort and I just needed to breathe.

As if my world ain't small enough, one of the AD's for Super Noypi is a couple of batches above me in UP-CMC and he's now officemates with Nikki, a college batchmate and Russell, my friend.

Ack!