Ang Dabawenyo

My very good and long-time friend, Jojie Alcantara, has come up with a great plan for bloggers to do a tour within Davao City. A perfect way to start the summer!

Jojie says she’ll be able to accommodate 10 bloggers per tour. To give everyone a chance, we’ll ask you to sign up for one tour only. This is a good chance for Dabawenyo bloggers to meet up and get together and do something out of the ordinary. Sign up now before the slots are filled up! Read more »

The culminating dinner of the Davao Food Appreciation Tour, on 16 March 2008, was at Bryan’s Grill & Café. At this al fresco poolside restaurant, my good friend Bryan Bajado served the bloggers samplers of his fine cuisine.

For appetizer, we had three samplers: grilled pepper-crusted sashimi (my absolute fave here!), shrimp in white wine and pesto, and a refreshing preparation of sausage and corn. And then there were two kinds of salads: shrimp cocktail and Caesar’s. The inspired presentation of the dishes wowed our group, and the variety of flavors impressed us even more. It was truly a fitting concluding event to DavaoFAT. Read more »

Yesterday — the 3rd and final day of DavaoFAT — found the adventurous bloggers at Eden Nature Park for buffet lunch and some well-deserved fun. There were 14 of us, including Aileen (Google Country Consultant) and Jay of TitikPilipino.com, as well as Avel and Mars of General Santos City.

Eden Nature Park is Davao’s pride. A mountain resort only 45 minutes away from downtown, it’s not merely a breath-taking tourist spot, but an ecological sanctuary and a cultural bedrock as well. The family behind Eden Nature Park has clearly endeavored to preserve a piece of nature as faithfully as possible, thereby providing both Dabawenyos and visitors to the city a healthy and refreshing respite from city life. Read more »

The second day of the Davao Food Appreciation Tour was a whirlwind romance between bloggers and food. From breakfast to dinner and beyond, the group was all in a mindset of palate-pleasing activities. From Taps for breakfast to The Marco Polo for dinner, we not only sampled but heartily partook of Davao’s gastronomic offerings.

After a fine-dining spread and much conversation at the Polo Bistro, some of us proceeded to my family’s ancestral home for…… Can you guess? …… Yes! more food!! This time, it was from Sugar Munch, whose owners gave us several boxes of mini-cakes and a few rolls of silvana (hint: it’s like sans rival). We took our time enjoying the various cakes, and played poker while we were at it. Read more »

I’m blogging live from Kasagingán Kapehan, on Torres St., Davao City. We are here for the 2nd day of the Davao Food Appreciation Tour. I’m with Aileen, Jay (the “sweetie”), Andrew, Ria, MiGs™, Angel, Mikko, Gerwin. Read more »

Yesterday was a successful first day for the Davao Food Appreciation Tour (DavaoFAT). The bloggers had been planning this for sometime now — although, it’s really no surprise anymore that it’s turning out well. The Davao bloggers group (instigated by The Usual Suspects) have been continuously active for more than a year now.

Davao FAT is Andrew’s brainchild, which he came up with late last year. His plan to hold this tour during Araw ng Dabaw gave me the idea to do the Davao food trips. So this is like a culminating event for the bloggers’ 3-month food tripping in Davao. (But nobody’s stopping us from going on with the food trips even after DavaoFAT.) Read more »

Last May 2007 I wrote about Talecraft, an amazing new kind of card game that was invented by my cousin, Ria Lu, who’s unfortunately based in Manila. But she’s in town now and has officially brought the game to Davao!

On 12 January 2008, there will be a Talecraft Competition at Spazzio, 3/F Gaisano Mall of Davao. This is open to all ages, as long as you have an imagination. You see, Talecraft is a tool for creating wonderful and wonderous stories. To know more about the game, visit its website: talecraft.komikasi.com.

It’s almost game time, so do register as soon as possible!

I’m going to be one of the judges, so I’ll see you there.

It’s just three weeks to go before the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit, and I’m really excited about it! This is a first-of-its-kind event down South, and I’m proud that I’m part of the team that’s organizing it.

If you’d like to be part of this unique event on 27 October 2007, go ahead and register to join now. It’s free! But more importantly, it will be a venue for us to promote the true images of Mindanao to the world, via the power of our blogging voices. Read more »

Cheers to my AngDabawenyo.com blog! This is my 100th post, so some friends and I toasted this humble milestone with a few beers. Fellow blogger Maej Villanueva, entertainer extraordinaire Ahbet Padilla, new friend and chef Jenny Tan, and fellow student of Nihongo Peter Labor kept me company that night.

We were with a couple hundred Dabawenyos at the Victoria Plaza carpark, where one of several Oktoberfest celebrations have kicked off in Davao. By the looks of it, this one will most probably last the whole month of October. It’s located in front of 51 Coffee Shop and Buffet Palace — you can’t miss it, what with the humongous San Miguel tents covering the entire area. Read more »