Saturday, July 11, 2026

Lunch at Tablo, Maginhawa Street, UP Village

We initially planned to eat lunch at Gyud Fud Hub last Tuesday. However, when we got there, we discovered that two of our go-to stalls have closed. These were the Bacolod Chicken Inasal and the Siam Thai where we usually got our lunch when we are at Gyud Fud. The others are ok but we only occasionally order food to try other stalls. The only one remaining among our go-to was the Japanese themed stall serving salmon sushi and sashimi. But that sort of limited our choices. Hindi naman kami mabubusog sa ice cream ng Colonial Creamery. And so we ended up going to Maginhawa Street where we haven't lunched at for a long while. My buddy guided us to Tablo, which he said was a popular restaurant. 

Their version of beef salpicao

Fried breaded pork chops

We had a really good lunch at Tablo. The servings were generous as we only, correctly, ordered two dishes that we shared among three. There was real good value for money, too, considering the quality of the food and service at the restaurant. We were lucky that we had lunch there during this mid year break so it was not crowded. I heard it could be full during evenings and weekends. We are already looking forward to the next opportunity for a lunch out.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

More sunflowers

I couldn't help but take another photo of the sunflowers along the University Avenue. I was at Quezon Hall the other day and as I went down using the stairs, I paused and proceeded to the balcony on the Second Floor to take the following photo.


I realized that they only planted sunflowers between Quezon Hall and Jacinto Street. They used to plant these between Quezon Hall all the way to the junction with C.P. Garcia Avenue. Perhaps some austerity measure was adopted this year? It also costs money to grow and care for the sunflowers. 

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Sunflower season at UP

It's that time of the year at UP Diliman and the sunflowers are in full bloom. I took the following photos for posterity in addition to the selfies I took with the wife. 

I took this photo last Friday before most people came to take photos before the recognition rites and commencement day at UP Diliman

I took this photo along the University Avenue last week showing graduating students wearing sablay taking photos with friends and/or relatives.

This photo was from early last week when I first noticed the flowers in full bloom in time for the UP Diliman commencement exercises today.

There were no sunflowers when I graduated back in 1993 and again in 1995. We also didn't have the sablay back then. Both are now staples for all UP constituent universities with some unique additions in certain regions like Cordilleras (UP Bagiuo) and Mindanao (UP Mindanao) though the sunflowers are probably best viewed and in large numbers at UP Diliman (correct me if I'm wrong).

To this year's graduates especially my former students - Padayon! Serve the country!