Sooo Pinoy: Promoting Filipino Cuisine

Sooo Pinoy is a movement spearheaded by Unilever Food Solutions to promote Filipino Cuisine in the dining out market. The goal was to inform Filipinos about the rich cuisine we have as a nation and to encourage Pinoys to dine out and enjoy our very own rich cuisine. The movement started last year, and Sooo Pinoy came out with monthly articles talking about our all-time favorite Pinoy dishes such as Sinigang, Bulalo and Crispy Pata, which people voted on via mobile as their ultimate Filipino comfort food. Last year’s winner was Sinigang.

This year, the partnership goes bigger as Unilever Food Solutions team up with Philippine Daily Inquirer, Team manila, and the Sooo Pinoy ambassadors Chico And Delamar (woot, that’s us!) and Juana Change (Mae Paner), as the campaign promotes not only Filipino food but the local operators who serve our Filipino favorites.

Each month, the Philippine Star and the Philippine Daily Inquirer announce the dish feature of the month and the 30 restaurant nominees who serve the best focus dish. Diners then vote via Facebook which they think is the best restaurant serving that dish which culminates at the end of each month. The winning Top 10 are then featured via Facebok, PDI, Philstar and the Sooo Pinoy ambassadors.

As for us, Chico and Delamar, as ambassadors, we will participate in a 15-restaurant challenge. We will be dining is 15 restaurants that specialize in Pinoy Cuisine, and then we will blog about our experiences in each restaurant. How cool of a task is that? We’re very stoked because both Delle and i are big eaters and huge fans of Filipino food. Personally, I can eat adobo any time, anywhere. Kare-kare is also one of my all time favorites. And who can say no to crispy pata? Even our barkada is a huge fan of eating, in general, and Filipino cuisine specifically. One friend’s specialty is his asado, which melts in your mouth, and his white adobo, which sends us in paroxyms of pleasure. Another friend’s specialty is his binagoongan, which he cooks to a point where you can no longer distinguish which is meat and which is fat. Absolutely divine. They love to cook, and we love to eat. And whenever we eat out as a group, we gravitate towards our favorite Pinoy restos like Cafe Juanita, Fely J’s, O Kitchen, Via Mare, Abe, among many others. So you see, this cause is very dear to us personally. Even when we travel, one of the highlights is to discover the cuisine of whatever province we’re in (we’re also huge advocates of discovering the many beautiful travel spots in the Philippines).

So watch for our posts on our blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts, and we’ll take you with us on our journey to rediscover Filipino Cuisine at its finest! For more details and updates, visit the Sooo Pinoy Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SoooPinoy and you can also follow @SoooPinoy on Twitter. We’ll be starting our restaurant challenge this week, and we can’t wait!

We’re so honored to be the Sooo Pinoy ambassadors and hopefully we do a good job in bringing Pinoy cuisine back to the forefront of Pinoy palates all over the countries. And if because of our posts you guys troop to your favorite Pinoy restos, then we’ve done our jobs! We’re sooo excited to be part of Sooo Pinoy!

Acupuncture And Ventosa

I’ve been complaining about this gnawing pain on my right shoulder blade, and many have said it could be because of the daily 4-hour mouse-ing I do on the computer while we work. Which is probably true, because the pain is most intense around 2 or 3 hours into the show. I’ve tried getting massages, to get rid of the “lamig’, and my barber did say it’s like I have knots the size of golf balls on the right side of my back. So finally I decided to have it checked by my nephew JC who’s an acupuncturist. He’s an MD, but he also does acupuncture, so he’s got the best of both worlds.  He said it is most likely the strain my laptop is causing, and that if unchecked, the damage will spread to other parts of the arm system. So he put needles all around the shoulder blade, then he attached some wires to the needles which carried an electric current. I didn’t feel an electric shock, it was more like pulses, which made my muscles twitch, like a reflex. It was an odd feeling, but not painful, just new. After the acupuncture, he also did some ventosa on me, which is basically glass cups that act like suctions, which alleviate pain and remove toxins in the body. As you can see in the picture above, the marks on my back were where the glass cups were. The darker the marks, the more toxins were removed. The marks disappear after a couple of days. It was quite an experience, but I must say, it really helped ease a lot of the pain, actually more like intense “ngawit”. I did this in the afternoon yesterday, and since then I haven’t had the pain back. I shouldn’t have waited for a couple of weeks to get treated, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad if I got needled at the start of the pain.

Anyway, I just thought I’d blog about the experience because it might help out some of you who might be having some problems with your back, muscles, sports injuries, and actually any other medical problems. My nephew’s pretty good at what he does, and I’m not saying that just because I’m related to him. In case you want to try acupuncture or ventosa, you can set an appointment with him, his name is Dr. JC Aniban, you call him up at 0917-8224015.