Last week we had an interestingly artsy fartsy series of events we didnt see coming.

On february 7, thursday night, bianca balbuena, production manager and assistant director in some of jerrold tarog’s films and now producer for pepe diokno’s latest project, in which i and carlo are a part of, invited us to a screening at the UP of her recent producing stint off cinema one originals festival, ABERYA, starring will devaugn, mercedes cabral, iwa moto, and best supporting actor, nicholas varela, a sound recordist in real life and the ex-boyfriend of bianca. long sentence, i know.

We got to the UP early so we had dinner across the street from the theater at the ROC. awesome food and interiors. Loving the high ceiling, especially.

Clockwise from top left is tomato soup, bicol express bagnet, awesome herbed tomato and garlic roll up pizza and a beef stew (very good).
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ABERYA was written and directed by christian linaban who hails from cebu. I would have enjoyed the film more if the sound were better during the screening. The film lost a lot of the mood and atmosphere to draw its audience into the world of love, sex, video scandals, designer drugs and circumstance. I learn later on that Pepe diokno had previously tweeted saying the film had the best sound design there is hence, it explained why i couldnt immerse myself into the film. Maybe i can catch it again in a better theater, which makes it also imperative that the UP film center (now called the UP film institute, but im old like that) must really upgrade its sound system, acoustics and put in a better and permanent digital projector.

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Photos after the screening with former artdep, now makeup artist and cinemalaya best pd, syrel lopez, then with the equally maharot, bianca balbuena, and a shot with ABERYA director christian linaban, when most of the group drinking at tomato kick that night has left for an early flight back to cebu the next day.

btw it was our first time at tomato kick in maginhawa st, a water hole for most of UP’s students and alumni. we frequent the area though because our suking tindahan printer, orange segment, is located in the same building along with bookay ukay and skate of the nation. Unfortunately, tomato kick will be closing shop soon so you have to run to katipunan extension for your kicks next time. Try the french fries with cheese sauce and bacon before it’s gone gone gone.

By friday, february 8, we attended a gallery opening of carlo’s painting major classmate, camille ver, at gallerie stephanie in libis. apart from the VIPs attending the opening, carlo’s other classmates came to play including abba mendoza, who worked at an interior design factory in china and got carlo to do a short stint designing table decor there, and tinay villamiel, creative director and owner of artwork shirts company and her brainchild, bleache catastrophe.

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Somewhere between the discussions and reminiscing of arts school and work, tinay mentioned about the best bleu cheese burger she ever had. This definitely spiked our interest so we headed to draft resto bar at the fort strip in taguig to dine on what may just challenge brother’s burger’s blues brothers designer burger! Kalokang pangalan 😉

The Bleu Cheeseburger with US Angus beef patty, onion jam, truffle aioli and fries. Ordered with beer from europe, i forgot what beer that was haha but it was good.
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Had the burger cooked medium well. We enjoyed it but the serving was so big including the side order of fries that we didnt finish it at all. Even im surprised because i eat fast and can finish everything but that would not be the case here. The burger was kinda dry so maybe we should have ordered it medium rare? The bleu cheese was very generous but we missed the sloppy nature of the bleu cheese sauce of brothers’ burger so days after, we had to have that again. For the sake of research, science, well-being, and peace of mind, of course. and to world peace.

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The Brothers’ Burger designer burger, the Blues Brother. Nuff said.
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And the winner is? To brotherhood! La Vie Boheme!
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To be continued.