My friend Neil asked me to buy some Alavar sauce for him when he found out that I was going home for the holidays. Then I went to Ateneo de 
Manila University to deliver it to him, because he’s a professor there and that’s where he lives. He met me at the Araneta center and from there we spent some time in this really huge market where he bought some leaves and tomatoes before we rode the LRT2 to Katipunan station, then rode a tricycle to ADMU where I saw his place for the first time.
Then while I read some books on his couch, he whipped up a full-course lunch for me and him. First he made an egg-based mushroom and tofu soup which I really loved. Then salad followed – a mixture of shrimp sautéed in garlic, lettuce, some of those leaves he bought at the market, cherry tomatoes, orange slices, cashew nuts, all drizzled over with coconut milk. I loved the combo except 
for the coconut milk, which I don’t really eat. The main course was pasta and salmon with Alavar’s sauce. By then I was already full from the soup and salad and was able to eat less than half of the food on my plate. I did not realize that Alavar’s sauce was also made with coconut milk, perhaps the reason why I could not bear to force everything down even if I was full already.
When I was ready to leave, Neil mentioned Cello’s, which was a popular donut place near ADMU which I mentioned to him once because Fr. DJ said it was his favorite. So we left his apartment and walked around ADMU and outside to get to Cello’s. I bought a box of 6 for the house and then Neil walked me to the LRT station and even rode with me to Cubao station and brought me all the way to the MRT station.