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Yesterday, I had my first official taste of Filipino food in the 8 years since my last visit. My coworkers Alex and Eric took me out to the city of Tagatay to a place called Josephine's for lunch. Josephine's specializes in Filipino food, and also boasts a spectacular view of the Taal volcano and surrounding lake.

We started off our meal with watermelon shakes. I had had mango shakes before, but never watermelon. I was hooked on my first sip. It literally tasted like someone had taken a straw and stuck it directly into a watermelon. It was ice cold, sweet, and entirely refreshing. I had to restrain myself from sucking the whole thing down in two sips.

Alex and Eric ordered a bunch of food for us to share. The first dish we had was a seafood bouillabaisse called Mutya Ng Cavite, which means "beautiful lady of Cavite". Cavite is a city south of Manila. The soup was creamy and mild with big chunks of fish, mussels, shrimp (with heads) and crab. It was a great starter for the meal.

The next dish was called Sinugbo, which consisted of grilled chicken with pickled papaya, radish, and carrots. The grilled chicken was good; basically the same as grilled chicken in the United States. The pickled papaya, radish, and carrots that came with the chicken are supposed to be a palate cleanser, much like pickled ginger is in Japanese cuisine. The Filipino version worked well, and tasted very nice.

Next was a large plate of mixed seafood consisting of fish, New Zealand mussels, Manila clams, shrimp, crab, and calamari. All of the seafood was very fresh and simply prepared. I couldn't get enough. Living in Arizona, I find the selection of decent seafood to be severely lacking, so the availability of fresh seafood in the Philippines is very welcoming to me. While we enjoyed these dishes, I ordered another shake to wash it all down. This time, I went with green (unripened) mango. If you've never had green mango, it's very sour, yet refreshing at the same time.

There was also a plate of mixed vegetables sauteed in salted shrimp paste called Pinakbet. I really enjoyed the mixed vegetables which contained string beans, bitter melon, eggplant, and something else that escapes me at the moment. What made them particularly good was the salted shrimp paste. It added a nice twist to what would otherwise had been standard fare.

The final dish we had was Kare Kare. Kare Kare is made up of tripe, beef, and vegetables stewed in a peanut sauce and served over rice and topped with salted shrimp paste. It's much more mild than a Thai style massaman curry, and the tripe adds interesting texture to the dish. I can't say that I love tripe, but I've had it in several Filipino dishes now, and I can't say that I mind it either.

There were a lot of other things on the menu at Josephine's that looked interesting. If I have the opportunity to visit again on a future trip, I'll definitely seize the opportunity.