A Razon to Eat

I was back in my home-city after six weeks, my longest absence in six years. I had to go to Tarlac City to take care of some documents. This would take me the whole day, so I planned ahead that I would eat in one of my favorite restaurants in the city. Razon's.

A cold, rainy and wet tricycle ride finally brought me to the first branch of Razon's in downtown Tarlac, in its main thoroughfare, F. Tanedo St. (named after my great, great grandfather, as told by my relatives in the Tanedo side). I had my favorite order -- pancit palabok (known as pansit luglug among Tarlaquenos) and halo-halo. I wanted to order more -- dinugunan and arroz caldo -- but my konsensya suddenly appeared beside me and told me that I would have an excruciating attack of knee pain that evening (and I thought that only happened in Safeguard television ads). And so, I settled for my original orders.

My favorite Razon's specialties -- luglug and halo-halo. Both of these dishes are what I describe as "minimalist". They have very few ingredients but taste really good. The palabok contains only chicharon and sliced egg for its sahog. No shrimp, tinapa, squid, tofu or ground pork as can be encountered in other restaurants. Its noodles are perfectly cooked al dente (and we are not talking about pasta). The halo-halo has only a trio of flavors -- leche flan, saging saba and macapuno. It appears light yellow to cream, strikingly different from the rainbow-colored halo-halo in other food establishments. No ice cream, ube halaya, beans or sago-gulaman. The ice is finely shaved, and the halo-halo remains thick even if the ice has already melted. 

For some reasons, I only eat at Razon's F. Tanedo St. branch. I don't dine in other branches including the ones in Metro Manila. In the photo, a view of downtown Tarlac from the restaurant. Tarlac City is what I consider the smaller counterpart of developing nations. It is literally a developing city, a far cry from other main cities in Central Luzon. Nevertheless, I love this city. The building in the right is Philippine National Bank, the place where Mom and I usually waited for a jeepney to bring us back to our town way back in my pre-school and grade school years. The building across is an old movie house where I watched my first film ever, Teacher's Pet, at age 5, again with Mom.