Hrmmm.

World Chicken. Probably just bananas or potato salad as side dish. Occasional pasta.
KFC. Salad. Maybe the chicken wrap?
Wendy’s. Salad. Or the occasional baked potato.
Pho Hoa. I’d just have to make sure that JM gets more noodles than I ever will.
Bacolod Chicken? Inasal is salty. Maybe chicken breast then just the mango salad thing.
Shawarma Stop. On bread, definitely.
FlapJacks. Salad.

Talking Tongues serves Chinese Indonesian food. We think that he owner is probably Indonesian because she asked me if I was one. (Being Filipino, we are usually mistaken for being Indonesian, Thai, Chinese, etc.) We ordered our food and she asked us if we wanted our food spicy. Of course we said yes! So we sat down on one of the tables while waiting for our food. Looks like they prepare things as they were ordered so it took a while. We looked at the decorations of the place and the uniforms the staff sort of reminded me of Banana Leaf’s staff uniform. The place was colorful with the yellow, purple and blue stuff and furniture. There were even some kind of figures on display. I think it’s to emphasize that they serve Chinese Indonesian cuisine.

It was actually hard to decide on what to eat, considering that everything on the menu seemed interesting. It doesn’t help that seeing all those food being served to their customers when we arrived looked great and smelled like it. Ah food. We really hoped to eat them and get satisfied in the end.

This is what the placed looked like.

The food

JM’s food was some kind of spicy fried rice dish with egg on top of it. The barbequed chicken was the viand. But really, I think that the rice itself was ok already. There were also pickled cucumbers on the side. We sure were glad to ask for spicy food because we got what we asked for. And there was even hot sauce on the table for those who wanted it extra spicy. As you can see from the picture, the rice looked like it had a lot of spices when it was prepared.

At first I was thinking that maybe my food will end up bland because of the light color. It wasn’t as red as JM’s rice. But I was wrong. It was actually quite spicy. Adding the hot sauce made me think that the dish I ordered was some kind of a traitor. Just striking when you least know it. But that’s ok. Spicy is good!

The fried dumplings were a bit ‘meh’ for my taste. And not so meaty either. I could have eaten dumplings elsewhere. But the rice dishes were really terrific and I wish that I could have eaten a whole lot more.

I’d gladly go back to Talking Tongues some other day. I hope to bring some friends there some time too.

I ordered two things: the spicy fried rice with bit of dried fish and egg plus fried dumplings.

So we were greeted by a fresh glass of dalandan juice and JM was really hungry by then. While waiting for the salad, I admired the table setting.

We were served the salad first.

The lettuce leaves were so big and fresh. I don’t think I saw lettuce leaves that fresh in the supermarket! There’s only one dressing and even if I included fruits like mango and jackfruit in my salad, the dressing went well with it. If I go to Sonya’s Garden again, I’d buy a bottle of their salad dressing. It’s not too strong unlike some vinegar based dressings. It’s not too creamy either. I don’t know but it’s just right. A bit sweet, not salty.

After enjoying the salad, we had some bread with interesting spreads. JM had an interesting experience when he spread some peppercorns on his bread! Hehe. The bread was soft but the crust was a bit toasted so I liked it a lot. The spreads were interesting. The dips: pesto, white cheese, anchovies, tapenade. I love the white cheese and the pesto!

As for the main course, we had pasta. I especially loved the sundried tomatoes. And the salmon too. For me the chicken with cream was not too great because I am not a big cream-based sauce fan. I guess it’s because I found it a bit too sweet. In any case you have a choice of adding mushrooms, olives and other food I don’t recall at the moment because this post is really long overdue.

JM actually didn’t eat much bread in order to have space for the pasta. Hehe. He loved the pasta!

For dessert, we had the following: glazed sweet potato, turon, chocolate cake. It was served with tarragon tea.

JM couldn’t eat much of the desserts already because he was full. But I just had to taste everything I am a huge fan of turon, to be honest, and theirs wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet so I loved it. ? The glazed sweet potato was also tasty. Nothing like the camote cue we’re used to eating for snack. The glaze didn’t make the sweet potatoes too sweet and it looked appetizing. The chocolate cake was heavenly! I actually wished I could eat more but I was too full for that. The tarragon tea was perfect.

We had to take pictures of the garden too:

There were nice little house-shaped lamps on the ground and lots of pretty flowers at the side of the dining area. There was also this droopy sunflower and JM just had to pose beside it, as if commiserating with it. Awww.

It was a great trip to Sonya’s Garden and I wouldn’t mind going back again