Maginhawa Food Fest 2014

Being neighbors with Maginhawa Street for almost 3 years now, I was really excited to know they will hold a food festival on October 11, 2014 (starts 9:00 in the morning until 12:00 midnight). To tell you the truth, I wasn't able to prepare my wallet that time because I heard this 2 days before the event. But I'm pretty sure I had an okay time at Maginhawa that day.

Maginhawa Food Festival 2014

Pau and I went there around 4:00PM because we had things to do in the morning.The traffic along C.P. Garcia was horrible (i think it is mainly because some people doesn't know that Maginhawa is closed to vehicles that day). When we arrived at the iScreamist area, I was not really surprised to see the line outside the store. It is like that even on regular days which makes it hard to taste and enjoy their popular Dragon's Breath.

Zumba Instructors on stage

Arriving at the Mini Stop, I was dismayed to see a thrift clothes shop because I thought it is a food festival and not a bazaar. Some stalls are also not occupied. I was really doubting if that was a real food fest until we arrived near the baranggay hall where there were people on stage doing Zumba and inviting people to join the Largest Zumba Party. I wasn't really paying attention to them because I came there for food.

Pau and I decided that we should see first the stores before buying anything but we ended up buying along the way anyway (hahahaha). Being near to Maginhawa, I have already ate at most of the places so I was really looking forward to new food that they will exhibit. It was nice to see local sellers showing their products like nachos, kwek-kwek, and other pica-pica food. Our first stop was cheese sticks with legit cheese (and not just cheese powder, ha!).

Cheese sticks, 4 sticks for Php10.00

Rodilla's Yema Cake

Having a sweet tooth, my eyes were caught by Yema Cake. It wasn't so sweet and the taste and quality is more than its price which is Php 25. I was supposed to buy Churros at Sancho's but I'm too lazy to line up and trust me, the line was quite long.

Tawilis and Calamares at Croustillant

It was a bit crowded on the left side of Maginhawa (Moonleaf, Brgy. Hall, Burger Project area) so we decided to check the other side (Crazy Katsu, Friulli Trattoria, Coffee Way area). Surprisingly, there's not much people hanging around in that side of Maginhawa and weirdly because some stalls are selling jackets and soaps (*A*). We passed by a stall named Croustillant which sells breaded shrimp, squid, tawilis and chicken skin. It was been a long time since I bought calamares and tawilis so we decided to buy a cup of each (50php/cup).

Maginhawa=Milk Tea, so our trip wasn't complete until we purchased milk tea at Tea Please! And boy I was delighted to see that there are no line at Tea Please that time. The line at Moonleaf, Zen Tea, and Infinitea was horrifying. I ordered my favorite Cookie Dough Flavored Milk Tea with Crushed Oreos as add-on. While waiting for my milk tea, we heard someone playing an instrument.We tried to guess which instrument is that. At first, we thought it was a violin but I changed my guess to trumpets. Being so eager to know which instrument Manong was playing, I went out to see. I was surprised to know that Manong was using a part of banana leaf. He was very entertaining and I really enjoyed listening to his "recital" (bravo manong!)

Man playing music with banana leaf

My tummy was full and my feet are really tired with all the eating and all the walking I've done since 4:00PM and the rain started pouring around 6:00PM. We went to Bookay-Ukay (shop that sells mostly secondhand books and is located near Coffee Way and Crazy Katsu) while waiting for the rain to stop. Pau suddenly pointed to the Clock that was hanging inside the shop and guess what, It was counter-clockwise! I kind of want to ask where did they bought that clock.

Clock inside Bookay-ukay

When the rain finally stopped, we decided to go home. and iScreamist still has a line outside their shop. Talk about popularity.

Maginhawa Food Fest (first ever Maginhawa Food Fest) still lacks in terms of publicity and organization. I really hope the next Maginhawa Food Fest won't have clothes and soap stalls (cause duh, it is a food fest). Chairs and tables are also needed especially that people gets tired and some needs to sit while eating. Please do highlight more of the Maginhawa special food. Though, I must say that it was somewhat clean and trash bags can be seen every 15 steps (Kudos to people who threw their trashes on trash bags and not on streets). *applause applause*