Satiating your emotions: Comfort bites around Taft

Whether one is feasting on a lechon after graduating from college or binging on milk tea while doing your thesis, the effect of these things on your mood and disposition is indispensable. No one becomes remorseful after a good meal and a hearty drink, except perhaps for dieters. But to the remainder of the population, food is always good and welcome when you are happy or sad. To University students, budget is a main constraint to comfort food and beverages even if the emotions of ecstasy or despair are apparent in school. However, all around Taft, there are student-friendly priced delights to please that weary mind and heart and give them their much needed food-induced boost. Compiled for you is a list of comfort food for all moods: ecstatic, enthusiastic, happy, chill, sad, miserable, stressed, nervous, and perhaps even pressured.

Do try it out.

For the happy, ecstatic and celebratory people

When you are in a good mood, you tend to go for a hearty meal as a prize or a reward for yourself. After all, you are already happy. You no longer need sweets to perk you up. What you need is a prize, a big prize. After that, what you need is something celebratory in essence to act as icing on the cake to your gaiety.

Kenny Rogers High Protein Meal – You need a hearty meal and this just fits the bill. Be filled with the goodness of chicken and tuna. Drool while waiting in line and indulge yourself. You’ve earned it, and now you’re happier.

Mcdonald’s Buko Pandan ice cream – This might be the best 15 pesos you’d ever spend in Taft avenue. Be ready because you’re in for quite a surprise. If you are not a fan of buko pandan, don’t fret, you will like this anyhow. Surprisingly good and affordable, this morsel will surely make your day more colorful than it already is with its green color. Don’t mind the rain and cold weather if you head out of South Gate to buy it. It’s still just as good when the weather is scorching hot.

Two orders of tapsilog from Sinangag Express – You already know how this finely shredded beef is sweet and seems as if it was made perfectly for rice, egg and vinegar. Delicious isn’t it? Now go order two. Double the fun, double the carbs, double the protein, double the fat, double the happiness.

For the chill, lazy and sleepy

It might already be midnight and you are nearly drifting into sleep, and then you hear the gurgling of your stomach craving for some sustenance. This is when you know that you want a midnight snack. This is for the condo-residing folk of Taft – or perhaps you are just sleepy and feeling lazy at school. You need something to perk you up. No more sleepyhead, we have just what you need.

Energy Drink – Cobra, Samurai, etc. – More often than not, you’ll see this being gulped by people queueing up at a club or at a party, or by athletes psyching themselves up before a big game, or generally, just people who need a big boost of energy as they will be exhausting all of their energies in a while. Since you might be feeling lazy and sleepy, an energy drink is not such a bad idea as it will make you hyped up and alert for whatever might happen.

Earl Grey Tea – This is a more natural and healthier option to energy drinks. The innate caffeine in tea will give you just the right amount of boost and lift you need. It will also aid in digesting the heavy meal you ate in the hopes of feeling energetic. It also tastes better than energy drinks because, well, it doesn’t taste much at all. It may be bland as water but you are drinking it for its benefits to your body, so don’t worry. Drinking tea also looks classier than drinking energy drinks. It makes you appear more sophisticated than you actually are.

Wai Ying – Who doesn’t love Chinese food? It’s as if it was a gift to man by Buddha.  Add the fact that it is actually really good Chinese food and you got yourself a winner of a meal. Just inhaling the aroma will already wake you up and warm your stomach up for a good meal. With each morsel munched and downed, you will think that it is such a good meal and that your money was well-spent. After hot soup, hot tea and authentic Chinese food transferred from your plate to your tummy, a big smile and a better disposition is surely the result.

For the stressed, pressured, and more or less nervous

For those who fall under the title above, it usually means that crunch time is upon them. Monday to (sadly) Sunday is WORK, WORK, and more WORK that the time spent for taking a nap could spell the difference between a good paper and that of a bad one. But one cannot forget that sustenance is also a vital factor to producing that best thesis or whatever your terror prof demands of you. Here are some quick bites or power ups that could help give you that boost.

Chocolate – It’s midnight and you’re only halfway through your paper which is due in the morning. 7/11 and Mini Stop are far away and all you have with you is a bar of Meiji Chocolate. Well, that’s one thing that can keep you focused. Research has shown that Phenylethylamine, a chemical related to amphetamines, has been found in chocolate. These stimulants help increase brain activity in the parts that control our ability to stay alert and pay attention.

Milktea (Chatime!)  – The long and grueling work day is over. You’ve had classes from 8 to 5pm straight and all you want to do now is to sit down and relax with your friends. Whether it be the usual Chocolate flavoured Milk Tea or Roasted Milk Tea, great drinks and good company are all you need to cap of the week.

Mcdonald’s…again – Being stressed and all means you’re in a rush so where’s the quickest place to grab a bite? MCDO. If you’re in the mood for a snack just to fill your tummy before you work on your project or prepare for the finals, perhaps a Big Mac or even just a McFlurry can satisfy your hunger. The long lines that come with everyone trying to get their quick fixes may be a bit stressful but once you start munching on your Quarter Pounder and their world famous fries, it will all go away.

At the end of the day, perhaps we are what we eat (and drink). We seek the viands and beverages that help us become the people we hope to be. If we’re sad, we seek the things that will try to comfort us and in the long run make us happier. When we’re happy we search for things that will makes us, well… happier. But just like in everything, food and drinks must be consumed in moderation. If not, problems of a different kind may arise, ones that food and beverages themselves cannot solve.