"Ano ba ito?!"

We heard a homemaker say that with much exasperation in her voice, at a supermarket where the price of practically everything has gone up. Could this be because gasoline went up by P0.80 a liter and diesel by P0.50? And that our next Meralco bill will register another increase? Or that bus operators are asking for P2 additional fare? Really, "Ano ba ito?"

With the peso buying less and less, life goes on…and the homemaker is challenged to make both ends meet. To check how bad the situation was we went to the other side of town a few days ago and re-visited Robinson’s in Ortigas, since we heard that it has undergone a face lift. Truth to tell, it looked the same to us–a bit dark with the usual tiangge spread out at the entrance to the supermarket. We found the prices here (of garments and footware) much lower than in Greenhills.

Anyway, it is always a bit difficult to find what one intends to buy in a place that one does not go to frequently. But since we were on our regular market research, we decided to cover as much of the outlet as our energy would allow. We were greeted by some good news through the promotional display by the entrance that offered, among others, the 500 gm Magnolia Queso de Bola, temptingly tagged at a buy-one-take-one price of P158.75 and Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce at P146.50

As we went through the gondolas we discovered the house brand Supersavers. Its corn oil of one liter sells at P62.75 against Magic Fry at P73.75. It is rather strange that canola costs less than corn oil. So when in this outlet, get yourself canola oil which is supposed to be much healthier to use. Something new is chives oil at P100.25 for a bottle (150 ml). This might be good to have handy, when recipes call for it.

Prominent brand in the meat section is Monterey and here was where the shock began. The price of each cut went up by P20 or more, from what they were a few days ago. Ground pork at P138, with the lean going for P155 a kilo. Hamburger beef at P160 and ground round at P195. They have seasoned meat–baby back ribs at P200 a kilo, beef teriyaki at P185 and Hawaiian pork roast at P185. If you are a small family, just get half a kilo–after all one must not eat too much pork. They have an attractive come-on for their Supersaver line of meats: "Wow! Fresh for Less". Among these are sirloin steak at P275 a kilo, pork steak at P150 and stroganoff beef at P280. You might be better off visiting your old wet market suki.

Chicken has reappeared in the markets. At Robinson’s, Magnolia goes for P98 a kilo (they have big ones, too) while the house brand is tagged at P95. The seafood section that day was not that attractive, although they have king crabs packed single at P500 a kilo. We have always been partial to alimasag whose meat is normally much sweeter in taste and is much cheaper. The last time we paid P180 a kilo. Their roasted chicken looked okay, at P165 each.

We moved on to the rice section and here are the prices: Harvester’s and Raisa sinandomeng, the former at P24.70 a kilo and the latter at P250. You might want to stay away from the premium varieties–Thai Jasmin at P240 for 5 kilos, Thai Japanese at P435 for a sack of 10 kilos.

At the imported goods section, you can have your fill of sauces from Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore. The gentleman supervising this section is most courteous and helpful, and knows his products well. We got the tempura sauce after checking its expiry dates, mainly because we don’t cook tempura very often. This cost us P143.50 a bottle. An interesting line is Straight-to-wok sauces from Amoy. We got Satay and Black Pepper because we cannot reconcile ourselves to noodles in sweet sour sauce! We need to cook this before we can say how good they are. We plan to sauté (in oil, garlic and onions) some flat egg noodles over which we would pour this sauce.

To rest our tired feet and now depleted wallet, we went to Mocha Blends and had their Mocha Freddoccino. Perhaps we should have tried their Espresso or the specialty brews, so we could discern real coffee flavor.