A small piece of heaven in a place that often feels like hell

The City of Philadelphia is a tough city to live in. In Philadelphia the crime rate is astonomical,over 400 murders for 2006 and for this year already there has been at least one murder a day, the city is very dirty, only 2% recycle, the traffic is horrible,and the people are often quite harsh. Even though I love living here these characteristics of the city start to take a toll on your psyche. Just the other night I found a restaurant that makes all of my Philly woes disappear. The restaurant is called Manila Bay, and it is a small, beautiful place that offers me the comfort foods that remind me of home, and of lolo. The food is amazing, with offers of tocino, lumpia, pancit, bistek, chop soy, adobo(but it will never be as good as lolo's), laing and much much more including the ever so good San Miguel beer and all the entree's are priced between $7-$9, very affordable even for a poor lowly corps member like myself. It was so nice to not only eat Filipino food, but it was nice because I brought my roommate Emily with me and she got a taste of Filipino food for the first time and she loved it. It was so nice to be in a restaurant the served up comfort foods, it made getting through a City Year work week in Philadelphia bearable.