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Fun with Car Plates & Hilarious Place Names
Reprinted with permission from the Philippine Daily Inquirer
by: Ambeth Ocampo
To keep our sanity in traffic, the late E. Aguilar Cruz and I played a game with license plates. We would take the letters for acronyms and complete them. For example, PDA 666 could be either the "Philippine Dental Association" or the Philippine Dog-eaters Association." Naturally, the more outrageous acronym won. Over time, plates that began with P always became "Philippine" and those with "N" tended to become "National" as in NHA-National Housing Authority or National Hyenas Association. There were plates that did not need much imagination, as they were words into themselves like "SAD" or "SAG" or even "DED." This game played in traffic was very much like Scrabble and did wonders for my vocabulary. It also kept me from observing the favorite pastime of drivers in traffic-picking their noses.
Other people, it seems, kept their eyes on more than license plates and came up with a list of establishments with funny names. These are all around town, tucked into those abandoned little esquinitas where we try to avoid traffic only to discover that everyone else had the same idea. The famous listing by Mark and Jaime Fournier was mixed with e-mail responses to my columns on Rizal's girlfriends. The Fourniers have a list in a website www.freeyellow.com/members2/mrk4nr/index.htm used without acknowledgement for an INQUIRER article ages ago. Thus, without checking, some fictitious establishments were included in the article with real ones.
The Fournier family listed its favorites, some of which I have actually seen like 10/Q (a convenience store on Shaw Boulevard), Ali Baka (a shawarma chain), Aristoback (really a restaurant behind Aristocrat).
However, I have yet to see Star-Backs (a Quezon City coffeeshop near ABS-CBN and GMA Networks) or Susan's Roses (a flower shop). I have seen Tapsi Turbi (a tapsilog stand), Beery Good (a real bar), Goodah, Goto Heaven (in Baguio where they have a dish called Goto Hell).
My sisters are always in dire need of domestic help and I know they have tried these employment agencies: Maid to Order, Maid to Last and Ready Maid. I have heard of the flower shop called Petal Attraction and I think I have seen Net Café and not really connected it with Nescafe.
The favorite signs of the Fournier family are listed alphabetically as follows: 25 Hours (watch store), Anita Bakery, Bali Gulp (drinking place behind Valley Golf in Antipolo), Beads and Pieces (naturally, a bead shop), Beefer 150 (a meat shop), Caintacky Fried Chicken (chicken specialty restaurant in Cainta that has yet to get into Doreen Fernandez's list), Common Cents (sari-sari store), Crispy per minute (a crispy pata store), Curl Up and Dye (beauty salon), Doctor Sebago (shoe repair shop), Doris Day and Night (24-hour eatery), Elizabeth Tailoring, which reminded me about an unconfirmed shop called Pierre Carding. There is Farmacia with Love (drugstore), Felix the Cut (barber shop) and Funeraria Mabuhay that reminded me of a shingle in Ilocos advertising the services of Attorney Pakulong or someone we met taking an MBA whose surname was aptly Lugue. The Fourniers also list Income Taxi, Goldilooks (a Fairview barber shop) and Goldirocks (gravel and sand). How about Juice Co. (fresh fruit juice stand), Labo Optical and L.B.M. Restaurant? There is a Mane Attraction (beauty parlor) and a Cebu roadside eatery named Let's Do Eat. A nacho shop called Nacho Fast, a beer garden called O' Beer Time and Passers Buy convenience store. It is really the salons that have the most amusing names: Saudia Hairlines (established perhaps with hard-earned dollars from Saudi?) or Scissors Palace and Sylvestre's Salon.
To think we still have jeeps that have signs that warn non-paying commuters that "God Knows Hudas Not Pay." We are a country filled with so many "punny" places. The rest of the Fournier favorites: Washup Doc (laundry in Alabang), Wash and Carry (laundromat), To Home It May Concern (furniture shop), The Way We Wear (boutique), The Last Resort (a resort that went bankrupt in Minalin, Pampanga). Juan Sarmiento sent in more contributions like Babalik Carinderia (in Sto. Tomas, Batangas) Blue Marilyn (sing-along bar on Sucat), City Cleaners which is a San Juan janitorial service whose slogan is "Talk dirty to me!", Launderland (a laundromat in Legaspi Village, Makati, reportedly run by a woman named Alice). Of course, for husbands who need an excuse for a night out, they can tell their wives they were at The Library (along Adriatico), The Other Office (on Mabini) and The Conference Room (in Makati). What I have yet to see though is Cooking ng Ina Mo (a carinderia on Boni Avenue) and its competitor Cooking ng Ina Mo Rin.
Someone should really go out with a camera and document these places, just to prove they exist. We have pictures of places abroad that made us laugh. In London was the Kadiri Indian Restaurant. Or the famous Hospital Patay in Paris, and of course in Hong Kong the Fu Kee Seafood Restaurant. Now I wish I had taken a camera around town just to document other "punny" places. One of my favorites is a hardware store on a small street off Rizal Avenue in downtown Manila that specializes in nuts and bolts. Its signboard has a large screw in the center loudly proclaiming that the owner or at least the store is the "King of Screw."
Ambeth Ocampo has a daily column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled "Looking Back."
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