This week's restaurant: Manila Sunset, 11815 Foothill Blvd. (at Rochester), Rancho Cucamonga.

One of a small chain of Filipino fast-casual restaurants, Manila Sunset is located in the Masi Plaza center. I'd been meaning to go for a long time but kept forgetting, as I don't get to Far Rancho all that often. Then my friend Rose had lunch there and sent me a glowing report. Finally I made a point of going there with a friend on our way to "The Crucible" at Lewis Family Playhouse last week.

It's a clean, bright place, done mostly in yellow, with murals and a large patio. You order at the counter, which can be intimidating, since the menu is full of unrecognizable items (if you're unfamiliar with Filipino food, as I am) with names like Pancit Malabon and Tokwa't Baboy. But the manager is very gregarious, explaining the menu and recommending items.

We had the pork BBQ skewers plate ($5.95), milkfish, which was one of the daily specials (price forgotten but around $7), an order of fresh lumpia ($3.95), which is sauteed vegetables in a crepe-like wrapper, and two unusual but delicious beverages, sago at Gulaman, which is an iced gelatin drink, and the iced melon drink ($2.75 each).

We liked our food and thought it was reasonably priced. The menu has a lot of fried items, and eating off foam containers isn't really my thing, so Manila Sunset probably won't be a regular stop. But I have nothing bad to say about the place. The numerous daily specials were on a separate board and may be unique to this location. It was neat to see how the menu doesn't seem to be dumbed down.

The Rancho Cucamonga/Fontana area has a sizable Filipino population. Several other diners that evening were Filipino. Having a Filipino restaurant here is a boon for them and helps make Rancho Cucamonga just that much more cosmopolitan.

Did I really just use "Rancho Cucamonga" and "cosmopolitan" in the same sentence?

From Raremaps.com comes this image of Etiwanda as it appeared circa 1882, shortly after the Chaffey brothers bought up everything. Note the very tiny "coming soon" sign for Victoria Gardens. (Just kidding.) At this writing, you can own the map for $375. Someone needs to buy it.

Books bought this month: "The Shadow of Sirius," W.S. Merwin.

Books read this month: "Local Knowledge," B.H. Fairchild; "On Stage," Ray Bradbury; "The Wizard of Venus," Edgar Rice Burroughs; "The Cat's Pajamas," Ray Bradbury; "The Shadow of Sirius," W.S. Merwin.

The news this month: 1) I bought only one book, and read it, and 2) in my quest to read 50 books this year, I succeeded, reading books 46 to 50 this month. Yay me. And with two months to go, yet.

Onward to this month's books. The Fairchild (bought in September) and the Merwin are poetry. Now, poetry has never been this English major's bag. I like a few of the things we're all supposed to like, but for me, poetry is like jazz, classical music, modern art -- substitute your own mystery art form if you like -- that I don't much understand and have no critical apparatus to evaluate properly.

That said, I bought Fairchild's book at a reading I attended because he's a Claremont resident and highly regarded (a National Book Award finalist, for one thing) and I felt I should know what he's about. I liked his reading and I liked the book, enough that I'll buy more of his work.

Merwin's book was also purchased at a reading. He's one of poetry's heavyweights and his latest collection, the one I bought, won a Pulitzer this year. Well, what the heck, it was a slender paperback and he was there to sign it, so why not?

I was reading it sort of by autopilot -- poems require more concentration and a different type of reading than prose, and I have trouble adjusting to the pace -- when the poems started to connect. First came one about Merwin's childhood memory of his mother's hands as she played the piano: "the veins on the backs of her hands are the color/of the clear morning sky beginning to haze over." The next one combined his parents' first memories with their last moments before death, to great effect.

I can't say I loved or even understood all the poems, but I liked a number of them, and if a non-poetry reader can say that, it must be an awfully fine book.

I'm not one for celebrating Halloween, but that evening a friend and I marked the occasion by seeing the 1922 silent vampire flick "Nosferatu" at Disney Concert Hall with live organ accompaniment. The movie is slightly campy at this point, but still creepy, and the organ added immeasurably to the impact.

It was my first time in Disney Hall and I enjoyed the look and feel of the place. Some patrons were dressed up for Halloween. And some employees in their formal white shirts, black vests and black pants also wore an accessory: glowing devil horns.

Beforehand we had dinner a block away at Kendall's Brasserie, a modestly upscale bistro. A party of four was clad in capes and at the bar a man, otherwise dressed formally, wore a spangled Green Hornet-type mask.

How was your Halloween?

Located across Yale Avenue from each other in the Village are two new stores that sound like they sell healthy food, but actually sell clothing. Even in a recession, the Yuppification of Claremont continues.