going colonial

location: padre damaso @ greenbelt 5
starters: pumpkin soup & crispy chicken skin & tail
main course: pork binagoongan and tapang usa with omelette
dessert: sisa's dementia/coffee/tea
total cost: around Php 1,300

VAL:

i've been eyeing this resto for quite sometime now and have always been intrigued by it. and so we decided to try it. it was a rather small place but we were seated in this couch with like walls around us that made us feel like we were in a private room. the waiters were friendly and gave us water right away (which is something i look for in restaurants).

for starters we had pumpkin soup and crispy chicken skin and tail. the soup was quite good. we only split it in half coz i can never finish a bowl by myself. the chicken skin was TO DIE FOR. seriously it was that good and ganun kasakit sa batok. after about 5 or 6 pieces, i could feel my head expanding. tsk tsk. not good at all. but definitely something worth trying.

for my main course i had tapang usa, which i had 2nd thoughts about because i've never eaten an usa before. it was yummy enough. what i HATED about it was that it was very oily. Not the tapa but the omelette and garlic rice that came with it. i hardly finished the rice and the egg because i felt like my mouth was one big tub of lard already. i just finished the meat coz the meal was rather expensive- it was P450.

i also got to try erik's order, which was pork binagoongan. i didn't like it all, not that i like anything binagoongan in the first place but this one was really salty.

good thing our dessert was really good. it is chocolate heaven. we had a cake called sisa's dementia, which was chocolate ganache, chocolate mousse and almond something. supper yummy! its just how i like my cake, soft and fluffy and not too sweet.

to our surprise, we also got a freebie dessert because we answered the customer survey. they gave us leche flan, which was not really good (but of course, its free).

over-all, it was quite a good resto i may just have ordered the wrong main course.

Shabu first timers

ERIK:

Mini Shabu-Shabu, that is. We went to Bonifacio High Street to go skateboarding and decided to have dinner at Mini Shabu-Shabu. I was excited since it's my first time to try it.

I had the All Seafood Set. It was entertaining at first when you star cooking the ingredients and stuff, then I realized that I'm getting tired of it. To think that the reason you go to a restaurant is because you want to eat and not to cook for yourself, right?

The food is good, though it all tastes the same because they use just one kind of broth. I must say though, it's still quite an experience. Hehe.


VAL:

definitely only 2 out of 5. first of, the cooking made me so tired i wanted to eat everything raw. then, there wasn't anything exciting about the taste. its just fancy pochero. also, i find it pricey and for the restaurant to charge service fee when i'm the one doing all the cooking, damn.

i had the beef tenderloin set and i also ordered additional dumplings. the tenderloin was just regular but the dumplings were almost close to horrible.

thanks to nalyn ming tsai for teaching us how to eat shabu-shabu style.

however, it might be a never again for me type of place. i happen to like other people doing the cooking for me. thank you very much.

first food trip of the year: brinner

VAL:

after failing to get seats in this diner-themed restaurant last friday, we tried again the next day and luckily got seats after about 30 minutes of waiting.

mr.jones is very much like gram's. serving comfort food and all-day breakfast at fairly reasonable rates, i can see why people wait in line just to eat here.

for starters we had the soup of the day, which was luckily mushroom soup. it was about 200 bucks but was worth it because the serving is good for about 2-3 people and it was delicious and peppery.

as the main course, i had the 1/2 inch thick bacon with biscuits, sunny side-up eggs and rice. the bacon was gooooood. as all bacons are. but the biscuit aka muffin was BLAND!

over-all, it was good enough but i wasn't exactly raving about it plus it was really smokey inside the resto.

however, we will definitely come back to try the fries because apparently they are to die for.


ERIK:

When you're planning to watch a last full show that is 2 hours+ long, "brinner" is the way to go. So we had it at Mr. Jones. Just like what Val said, it's very much like Gram's, which I'm also a fan of. I also liked the Mushroom soup and almost wanted to keep the cup. I had the Tapa and Garlic Overload, which comes with fried eggs and rice. Well, the name speaks for itself.

Yes, it was a good dinner, except that the place was like a big hotbox because of the smoke (and the noisy and annoying family beside our table) . I'm still coming back to try the Crab and Dory.