misstinapie

I have raved much about our repeating lovely experience in Mesa at the Megamall Atrium branch and it was one of the restaurants you sure will be proud taking the entire family along so by Christmas day we went to their sister restaurant, La Mesa Grill. Kare-kare is a staple food for Filipino-based restaurants so we got that. It was served on a shallow plate unlike the usual deep clay pots standard for the dish. We also had their mixed platter with chicken, pork and seafood. I reckon this is a better choice than order so many dishes and have the usual issue of take out. It is just okay with fair sized appetites so better order twice of it if you must. As for the taste, well, just your typical grilled food smothered with marinade sauce. Then the rice. Tinapa and Laing are both winners at Mesa so we ordered them both (would have loved Bagoong rice too but sister is allergic). They are good but they weren't as tasty back in Mesa. Maybe the scrimping of ingredients not sure. I promised ...

While looking for somewhere to eat at Gateway we came upon a restaurant just a stone's throw away from the mall. We haven't seen anything interesting on their directory so we walked over there to take a look. Unlike other steak joints out there, they are branding themselves as fast food. So don't expect 'to be seated' nor ask for the menu, just stand right there on the cashier to place an order and pay. How they will ever cook steak that fast is a wonder to me not to mention how the price is truly cheap. For less than 150 you already have a meal of steak with rice and drink of your choice. That's a far cry to the usual cost of 1000 up. Knowing my BF, he always splurges us both with so much food (hence our weight gain) so he went for the combo meal good for 4. Even the one who took our order had a quick shock when he placed the order. The meal cost was 699 for 2 patties, 2 ribs, 4 glasses of soda and 4 cups of Java rice for 699php. A minute or two in the wait my ...

Friendly Guidelines: Before asking anything, kindly check the UPDATES section which is at the bottom of the original post (please be guided that this was a post last year) and the COMMENTS section for some Q&As. Thanks! Friendly Guidelines PART 2 (4.12.2013) : I know that this maybe the post that have the most traffic on it, but guys, please please please, back read the comments before asking me anything. I'm honestly getting tired answering the same questions over and over. I'm really sorry if this sounds too mean, but I don't get paid for this, okay? I need to sleep too. It annoys me that I can't reply to your queries but it is inconvenient for me too. So if I haven't answered your question, it only means you need to read the ENTIRE POST and the ENTIRE COMMENT section because the answer literally sits there. Just have patience and you won't even need to ask me anymore. Sorry guys in advance. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++...

The first thing I do whenever I walk out of the house is to look at the sky. No it's not to know if the sky has already fallen so I'd have a good excuse to bail out in the office but it's my gauge how late it was. Today it was blue. Instinct tells me that for as long as there's not much heavy traffic, I can still arrive before 9. So there I was opening the gate, getting out, then closing it again. When I turned around my morning nemesis was there, staring. It's the neighbors' chicken. One of my other habits and a good way to start the day is to chase half heartedly the neighbor's chicken, that is if he's around. It's fun, no one hasn't scolded me yet and we both get a minute of exercise. They usually fly in panic anyway so I won't be bothered accidentally kicking it.  I'm not sure how he came to be in a subdivision property but I guess not owning too many it can pass off as a pet. And since he's allowed to roam I ki...

  One of my favorite foods has got to be nuts. So when CashCashPinoy offered a voucher for PB Co. I immediately secured my own sets. We eventually get to use it for take out last Nov. after a series of connected and weird decisions. :-D When I got home, my sister who was supposedly to share the food was way ahead in dreamland so I’m off on my own. I wasn’t able to eat it on the way so I obliged myself to stuff everything in or else it will be stuck in the ref for days and days and no one will dare touch it anymore. I was so lucky too that my hot choco was still warm even if I’ve rode it home with me from MoA to Cavite. We have 600 worth of vouchers and we both have the same individual orders for all three. They don’t have a meal for it yet so we made the best out our vouchers. I think we also added a few pesos though which means prepare your wallet for the visit. The hot choco wasn’t strong and it is the best hot choco I had to date. I hope the recipe stays uniform the next ti...

  The only photo I was able to take :-( I was more concerned in saving all his videos though :-) While most Pinoys only knew him due to his ballads, there is more to Richard Marx that most of us dismiss without even knowing. For one, the guy is a songwriter. And by songwriter, he’s not just composing tunes, he’s behind a lot of songs most of us aren’t aware of. And his music is so 80s it’s enough to know I’m rubbing on the good side of Reagan. It was one of those days that are just unbelievably grid locked. My bf was extremely late and when we met up at Araneta my face is squished in anxiety. It’s already 8 and we are still finding our way out of the mall. So it was a huge relief when we got there and the line is still ongoing and not an act was there at all. We were able to go to and fro the dome and order 2 Baconators and still no act. And wait, guess who the does the opening act? Hahahaha. I never thought the organizers would have even thought of Aiza Seguerra. Here we...

Choochoo!! To be honest I’m not a fan of the band BUT I am a huge fan of the San Francisco Album. I can totally sing the entire song list but I doubt anyone could stand my amateur voice :-P.  Other than that I think the only song I knew from them is Drops of Jupiter, and comparing that particular song to their style in the latest album it’s at both ends of the spectrum. And so we went. The seats were around the same area as in the Script, only a row higher, BUT directly in front of the stage. This is the first time I’m bringing my new baby camera to test in an extremely low light condition. The opening act was Six Cycle Mind. I’m not really particular about OPM bands so I didn’t know they changed vocalists. I don’t listen to them that much but the former one had a voice that were way easier to remember. Parachute came first which is a bit weird as the opening of the set (not one of their happy songs) but at least it’s from the album I’m familiar with. The next songs w...

Haven’t been to RWM before so the showing of the musical Sound of Music is a good alibi to visit the mall situated on an area inaccessible to most people. Which is by the way a good thing, because then it’s not too crowdy. Entrance It is our first time after all, so you can’t blame us for not, in spite of the taxi dropping us off at the entrance to not enter through there first. We both saw from outside the Casino logo and we instantly walked to the right thinking we were there by mistake. Luckily they have another entrance on the farthest side, used by those from the parking lot. We wanted to walk around but before anything else, we headed upstairs, looking tor the cinemas. We found it alright, but we are already 20mins late. Casino We now have plenty of time to look around and one of the places we went was the casino. Both of us haven’t seen or been into one in real life so it was an entirely new experience for us and what we found was how it resembles so muc...

  Tapella, if you haven’t been there yet, is obviously because of it being on the farthest side of Greenbelt. Who knows if it ever gets a full house but around lunch time you can expect all the rest the tables for your choosing. Let’s start with croquettes shall we? Below is Cocido Meat Croquettes. It is really crunchy and cheesy no one will get tired of each batch. I don’t even mind if they have no dips because the fusion of the breading and soft insides are enough to ask for more.   Creamy Seafood Paella is good as well, we ate even the burnt sides attributed to the melted cheesy rice. The sad thing about it is how it was so long to prepare, and I’m telling you it is a really a very long wait. The serving is also tiny, that if you have a fair appetite, you wanted to have a bowl for yourself and not to share as the waitress told us. I mean it is ‘small’ size, but we asked which is good for two people and this is what they actually recommended. And because we’re running...

  Still in the hunt for the best Baklava in town, we ended up going to Lorenzo’s way. Last time wasn’t as good as I anticipated and I really am serious of knowing where I could ever buy the closest to the ones our cousin sent to us who used to work in Turkey. For appetizers they served us with vegetarian sticks or as they named it, Teriyaki Mushroom and Tofu Kebab. For every skewer you get pieces of tofu, mushrooms, peppers and onions one on top of each other, drizzled with teriyaki sauce. If you’re not even remotely fond of munching whole button mushrooms, don’t even bother. Below is a dish called Coco Loco Prawns. It reminds me so much of one of my favorite food, Ginataang Alimasag and is a really far deviation of it. Coco Loco Prawns is a bit spicy (just look at that green chili right there), the sauce is creamy and it is reeking with seafood goodness. What’s so hard to understand about it is that although I love prawns, I’m not loving this as much as I do with every othe...

I still don’t get what’s the deal with “Pepper” being in the name of a hot plate restaurant (there’s also Sizzling Pepper Lunch) and not find Pepper in your plate (atleast Heaven ‘n Eggs are trying with the eggs). I remembered having dinner sometime ago in Sizzling Pepper Lunch and it was a so-so experience. The trick is the same with all of those hot plate restaurants, the pour of gravy will make you feel like your food is being cooked by the so called hot plate. If you work near the area, or know Megamall that much, you would know that the area where Pepper Lunch and Bon Chon were previously rented by Kaya Restaurant. No one misses it as far as I’m concerned but my point is, of the two that replaced that mainstream Korean foodchain, Pepper Lunch prices are not as easy on the everyday lunch out as much as Bon Chon* is. So instead of shamelessly asking my lunch buddies to try it one time (the blame of spending too much on a day would be endless) I went there on my own when I was render...

  It’s been days. I’m craving for baklava. My cousin once worked in Turkey and she usually takes home those sweet baklava treats with nuts. I don’t miss nuts that much since we can buy it here (although expensive—pistachio, walnuts, almonds, etc) but baklava… oh man. I could never find that taste elsewhere. I shared this craving with Reagan and he was all game with us finding the authentic baklava I love. I was even thinking of going to Turkey which costs roughly 70k which is well, feasible, until we go to the part that the minimum requirement for a trip there is 15 people; in other words, I really must find one here in the Metro. Since he’s a better googler, he was first to find that Cyma does offer such food. So we went there, all for the sake of me reuniting with my favorite dessert and him, to know what the fuss is about. We also haven’t dine hire yet so it’s another alibi. Instead of getting set meals, we ordered what we think are Greek and at the same time safe. We’ve con...

  Before this day, I had no plans of ever going because I wasn’t allow to buy any book at all by my boyfriend. He knows I have too many unread books and he insists I finish all of them before I buy new ones. But I was able to have an alibi, all thanks to Alexander Yates. I have first heard of his book, I think a few weeks back on an NBS newsletter (so what if I’m only subscribed to PB and NBS newsletters?!!) which I now rarely look at due to “the ban” but then he’d do book signing and being his first attempt as a writer, I could not resist being one of his audience while there are still a few of them out there. There is always a pleasure for me to be able to get to be the first one to hear of it so I slightly hinted that I MAY go to the fair if I didn’t get lazy. So I went there with a plan: 1. Buy Moondogs 2. Have it signed by Mr. Yates 3. Go home. I was there around around 230 so I had a lot of chance going to and fro elsewhere but I managed to just stay on the NBS Booth....

This is going to be short. I will just rant on a simple event that happened today. I have managed to turn away from sales for as long as I can muster (probably a few months) but since our youngest sister was in need of some new clothes (they have a new school policy of semi-formal during Wednesdays which here wardrobe lacks terribly of) so I thought that this will be a good alibi. So we went, shopped, and reduced my current accounts to something something pesos (my sisters were so excited they get to buy too much stuff—to the dismay of my wallet of course). I was growing tired of the place since there were only a small number of exhibitors (this is compared to the one I went to last year in MOA) and totally dampen my want to shop. So after the fifth time we went around, and was sick seeing the same old stuff all the time, I urged them to call it a day and retreat at Mega to wait for our father. But before we got out, we were held up by the guards of the tent asking us to show ...

  It has become tradition that every second week we go out to grocery. And more often than not, it also means we are out to eat out. One of our favorite restaurants would have to be this one, Flavours of China. What I usually liked about Chinese restaurants is the Yang Chow Rice. It’s always lovely to eat and the servings are usually such as this. It’s as if they have too many rice cookers cooking at the same time just to keep up with the volume of this baby. Caramelized pork with walnuts is also nice, although you can get by with a slice or two. And yes, this dish really have walnuts on it. Lots and lots of it. This hotpot also packs so much taste this was the first one to have been fully consumed. It was simple and the ingredients are well cooked. We also had their fried chicken, which is surprisingly none too oily; it was so unlike this chicken chain that won’t hold the oil you feel like getting to hospital afterwards.   Full cost of meal? 1165 pesos. That ...

The second batch of Food Adventure food trip hasn’t made both of us satiated so without hesitation we went straight to The Ramen Bar. Last time the only food that was served to us were kakuni buns and not a bowl of ramen which is obviously it’s specialty. I know for a fact that my boyfriend will not let any ramen opportunity go so we pondered on the offerings in the menu.   There are so many choices in ramen alone but only one stood out, which we also knew was the house specialty. R.B.S. #1. Okay so it doesn’t look very much appealing. Not anything like the colorful ramen bowls we are so familiar of. There aren’t no food arrangements, no familiar naruto slice on top. I was trying to break a smile when it was served and I was getting a bit scared that I may not enjoy it. But I can’t back out now, so I dipped my spoon and into my mouth. One of the reasons why I”m not fond of noodles is because it’s always too hot or too cold. I could never make it to the right temperature ...

  I’ve been lingering in voucher sites for some time now and this is the first time I bought a food voucher (the first and only one being the Flip offer) to try. The best pick so far that pushed through (buffet meals would only frustrate me) was a 5 course meal from Shiro Shiro—it’s Japanese, we haven’t eaten there yet and it’s cheap. In other words not hard to convince the bf. As usual we came in late from our reservation. I was frustrated at our demise (stuck in traffic, I have to call to move the reservation) only to find out that we really have no table competition at all. There was only one guy at that time (lunch hour) and it looked like the 100+ customers who bought the vouchers have no intention of coming in today. We gave our printed out voucher to the waitress who was clueless on their OWN OFFERINGS. We even logged in (lucky they have WiFi) just to check what package we’re getting. And when we chose one of the sets, it was even unfortunate that it wasn’t available...