Dinner at Hukad in Ayala Terraces

[Delicious Budbud with chocolate goo! Rating: 10/10 ... definitely]

As always, the great procrastinator strikes again! Yes, this is a long overdue post about a dinner I had with friends/co-workers weeks ago at Hukad, the high-end version of Golden Cowrie in Ayala Terraces. Now, where do I start? Oh yeah, we did not have any cash at that time, so we persuaded Glenn to let his plastic work its usual magic again. Haha! Actually, Glenn doesn’t mind us using his plastic because he knows when we get our money. Am I right, Glenn? *huge grin* Anyway, we have been itching to have dinner for days at that time that when Glenn, the financier, finally agreed to come with us – and I was finally able to remember to bring my camera – we immediately hopped on a taxi the minute our shifts ended. We were that excited, and hungry too, actually. So, armed with my camera and hunger pangs, our feet guided us to Hukad. Actually, it’s just a branch of Golden Cowrie, with just better furnishings and prettier scenery, especially for their “al fresco” tables. And as usual with this popular local restaurant, the place was packed when we arrived and when we spied a vacant table in their “al fresco” section, we quickly took it. When we got menus, we tried to ignore the yummy pictures of the “crispy pata” and proceeded to order the dishes without any pork or beef. *sigh I miss eating pork sometimes…just sometimes (”Sometimes ra lagi!”, I tell my neurotic self). Yes, I have sworn off pork, and beef, for now. And since Cel’s diet is the same as mine, we opted to order dishes without pork, but with lots of coconut milk. Haha! However, since Leylan refused to give up on ordering pancit, we gave in and ordered it even though it might have had pork.

Wave off Summer with a Bowl of Chowking Halo-Halo

One of the many delicious food that we Filipinos are pretty proud of is our “Halo-Halo”.  I remember that one of the Taiwanese F4, Ken, even said that it was one of the things he could never forget when he visited our country with his mom as a child. He said it was one of the most delicious concoctions he has ever tasted. Isn’t that cute? And yeah, I do know Taiwan’s F4. Who doesn’t? LOL! Mind you, that was not really verbatim, but you get the idea.  Anyway, I have loved this dessert since I was a snot-nosed child of six with only a single 25-cent coin to my name.  I remember that when our neighbor started selling this, it was a sure sign that it was the start of summer vacation, and the beginning of an informal “halo-halo” fiesta in our sitio. To those who do not know what a “halo-halo” is, this dessert consists of a delicious fusion of shaved ice, evaporated milk, sugar crystals, a small slice of leche flan, jello, or purple yam jam (if there are any available), some red-colored syrup (I suspect it’s cherry flavored), cornflakes, and any sliced fruits you can get your hands on. You cram all of these into a single cup or glass (yes, it can be done), and painstakingly mix all of these with a long-handled spoon. Voila! You have “halo-halo”.

Unscheduled Payday Dinner at Manpuku Bento

It has been quite a while since my co-workers and I have had dinner on a payday. I guess it was just one of those transient traditions that you can never quite seem to hold on to, no matter how hard you wish it to linger. And yes, I am being nostalgic. The “sentimental” side of me has floated up to the surface again . . . or I could just be missing having something worthy to post here. LOL! Oh well, let us go back to the dinner . . . some unbelievably delicious Japanese food. Yes, you read it right, we ate Japanese food. And no, we did not eat raw fish. Yuck! Sorry, Chelle but I never did acquire the palate for raw fish. I remember I tasted it once and I felt like vomiting. Fortunately, the nausea-inducing pink tidbit was drowned in wasabi-infested soy sauce. Haha! That definitely made it tolerable.

Well, I do love Japanese food, sans raw fish, that is. Jenny and Cel love Japanese food as well while Glenn and Rhea willingly let us drag them to that bento place at Ayala without any fuss. We were trying to save so we decided to forgo fine dining for relatively cheaper fastfood. We decided to visit Manpuku Bento again. Yes,”again”… because we have eaten here so many times but I kept forgetting my camera. Last Thursday, however, I brought my camera – for no apparent reason – and so I was able to take pictures of their charmingly decorated and undeniably yummy food. When we arrived at Ayala, I could hardly wait to eat those roe-covered makis, Jenny could not wait to play with a pair of chopsticks, and Cel was positively glowing at the mention of “yasai”. Rhea was Rhea, the proverbially-undecided-until-after-several-pokes Rhea while Glenn just could not wait to eat . . . period. I ordered two servings of maki, a serving of salmon balls, and a plate of yasai. I thought it was just enough for me but apparently, my tendency for ordering too much has not died down despite hard times. Luckily, Glenn was hungry. Haha! Well then, without further ado . . . here they are, our very colorful and sinfully delicious food.

Itadakimasu, everyone! (Man, I miss saying that!)

California maki, Yasai, and Salmon balls! [Rating: 10/10]

At MyJoy with Girlfriends

Had dinner with some girlfriends from work last month . Yeah! Yeah! This post is a month old already because I forgot all about it after I posted the pictures on my multiply. Hehehe! Oh well, I’m sure there have not been many changes at MyJoy since then…I think. All right, clearly this is just purely an assumption. Anyway, we had dinner that night to see a former officemate and to deliver some late baptism gifts to her new cute tot. . . Hello, Baby Charlie! And since we where there and we decided to meet at an hour when people’s stomachs are scheduled to growl and make some fuss, we decided to have dinner there as well.  Well, their food has not changed, even though the name has, and so it was no wonder that we enjoyed the food as much as we enjoyed the “girl talk”…a.k.a. catching up on some gossip. Haha!

And here they are . . . Delicious Dinners

Grilled Boneless Chicken … was not able to sample this one, but it sure did look yummy

Charlie’s Pink Fondant

I tasted my first ever fondant cake last Sunday. It was Charlie’s pink fondant cake. By the way, Charlie is my third godchild. Her full name is Sage Charlotte Erzulie Kong. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Blame her over-brainy parents. I, a girl who is often fond of weird names, don’t even have any idea where they got “Erzulie”. LOL! Well, I wish you all the best in the world kiddo!

Sagada’s Famous Yogurt House and the Not So Welcoming Cafe Saint Joe

My officemates and I decided to go on a trip and spend a week of our hard won holiday vacation in Luzon last month. We had a great time; despite the sore feet, hunger-inducing ticket hunting, and touchy tempers. From Cebu, we landed in Metro Manila, took a bus to Baguio to get a bus to Sagada and from there, took a bus back to Baguio, then went back to Metro Manila for the New Year. *Whew! We were supposed to go to Banaue but we couldn’t find tickets. All the buses to Banaue were booked when we got to the bus terminals. A shame, wasn’t it? And we were so looking forward to seeing, and were also hoping to actually stand on, the infamous rice terraces. Sadly, we were out of luck. Cel kept insisting that she could be the “jinx”. LOL! But I doubt if the gods could have helped us then. There were just too many people thinking the same thing we did, which was to take advantage of the long holiday by quitting the noisy cities and visiting the calm and beautiful province.

Happy 2009, Everyone!

This post has absolutely no mention of anything remotely edible in it. This is just to greet everyone a “Happy New Year!” I just got back from a recent trip with friends and I will be posting our epicurean jaunts soon.

Well,  I wish everyone a great year. May you all have a great 363 days ahead filled with great experiences and really good food!

Itadakimasu!

Buon appetito!

Bon appétit!

Leftovers at Neo Neo; Jenny’s Late Birthday Bash

This is about another birthday. No, I’m not talking about mine again. Sheesh! Why would I do that?! (LOL!) I’m talking about the birthday of a good friend of mine. Jenny. She had her birthday last November 11, but it was not until the 25th of that month that she agreed to celebrate her birthday. LOL! Anyway, Jenny decided to celebrate her birthday dinner at this relatively new place near Gorordo Avenue called Neo Neo. (I bet the one who named this place has a huge crush on Keanu Reeves’s character in The Matrix that he had to mention the name twice. Peace! Whoever you are. )  I remember this place used to be in Juan Luna formerly known as San Jose dela Montaña Street in Mabolo. I don’t know if it’s still there though. Anyway, this dinner was a bit unplanned, on my side at least. I actually heard that Jenny was planning to have dinner that week and that she planned to have it on Tuesday, which was perfect because it was our payday. However, whether it was due to my forgetfulness or my incredulity over Jen’s invitation, I was not able to bring my camera to work with me that morning. And so I had to go home after work and was so embarrassingly late for dinner. Everyone was actually just finishing their dinner when I arrived. : -(  I was way beyond tardy! But I just told myself that the food was probably too delicious for everyone’s self-control that they were not able to wait for me and my camera before they attacked everything that was edible on that table. LOL! Well I, at least, was able to take pictures of the leftovers. Woohoo! And I actually was able to scrounge some of the leftovers to have some smidgen of a dinner when I got there too. Frankly, I didn’t mind. I wasn’t that hungry at that time anyway and I was more preoccupied with taking pictures to concern myself with the lack of food. Moreover, it was obvious that everybody liked the food, which was the second most important part, right? Right!

Teriyaki Boy and I

Celebrating birthdays are entirely fine with me…as long as they are not my own. Yes, I don’t like celebrating my birthdays. And no, I didn’t have any traumatic experience during any of my past birthdays that discouraged me from organizing shindigs to commemorate the day that is supposed to be one of the most important days of my existence. I am just used to not celebrating it. If my Mama were not celebrating her own birthday on the same month, I’d probably forget it altogether. Also, I am not used to celebrating anything involving little old me. (Emphasis on the “little” and “old”…LOL!) The only celebrations I could remember I had were my grade school graduation, which was organized by my over-enthusiastic Mama, and my 19th birthday, which was my sisters’ delayed attempt at celebrating the birthday previous to that.  Moreover, I never really minded that I didn’t have birthday parties. I didn’t even mind that most people in my family often remembers the day over a week later. I never demanded any party or even a cake to celebrate it. However, occasionally, my parents do remember it and would buy ice cream. And I would grab at any excuse for my parents to buy ice cream that I didn’t mind that bit of “celebrating” then at all.  But that was it, the whole enchilada, as they would say. So, there you are. I’ve grown so used to “not” celebrating this day that the thought of celebrating it kind of makes me go, “Eeeck!”

A Non-Blogger Night at Roma Mia

A late post…all right, a really late post. This dinner happened months ago. A friend invited us “bloggers” to a free dinner at a newly revised local restaurant located at the mall for some free advertising for the said restaurant. However, due to some things I would rather not mention here, this plan was scratched and we ended up having dinner somewhere else, and dishing out money in order to do so. LOL! Vet had some hankering for Italian food so we decided to go to Roma Mia.  My friends and I have dined here at Roma Mia several times already and I have always loved Italian food. However, I think we were short on money when we did this one and I was not very hungry…or so I tried to convince myself, albeit with the help of my really thin wallet… so Vet and I opted to share a plate of delicious calzone and a basket of mozzarella sticks.  Thankfully, Vet offered to pay and who am I, a person who was then devoid of any currency, to argue. Hehehe! I remember I felt happy after this stint so I must have been full when we concluded this particular dinner. Thank you, Vet! Hahaha! Oh well, without further ado, here were the food;

Mozzarella sticks, up close…yummy!