AirPhil Express Fly and Sail Adventour Package
Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 21, 2011
AirPhil Express’ Adventour Packages keeps getting better and better. After the successful launch of Davao Extreme Adventure Packages & Puerto Princesa Adventours, AirPhil Express now offers Fly and Sail Adventour Packages! My gosh, for as low as Php 24,888 per person, you can get to experience double adventure to Singapore and Malaysia on-board Superstar Virgo!
I was supposed to experience the beautiful tour this weekend but I had problems when I arrived in Singapore. I had to give up the chance. The only souvenir I got from my brief trip was a nice picture at the cockpit. I wish I can share a better picture of how the Fly and Sail Adventour Packages by AirPhil Express go. The best I can do now is to share some high-level details as to what Fly and Sail Adventour Package is all about.
AirPhil Express Fly & Sail Package
Selling Date: August 10 to September 20, 2011
Travel Date: August 23, 2011 to March 13, 2012
For as low as Php 24,888.00 per person (based on Quad Sharing Room)
Inclusions:
- Rountrip Airfare (Manila-Singapore-Manila)
- Transfers (Airport-Hotel-Port-Airport)
- Overnight Hotel Accommodation (Hotel Fragrance Oasis or Rose)
- 3 Days/2 Nights accommodation on-board Super Star Virgo with full board meals
- All access to Super Star Virgo’s facilities and live Entertainment
- Fuel Surcharges, Cruise Surcharges, PH & SG tax & Ticket Service Charge
I appreciate that AirPhil Express has put so much thought and offers us amazing tour packages. This Fly & Sail one is really, really good! The price is pretty affordable too! Check out more information about the deal here.
Selamat Menikmati: A Culinary Journey of Indonesia’s Best
Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 18, 2011
Corniche Restaurant at Diamond Hotel has been successful in their series of food festivals. I’ve actually heard lots of good feedback about it. So I’m glad that I was able to finally try it last tuesday with their current offering, Selamat Menikmati: A Culinary Journey of Indonesia’s Best.
From August 16 to 28, 2011, Diamond Hotel features the rich flavors of Indonesia’s cuisine. The hotel buffet showcases authentic culinary specialties from three of the best chefs in Indonesia. Sous Chef Ovan Prahoro, Chef de Partie Asep Marthy and Chef de Partie Agus Setiadi flew here to Manila to recreate Indonesian’s best dishes at the Corniche Buffet.
It’s such a perfect time to sample those yummy authentic Indonesian dishes created by the master chefs from Bandung, Indonesia as it’s also the celebration of Indonesia’s national day.
It was really exciting as I haven’t tried eating at Corniche Restaurant and I also haven’t tried authentic Indonesian dishes.
As I entered the restaurant, I was in total awe with the design they put up for the Selamat Menikmati event. The beautiful lamp in each table and the awesome Indonesian figurines in each of the food stations were so nice to look at.
Some servers even dressed up like an Indonesian. I had to ask him to take a photo with me. I couldn’t resist it. Isn’t he adorable?
While the buffet has the usual favorite food items that we love like sushi, roast beef, chinese food, I had my eyes only for authentic Indonesian food. It was a rare opportunity to have three master chefs staying here in Manila for 2 weeks just to cook us their masterpieces. I can always go back for our old-time favorites. Last tuesday, I was all for Indonesian dishes.
- Appetizer Station
Together with salads, pizzas, breads, cold cuts, cold seafood, there were 2 Indonesian dishes that I had try out. You can differentiate the Indonesian dishes from the rest as the label of the dish has a different color and of course, there’s the Indonesian name.
Gado Gado (Mixed Vegetable Salad with Peanut Sauce) — Rujak Buah (Mixed Fruits with Sweet and Sour Sauce).
- Roasting Station
This station is definitely my favorite. It has all the dishes that we wouldn’t wanna miss having in a buffet. Food like roast beef, lechon, peking duck and lamb.
A chef is of course manning the station as he had to cut the meat whenever we want to get one.
Featured dish: Kambing Guling (Grilled Whole Lamb)
- Grilling Station
Beside the roasting station is the grilling station. This station probably has the most Indonesian dishes displayed. All the main dishes plus rice and noodles can be found there.
Nasi Begana (Steamed Rice wrapped in Banana Leaves), Perkedel Kentang (Deep Fried Mashed Potato), Soup Kimlo (Mixed Vegetables and Fish Ball Soup), Mie Tektek (Stir-Fried Noodles)
Ikan Bumbu Pemol (Steamed Fish with Yellow Sauce), Opor Ayam Suir (Shredded Chicken with Coconut Curry), Tongseng Kambing (Lamb Stew with White Cabbage), Tempe Mendoan (Butter Coated Soya Beancake)
This has got to be my favorite! Look at how beautiful the presentation is. This is Sate Ayam and Sapi which is skewered grilled chicken and beef. You must get this when you visit the Corniche buffet at Diamond Hotel. Hurry as you only have less than 2 weeks left to try this!
- Dessert Station
Last, but definitely not the least, is the Dessert Station. You’ll see the usual chocolate fondue, the beautiful cakes that Diamond Hotel is known for and some other mouth-watering desserts on display.
Aside from the Sate, the Indonesian desserts were such a delight. I was enjoying Urap Jagun Manis (Sweet Corn with Grated coconut), Lapis Surabaya (Layered Sponge Cake with Strawberry Jam) and Dadar Gulung (Stuffed Pineapple Roll). Most of us enjoyed the pineapple roll but I liked the sweet corn the most 😀
I truly enjoyed my first experience with Indonesian food. Indonesian cuisine is diverse and has many different influences. You can actually notice that some of the food are actually similar with our food and some other cuisines. You must try it!
Take note that you only have till August 28 to try out Selamat Menikmati: A Culinary Journey of Indonesia’s Best. For only Php 1,588 per person, you can enjoy all the Indonesian dishes I mentioned in this post plus a chance to win roundtrip tickets for two to Jakarta, Indonesia. How cool is that?
While you’re enjoying the Corniche buffet, you might see Sous Chef Ovan Prahoro. Go for it and say hi, he’s such a friendly master chef. We had a great time chatting with him during dinner.
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Selamat Menikmati: A Culinary Journey of Indonesia’s Best
August 16-28, 2011
Corniche Restaurant
Diamond Hotel, Roxas Boulevard cor. Dr. J. Quintos Street, Manila, 1000 Philippines
(02) 528-3000
Mercato Centrale Joins City Delivery
Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 13, 2011
It has been less than a year since Mercato Centrale launched. I was there during the first day to experience the newest food haven at Bonifacio Global City that time. I went home with tons of food from the weekend market.
However, Mercato Centrale is far away from my place. As much as I want to go back often, it’s just a bit inconvenient for me. So when I was informed that Mercato Centrale now offers food delivery, I was ecstatic!
It’s fortunate that I was given a chance to try out Mercato Centrale Delivery. Apparently, their chosen partner is City Delivery! I actually tried it out recently and I was very pleased with the service.
As I shared in my previous post, City Delivery is a multi-restaurant delivery service covering Metro Manila, Philippines that specializes in food and beverage delivery. The delivery service promises to bring us the city’s best restaurants and more to our doorsteps. All this can be done by just a dial or click away.
Mercato Centrale joins City Delivery through their Foodie Delivery. Foodie Delivery is the delivery service for Home-Based Food Merchants. It’s actually a first in the Philippines. The idea started during the Ultimate Taste Test event organized by OAP founder Anton Diaz wherein he realized that unique food finds are home-based. In order to avail those products, we either pick it up at the seller’s house or ask our friends to buy for us. Anton’s OAP doesn’t have the means to provide delivery service so he partnered with City delivery to turn this awesome idea into reality.
With Foodie delivery, we can also enjoy home-based specialties with just a click (www.citydelivery.ph) or a call (87878) away.
Mercato Centrale is a haven for foodies as we have the best of the best home-based merchants in one marketplace. I’m really glad that they finally joined the bandwagon through City Delivery’s Foodie Delivery.
Currently, there are eight merchants from Mercato Centrale that are participating in the new Mercato Centrale Delivery. Who would have thought that this is possible? I honestly didn’t think so!
These are some of the merchants from the weekend bazaar where we can order their specialties with just a click or dial away:
- Bale Dutung – a popular food destination in Pampanga by Chef Claude Tayug. Specialties include Pan de Bagnet and Lechon Tortilla.
- Big Bob’s Charcoal Grilled Burgers – offers charcoal grilled patties stuffed with mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. There are two ices available: the regular Big Bob’s burger and the Big Bob’s super special which has two 1/3 pound beef patties.
- Chuck’s Grubberie – their perfectly crisp, light better, skin-on potato wedges and various dips that help made them famous in fish and chips. Their bestseller is the original beer battered dory fish & chips but they also offer other types of fish like the red snapper, magi-mahi, and orange roughy.
- Homemade Ravioli – sells a variety of flavors of ravioli. Their specialty is the spinach cream ravioli with fresh tomato and salsa. The mild flavor of ravioli is perfectly complemented by the tomatoes and other herbs. Other flavors include roasted squash, three cheese, blue cheese & pear, salmon dill, shitake pecorino, and eggplant parmigiana.
- Manang’s Chicken – sells double deep fried crispy chicken with Manang’s secret soy garlic sauce. There are three sauces to choose from: original, mild spicy, and extra spicy sauce. You can eat the chicken with rice, macaroni salad or on its own.
- Merry Moo – homemade ice cream. They source their ingredients from local dairy farmers and they make sure that the ice cream is always fresh. Merry Moo is best known for its unique and creative ice cream flavors namely honey & pili nuts, apple cinnamon, rum and raisin, french vanilla, aztec chocolate, strawberry basil, and their bestselling flavors sea salt caramel and earl grey tea.
- Mochiko – Japanese confection made of glutinous rice flour or mochiko. They offer various flavors like vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, caramel, green tea, black sesame, and their bestseller, azuki (red bean).
- Spring by Ha Yuan – Ha Yuan has been famous since 1956 because of its hearty chinese dishes. Now, they have introduced Spring by Ha Yuan which offers light-hearted, health-friendly, Asian-inspired nibbles.
The merchant assigned to me was Spring by Ha Yuan.
Ha Yuan is actually one of my childhood favorites. I always dine at Ha Yuan when I was in elementary school. I’ve been so addicted with their fresh lumpia so when I saw the package sent to me by Mercato Centrale Delivery, I was so happy!
I was given three of Spring’s bestsellers. I enjoyed eating each one of them especially my favorite, fresh lumpia.
- Fresh Amoy Lumpia (Php 60)
Eating this lumpia felt like I travelled back in time. This was the same delicious vegetable lumpia I had been eating when I was a kid. The all vegetable filling of tofu and assorted veggies made the dish so healthy. I wish they have sent me more. I guess I’ll have to include the fresh amoy lumpia from Spring the next time I call City Delivery.
- KaPao! (Php 70)
I haven’t heard of KaPao but I was glad I was able to try it out. It’s actually a famous delicacy in Singapore. KaPao is made of crispy floss and chinese sausage. Every bite of this special sandwich was just heavenly. A must order in Spring!
- Hongkong Style Egg Tart (Php 35)
There are 4 different flavors available: custard, coffee, pandan and milky no yolk. Spring’s Hongkong Style Egg Tart can also be ordered in box of 4s (Php 130). A definite sweet dessert but delicious! It was creamy too and full of yummy sweet flavors.
We all know that Mercato Centrale opens only on weekends. The Mercato Centrale Delivery also operates the same way. We can get our Mercato Centrale favorites freshly delivered between 9AM to 2PM during weekends. However, if you insist to get the food delivery on a weekday then you have to order 2 days in advance.
This is definitely great news for Mercato Centrale fans! Aren’t you delighted? I surely am! 🙂
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Mercato Centrale Partners with City Delivery
Weekends 9AM-2PM
citydelivery.ph
87878
My City Delivery Experience
Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 13, 2011
I usually stay home during weekends. Food delivery is always my choice whenever I’m lazy to go out. However, I’m used to fast food delivery. Recently, I’ve been seeing big restaurants offering delivery too.
One time, I was a bit experimental. Since friends came over to help me clean up my place, I decided to try out City Delivery for our food needs (both lunch and dinner).
It was my first time to try out the service so I was a bit observant. Will we get good service? Will we get food on time? What kind of packaging do they have? Will the City Delivery people show courtesy and professionalism?
City Delivery is a multi-restaurant delivery service covering Metro Manila, Philippines that specializes in food and beverage delivery. The delivery service promises to bring us the city’s best restaurants and more to our doorsteps.
Customers can order food in two ways:
- Online through the City Delivery Website (http://www.citydelivery.ph)
- Telephone via City Delivery’s hotline 87878
We decided to order through their hotline 87878 that day. We were so filthy and actually don’t have any time to open up a laptop and surf in any website. We browsed through the City Delivery booklet and was in total awe as to the number of reputable restaurants City Delivery partnered with. As of this writing, there are 189 restaurant partners. Wow!
We ordered from Red Kimono for lunch and The Old Spaghetti House for dinner.
Apparently, we can get food from our designated areas. If the establishment we want to order from is located in a different area, the minimum order changes. We can also opt to pay the inter-area delivery charge if we decide to stay with the original minimum order.
Here’s how it works:
Minimum Food Order
Minimum food order is at Php 500 but if you’re more than 5 kilometers away from the establishment then the minimum food order goes up to Php 1,000 or even higher if the restaurant is a bit more far away.
Inter-Area charge
If you wanna keep the minimum food order of Php 500 but wanted to order from an establishment that is more than 5 kilometers from your place, then you need to pay an inter-area charge on top of your food delivery bill.
1 city hop – 5 to 10 km – Makati to Greenhills = +100 Inter-area charge
2 city hops – 10 to 15 km – Makati to Quezon City = +150 Inter-area charge
I was surprised as to how well the call center agent communicated. I called the first time and the girl who answered welcomed me so warmly. She was fast, very friendly and sooo efficient! I was asking several questions about the servings of each dish and she was quick in providing the answers I need. She asked me to hold for a few seconds to verify with the restaurant and was very apologetic when I had to wait for less than a minute (I really didn’t mind). She spoke very good english too!
Delivery time varies on how far the restaurant is. Our orders from Red Kimono came after an hour and a half. I didn’t notice it as we were busy cleaning the house. The excellent customer service through their hotline was a refreshing one. I was totally sold on City Delivery then.
When the delivery guy arrived, I noticed the very bright orange and green color of their uniform and motor vehicle. He was very friendly and even allowed me to take several pictures of him. I told him that I wanted to write about their service. The guy said he’s used to it haha!
Another thing that impressed me with City Delivery is their food packaging.
The food were put in enclosable containers. I really liked the presentation! We didn’t even need to use our own dining utensils. The food were ready to serve upon delivery. Yummy!
We ordered Tofu Agedashi (Php 100), Chicken Teriyaki (Php 210), Wasabi Oyster Tempura (Php 225), Tonkatsu (Php 195) and Gohan (Php 40 each) from Red Kimono. We also ordered 1.5 liter Pepsi (Php 60). It was a good meal. We had the comfort of eating high-end food in my own home. How cozy! 🙂
During dinner, we opted for The Old Spaghetti House. We called through City Delivery’s hotline again. This time, it wasn’t as impressive but it was still good. When I asked the call center agent for how many people a pizza from The Old Spaghetti House is, she just said that she didn’t know. I had to ask her to call the merchant so I can get my answer. She didn’t hesitate and told me she’d call me back. After 2 minutes, I got a call back from the agent and everything went smoothly after. I appreciate how City Delivery trains their call center agents. With that kind of customer service, I’m pretty sure City Delivery is here to stay.
While I was super impressed with City Delivery’s call center agents, I was a bit disappointed with the guy that delivered our food for dinner. He was busy chatting on the phone and didn’t mind us when we opened the door to get our orders. He continued chatting with someone on the phone while giving us our orders. He also didn’t have exact change even if I specifically mentioned how much I’m giving them.
Some parts of the pizza were dislocated but we totally understand why. Anyway, it’s just a small feedback that I’m sure will be acted upon when City Delivery people see this post. Looking at how passionate they are with their business, I’m sure they’ll work on it.
We ordered Golden Onion Rings (Php 110), Fried Mozzarella Sticks (Php 130), California Maki Pizza (Php 255), Double Cheeseburger (Php 250) and Philly Cheese Steak (Php 255).
I’m glad that I finally tried out City Delivery. It’s definitely good that we are getting high quality service from them. I really hope they do get partners that are near my place. There wasn’t even a single restaurant in their partners list that are 5 kilometers away from my place. Since I live alone, I can’t afford to always spend Php 1,000 on a single meal 🙁
However, if I do crave for good food and I have friends over, I’ll surely consider City Delivery Food Service. My 2 experiences that day were both pleasant and I’ll surely recommend this to friends. You see, City Delivery even sell poker chips (Php 360) and bicycle playing cards (Php 150), perfect for house party with friends.
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City Delivery
citydelivery.ph
87878
Cowboys & Aliens Movie Review
Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On August 10, 2011
After watching the trailer of Cowboys & Aliens for several weeks now, I had high expectations. Imagine the 3 big stars-Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Daniel Craig (James Bond) and Olivia Wilde (Tron) are in the same movie!
As soon as I got the invite of PLDT Watchpad for the movie premiere, I just couldn’t miss it!
In all honesty, I don’t know how we can mix cowboys with aliens. It’s a pretty unusual mix of characters. How can cowboys who are armed with only their horses and ropes beat high-tech aliens? I was excited to see how the story unfolds in the movie.
The movie started in 1873 when Jake Longergan (Craig) awakens with a wound, a strange metal bracelet and no memory whatsoever. After reaching the small town of Absolution, he learns from the town sheriff that he is wanted and is sent to jail. The town’s ruler (Ford) who is there to retrieve his son who was also sent to jail saw Jake. Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford) is to seek revenge on Jake from stealing gold from him in the past. Then aliens started attacking the town and kidnapping people including Dolarhyde’s son. Jake shoots down one alien ship with his mysterious bracelet. That’s when he realized that his memory loss might be connected with the alien attack. Jake then teams up with Dolarhyde and Ella (Wilde) and the rest of townfolk in fighting the aliens and rescuing their loved ones.
I don’t know why but I felt that the movie was boring. I guess maybe because Cowboys & Aliens was too serious and there wasn’t any humor in the movie. I do appreciate their different take on the aliens though. We are really so tired of seeing Aliens just killing people. This time, the aliens are more interested in gold as well as experimenting with people.
I also appreciate the human elements in the movie. Things like: Father-Son love, Loyalty, heroism, humility and love.
Even though there wasn’t any chemistry between Ford and Craig, I believe that Cowboys & Aliens is still worth watching. You’ll get tons of action and great effects, things people look forward to in a science fiction flick.
My Rating for Cowboys & Aliens: 3.5 out of 5 stars.