Author: Rochelle Sy Chua

I never thought that there will come a time that I would be raving about Korean-style fried chicken.  I was able to try out several brands and I liked the taste until I’ve tried Clucky’s!  It is so awesome that I’ve raved about Clucky’s twice-fried cooked chicken to my friends already.  Somehow, Clucky’s focus on quality has really paid off (for me at least!).

Clucky’s is a new restaurant located at Rockwell Business Center.  Take note that this is located in Ortigas (not Makati) near Medical City.  Even though the main product of Clucky’s is their Korean-style fried chicken, they have so much more to offer.  Their menu is extensive!  I must say after having tried most of their food items, I’m a fan.

Clucky’s location is a bit out of the way for me — it is probably why I havent discovered them before.  I’m really blessed because as a blogger, I got invited to try out Clucky’s specialties.  It was a super nice discovery that I’m so excited to share with you all!

Salad

I was able to try out two variants of Clucky’s salads.  I noticed both of them have the same dressing, but each has distinct characteristics.  The restaurant was pretty generous with their serving and the homemade dressing was just heavenly!  For health-conscious people out there, you can choose to go organic by adding Php 25 to your salad order.

• House Salad (Php 119)

The type of fruits included in the salad varies from time to time (depends on the season & availability).  If you’re sensitive with the type of fruits that you eat, it’s advisable that you ask the server before you order Clucky’s house salad.

• Spicy Crabmeat Salad (Php 159)

The spicy crabmeat salad is for people who LOVE spicy food!  Seriously, I was pretty stoked when I had my first spoonful of the salad.  It was still the same homemade dressing used in the house salad but this time around, it was spicy!  The crabmeat was more then enough and you will surely feel your money’s worth right after tasting this crab salad.

Clucky’s Mad for Chicken

Clucky’s is a partner of Mad for Chicken (one of the well-known Korean fried chicken brand in the U.S.).  The restaurant proudly serves chicken flavored with the sauce from Mad for Chicken. What sets Korean fried chicken apart from the typical American fried chicken is the way the chicken is cooked.  With Korean, the chicken is fried twice which results in the skin being crunchier and less oily.

Now, why do I like Clucky’s over other existing Korean-style fried chicken brands in Manila?  Simple.  Clucky’s does NOT use frozen chicken.  Their chicken are delivered fresh daily to the restaurant!  Honestly, I never thought that I could tell the difference since this is something customers usually doesn’t know.  But yes, it is much more delicious!

There are two types of chicken available: Soy Garlic or Spicy.  [My favorite is the Soy Garlic Chicken! :)]

• Tenders (Php 199)

If you’re the type who wants to quickly indulge in chicken goodness then you should get Clucky’s tenders.  The order consists of 6 pieces of chicken breasts strips coated with Mad for Chicken’s authentic Korean sauce.

• Wings/Drums/Combo

Wings – Small (8 pcs) at Php 229, Medium (16pcs) at Php 449 and Large (24 pcs) at Php 669
Drums – Small (4 pcs) at Php 229, Medium (8pcs) at Php 449 and Large (12 pcs) at Php 669
Combo – Small (4wings & 2drums) at Php 229, Medium (8wings & 4drums) at Php 449 and Large (12wings & 6drums)  at Php 669

I love to eat Clucky’s Chicken with its bones!  During the food tasting event, I was dying to eat the chicken already.  I had to wait for the bloggers to finish taking pictures.  The smell of the newly cooked chicken was killing me that time!

On my first bite, all I had to say was ‘Grabe! this tasted sooooooooooooo good!’.  The skin was uber crispy and so tasty!  Boy, the chicken meat was also tender!

I found out that there is actually a way for us to know if the chicken was fresh or not.  If the bone is colored-dark, then the chicken has been frozen.  As you can see in the photo below, Clucky’s chicken bones was light-colored proving that it was indeed fresh!  See how clean those bones were?  Yes, we finished every single piece of chicken served to us!

Sides

Clucky’s has items for sharing like Calamari & Parmesan Fries.  You know even for just simple menu items, I could tell that time was spent to perfect the dish.  For example, Calamari, which is lightly-breaded and at the same time, less greasy!  The taste is now focused on the squid itself and not the breading.  The parmesan fries, on the other hand, was a favorite among the guests that night.

• Calamari (Php 119)

• Parmesan Fries (Php 49/Php 79)

Clucky’s Meals

All Clucky’s Meals include 12 oz Soda or Iced tea.  You can add Php 10 to upsize your drink to 22 oz.

The Bulgogi & Kimchi meals can be a good combo with your order of Clucky’s Mad for Chicken.  Some people prefer to eat chicken with rice.  Since Clucky’s chicken is Korean-style, then the rice definitely is of the same kind too!

The Chicken Burger meal is a complete meal in itself.  It has a bit of everything — the yummy Clucky’s Chicken Tender strip, the sandwich bun which serves as your carbohydrate, and parmesan fries on the side.

I find it fascinating that the pricing are affordable considering the serving & quality of the food.  I can attest that every single dish that I tried out was good (no joke!).

• Bulgogi Meal (Php 149)

• Kimchi Meal (Php 149)

Three options to choose from: chicken, sausage and tofu.

• Chicken Burger Meal (Php 115)

Add P25 to upsize to large fries.

Drinks

• Iced Tea (Php 25/Php 45)

As far as I can recall, Clucky’s is the only fast food restaurant that served premium brewed tea.  I loved it, very refreshing!

• Red Horse (Php 40) & Stallion (Php 35)

For the boys, beer are available.  Clucky’s has a promo wherein you can get a bucket of San Miguel Light (6 bottles of beer) at Php 180.

Dessert

• Premium Gelato (Php 69)

For dessert, Clucky’s has the creamy Homemade Premium Gelato, made with the fresh ingredients!

There are 5 flavors available: Dark Chocolate, Coffee Choco Crunch, Oreo Cheesecake, Banoffee and Mango Sorbet.  We were able to sample them all and among them, I loved the Mango Sorbet (made from fresh mango puree) & the coffee choco crunch!

The owners are currently looking for people who want to Franchise the brand.  I hope they can either open more branches of Clucky’s or get franchisees ASAP so that more people can discover and love Clucky’s Mad for Chicken!  I wish they would open a branch in Makati, Fort or Quezon city so that it’s more accessible.

For now, its yummy chicken goodness is mostly being enjoyed by people who work at Rockwell Business Center and nearby buildings.  For a minimum order Php 300, their food will be delivered for free!

I couldn’t forget the food but I also couldn’t forget the cheerfulness of the staff!  The service was top-notch!  I was so impressed that I actually thought that Paolo wore a matching outfit so that he could fit in, hahaha!

I’m dropping by Clucky’s next week to get myself a Large order of Wings & Drums combo for take out.  I can’t wait!  See you soon Clucky’s! 😉

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Clucky’s
G/F Tower 2 Rockwell Business Center, Ortigas Ave., 1600 Pasig City, Philippines
+63-2-2341401
Monday to Thursday & Saturday -7am to 10pm, Friday – 24 hours :D, closed on Sundays

Transforming a house into a restaurant is becoming a trend nowadays.  One of the notable ones is Napa Restaurant & Bar located at Scout Borromeo Street in Quezon City.

Napa Resto-Bar caters to all types of diners: families, friends, barkadas, business associates and couples.

Napa Restaurant & Bar owe its homey design to Cynthia Gaerlan.  She got the inspiration from the vineyards of Napa Valley.  The look was pretty obvious while we examined the restaurant from the al fresco dining & bar to the main dining areas.  More than that, I was pleasantly surprised to see how huge Napa Restaurant & Bar was.  Take for example the main dining area.  It could seat a hundred people.  The Al Fresco area could have another fifty people, and lastly the private function room could seat 30 people.  The cozy ambiance of Napa Restaurant & Bar is perfect for people who want to enjoy their bonding time with friends and loved ones.  In fact, a wedding reception was ongoing when we had our meal at the restaurant. There is just a spot for everybody!

I really enjoyed the pleasing design and the comfortable setting of Napa Bar & Restaurant.  I wish I have taken more pictures but I was there to have dinner and spend quality time with my friends 🙂

The food being served at Napa Restaurant is created by executive chef Berna Hewins.  There are brick-oven pizzas, pastas, steaks, ribs, appetizers and other American-Italian inspired food items.  We tried to order one of each food type so that we get to taste most of Napa specialties.  The overall experience was good!

• Very Veggie Crisps (Php 145)

I super duper love chips but I’ve been cutting down on junk food.  However, upon seeing that Napa Restaurant & Bar offers an alternative to our usual unhealthy chips.  I was ecstatic!  I was pretty sure that the veggie chips would taste just as good plus it has that ‘healthy’ factor because it was made of vegetables.  I was right!  The very veggie chips is a must try!  It was crispy and you can definitely taste the different flavors of the vegetables used in the dish.  I didn’t even need to dip the chips into the sauce!

• Buffalo Wings (Php 210)

The buffalo wings was so appetizing to look at.  You can see the sauce evenly coated on the chicken wings.  It would be such a pain if you ended up just looking at it.  I immediately took one piece and munched on the tender meat of this yummy red wings.  Surprisingly, Napa RestoBar’s version of buffalo wings wasn’t spicy at all!  Instead, the flavors were on the sweet side which I appreciate.

• Pork Chop Grande (Php 395)

One thing that always concern me whenever I order pork chops is the tenderness of the meat.  Luckily, I didn’t encounter that problem with Napa’s juicy pork chops!  Their pork chop is grilled and flavored to perfection!  It didn’t take much time for the three of us to finish it.

The pork chops were served with a choice of 2 sides (baked potato, grilled vegetables, french fries, mashed potato, buttered vegetables, cole slaw, garlic rice, corn on the cob).  We’ve chosen french fries and mashed potato.  The mashed potato was a hit in our table, loved it!

• Napa Special (Php 495)

Napa Special is Napa’s homemade pizza that has everything in it!  Italian sausage, bacon, pepperoni, chorizo, green & red bell peppers, black olives, onion rings and mushrooms, name it and it’s there!  Like any other pizza, this is best eaten as soon as it was served.  Nothing beats a newly cooked pizza (especially loaded ones!).

• Lava Cake (Php 190)

Most of us usually order dessert after we finish our main course.  For Napa Restaurant & Bar customers, I highly suggest you order their blockbuster lava cake together with your main dishes.  Reason?  It takes 25 minutes for Napa to prepare the cake.  When you get to see and taste the dessert, you would understand why 25 minutes is worth the wait.

The lava cake might be normal looking with a scoop of vanilla ice cream & ladyfinger on the side.  However, once you put your fork into the cake, you’ll be wide-eyed with awe as the rich chocolate oozes out of the cake.  Such a nice sight to see and such excitement for those who would be eating the yummy dessert.

Napa Resto Bar is a popular destination for a lot of people.  This is a nice venue especially for folks who are craving for American & Italian food in a homey setting.  Decent food, great ambiance and nice service – Napa is here to stay.

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Napa Restaurant & Bar
12 Scout Borromeo Street, South Triangle, Quezon City, Philippines
+63-2-4148272

We planned to have dinner at Nomama Artisanal Ramen the other week.  However, due to heavy rain in the Metro, we had to cancel.  Considering the Deal Grocer coupon would expire on September 29, we had to reschedule it ASAP or else, we would have thrown away Php 1,000 worth of Nomama food!

Today, rain or shine, we went ahead and stormed our way to Nomama Artisanal Ramen.  Several friends were actually surprised that I haven’t tried the food at the restaurant.  I must admit I have this habit of trying out every new restaurant that opens in the Metro.  Well, it’s better late than never!  It was such a good timing as Nomama was celebrating their 1st year anniversary!  They currently have a promo.  Can you believe that you only have to pay Php 1.00 for your second ramen?  This is available Mondays to Saturdays throughout the month of September 2012.

Since we got ourselves Deal Grocer coupons, we couldn’t avail of the Php 1.00 ramen promo.  It was totally okay though as we wanted to try out Nomama’s non-ramen items.

I wondered what Nomama and Artisanal meant (Ramen is pretty self-explanatory) so I researched via the net and found this:

• Nomama means ‘not your mama’s ramen’ – I guess what the owner, Chef Him Uy de Baron, wanted to tell us is that Nomama Artisanal Ramen is different.  It’s new and it’s not familiar to us.
• Artisanal means crafted in a traditional manner – Nomama Ramen prides itself for only using fresh organic products located in the Philippines.  The chef doesn’t produce ingredients in bulk.  They carefully prepare each ramen bowl as it should be (with care and with attention to detail).

The attention to detail can also be seen at the interior of the restaurant.  Kids will definitely love looking on top as there are various toys hanging on the ceiling of Nomama Artisanal Ramen.

And yes, even the menu is super fun!  You can turn the three different magnetic balls around while searching for food to order at the restaurant.

Siobs Debbie and I were supposed to eat lunch by ourselves but luckily, we saw sister Jocelyn and her family across our table!  We joined them and we ended up eating a lot, lot more because they shared their food with us.

• Tofu Fries (Php 110)

I asked siobs Debbie if we can order tofu fries because I was really curious what it would look like and taste like.  I initially thought that it would be super thin strips of tofu that will look exactly like traditional french fries.  Apparently, I was wrong.  It was as simple as rectangular shaped tofu fried to a crisp!  The tofu fries was served with sweet chili sauce that complemented the tofu very well!  This is a must-order!

• Pork Gyoza (Php 125)

“Ang sarap!” – those were the words that I heard from sister Jocelyn’s kids when they took a bite of Nomama’s classic pork and cabbage dumpling.  Kids do not lie, right?

• Yasai Korokke Salad with Yuzu & Chili Aioli (Php 225)

There’s a surprise in every bite of these Japanese croquetes stuffed with white cheese.  I do not want to expand further as not to ruin the whole experience in eating this refreshing starter.  It’s a great salad and I must say, that I loved not just the taste but also the presentation.  Lovely!

• Seafood Kilawin ala Japonaise (Php 320)

Fresh tanigue, prawns, cherry tomato, ginger and finger chili, coconut citrus dressing.

I don’t eat raw food so I wasn’t able to try this Japanese-style ‘kilawin’.

• Teppanyaki Vegetables (Php 230)

A vegetable dish order was our proof that we wanted to eat healthy 😛  Nomama’s Teppanyaki vegetables consisted of zucchini, asparagus, bok choy, cabbage, and carrots.

• Nomama Seafood (Php 360)

I enjoyed the tempura from Nomama especially the soft shell crab that was included in the order.  I liked the lightness of the batter because it brought out the flavors of the main ingredients of the dish.  Other items included were snapper, prawns, and eggplant.

• Nomama Ramen (Php 337)

Nomama’s signature dish is called Nomama Ramen.  It was made of pork stock (cooked for 8 hours), chashu slices, two soft-boiled eggs, cabbage and seaweed.  The ramen tasted just okay.  However, I didn’t like the noodles because it was a bit tough.  I must say that the soft-boiled egg was the star of this dish!

• Chicken Wings Ramen

While Nomama’s specialty is their Nomama Ramen, we all enjoyed the chicken ramen more.  I guess the flavours were much in line with our tastebuds.  This reminded me of the Chinese herbal soup commonly known as ‘sibut’.

• Kitayama Rib Eye (Php 2,300)

Yes, you read it right.  This Japanese steak & fries was worth Php 2,300!!!  It’s very expensive and no, I didn’t order it.  I was able to eat a big portion of it though as sis Jocelyn put it on my plate.  Who am I to refuse?

After having eaten it, I must say that the steak (200 grams) was perfectly cooked.  The meat was very tender and I loved the miso butter flavour in it.  I still think the rib eye was priced high and I wish they could offer it at a lower price.

Finally, I can say that I tried out Nomama Artisanal Ramen!  I sometimes feel obligated to try out as much restaurants as possible because people tend to ask me for restaurant advice.

I liked Nomama and I think I will be back (especially for their tofu fries)!  I wish to meet Chef Him Uy de Baron in the future.  It’s always nice to hear stories from owners on how they made their businesses successful.  Happy 1st anniversary Nomama!

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Nomama Artisanal Ramen
G/F FSS Bldg. II, #18 Scout Tuason corner Scout Castor, Quezon City, Philippines
+63-2-9214913 / +639165504373