Category: Lifestyle

I asked a friend what reminded him of donuts.  He said, “a lifebuoy on the beach during a very hot summer day!”.  I was like what? hahaha!  I guess people can crave about donuts any time of the day, at any place in the world.  It’s comfort food to most people, especially children.  I wonder what makes donuts so popular.  I assume it’ll probably be because it’s sweet.  And everything sweet, when people eat, they get happy.  That’s the effect of a simple donut.

Why am I talking about donuts?  Well, I just had an overdose of donuts!  I can’t even sleep as I was thinking about it a lot!  So I thought might as well share with you what happened tonight.  Why am I so hung-up about donuts?  You see, I met several managers from Mister Donut today and they told me lots of fascinating stuff about the business.

Mister Donut started operations in 1995 (Philippines) and is now one of the fastest growing brands in the Philippines.  In fact, Mister donut is among the top 5 quick snack places in the country.  With over 1,000 outlets nationwide, they are truly spreading smiles everyday,  As they say, “Ngiting Mister Donut“!

Mister Donut is known for serving donuts that are just the right level of sweetness.  That’s something Mister Donut is very proud of.  Aside from that, the company is a promoter of innovation.  With successful products like Donuts n’ Dip, Belgian Mallow Bites, Donut Inipit, Duets, Swak’to Donuts and Bavarian Squared released in the market, we are assured that Mister Donut is continuously thinking of ways to provide smiles in our faces 🙂

Christmas is coming so fast.  And yes, Mister Donut has something new for us this Christmas season!  It’s the happiest season for the whole year so Mister Donut started Project Stella.  Stella means star and Christmas being the most important occasion of our lives, they wanted to give us 5-star quality products.  They know that Filipinos are busier than ever but they also acknowledge that Filipinos love to socialize and celebrate.  During parties, we never forget to bring gifts.  Thus, Mister Donut wanted to position itself as a one-stop venue for gifts and all-holiday party requirement.  With that in mind, Mister Donut came out with Merrygalos (may smile sa bawat kagat, may regalo para sa lahat!).

Before I share what those fun yummy products are, I have to tell you that the products will only be launched on Saturday (November 19, 2011).  But since I really love sharing good news, here I am spilling the beans!  So get ready for some awesome information about the upcoming Mister Donut Merrygalos!  I guarantee you’re gonna enjoy this.

• Belgian Bites Tin Can (Candy Cane – Php 150/Christmas Tree – Php 170)

• Merry Bavarian Frost (Php 99)

While I was having an overdose of Merrygalos, I thought of something crazy but exciting.  I actually played around with the donuts.  I thought why not present the donuts in a creative way.  I’m so in the mood so I ended up spending an hour conceptualizing how I can make the donuts look cooler (with an -er coz donuts are cool already!:D).

How about a donut necklace?

Or present those yummy Belgian Bites as a kebab?

And why not put these yummy looking Christmas donut characters in your table?  Don’t they look cute?  I sure had so much fun creating these things!

Want to create your own?  Then get ready and plan your visit to Mister Donut nearest you.  Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy Mister Donut Merrygalos!  Ho ho ho! 🙂

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Mister Donut
+6391788MDWOW
http://www.facebook.com/mrdonutph
http://twitter.com/MisterDonut_PH

A few months ago, I celebrated my 5th year in the company I work for.  It’s a personal milestone because it has always been my dream to work there 😀

So I got into thinking, in which restaurant should we celebrate it?  The food place should be near our office as we usually have meetings before and after lunch time.  It should also serve delicious food and lastly, ambiance should be great.  Additional criteria for me is a place that we haven’t eaten yet.  Since I’m a blogger, I always have this thinking that I should be sharing my experiences through this site.  So we ended up in…. IMC Kavino!

So I wondered, what does IMC Kavino stands for?  The place certainly looked intimidating.  I have to check the menu before we finally reserved seats in the restaurant.  Our budget might not cut it for the expensive-looking place.  Anyway, we continued with it wishing that we would be having a great dining experience.

IMC Kavino stands for International Master Chef Kavino.  Wow!  Having your restaurant named as that definitely gives the impression that you cook really good.  I had high expectations.  Did the food satisfy my expectations though?  Oh, YES! 🙂

We were a big group so we ordered quite a lot.  Here’s a rundown:

• Sze Chuan Hot & Sour (Php 328)

It was hot but not sour.  You should put black vinegar (available at IMC Kavino) so you can appreciate the soup better.

• Cheesy Shrimp Bomb (Php 388)

This is the best appetizer in the house!  Gee, shrimp balls that was made of real shrimps!  It was very rich and had generous servings.  The cheese wasn’t noticeable though.  You must not miss this dish in IMC Kavino.  One of my favorites for the day.

• Cheesy Baked Oyster (Php 328).

Contrary to the shrimp balls, this time you can taste the deliciousness of the cheese.  I’m not really fond of oysters so I’m glad that it was covered with melted cheese.  Yummy!

• Aomori Hot Prawn Salad (Php 388)

Super yummy!  The prawns were cooked perfectly.  It was not too creamy that will let us feel fatty.  Loved hot prawn salad, one of the best dishes of the day.

• Takoyaki (Php 388)

One of the greatest culinary innovations of master Chef Kavino.  His Takoyaki was just too awesome in every aspect!  I was expecting a takoyaki ball but I was surprised when I saw that it was actually deconstructed.  IMC Kavino’s version is a lettuce wrap with puffed octopus.  The takoyaki was not flour based and it was made purely of octopus.  Very affordable and very excellent dish!  I was truly impressed!

• Savor Ginger Onion & Chicken in Casserole (Php 498)

This is IMC Kavino’s signature dish.  However, I didn’t find it good.  Maybe, that day was a special case because as I read through the different reviews in this restaurant, everyone was raving about the dish.  Oh well.

• Stewed Pork Belly with Salted Fish in Casserole

While I didn’t enjoy IMC Kavino’s chicken in casserole, their pork belly dish was just superb!  The pork belly was very tender.  Also, the salty flavor of the fish and pork are perfect.  A great dish to pair with rice.  A must order.

• Golden Garlic Yang Chow Fried Rice (Php 248)

Nothing special here.  It’s our usual Yang Chow Chinese fried rice.

• Sweet and Sour Pork with Peaches (Php 328)

IMC Kavino made a twist to the popular sweet and sour pork dish.  They used peaches instead of the usual pineapples.  The effect of it was the dish lacked sweetness.  The contrast of sweet and sour didn’t come out in this dish.

• Imported Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper Sauce (Php 388)

The Beef Tenderlion was super soft and tender.  Sometimes beef tenderloin tends to be chewy (like a chewing gum) but this dish was just cooked perfectly!  The sauce complimented with the beef as well.  The vegetable on the side was a good complement bec of its crispiness.  This dish was really, really good and I highly recommend you order it when you visit IMC Kavino.

• Deep Fried Lapu-lapu Thai Style Mango Sauce (Php 990+)

The dish had too much things going on.  It was tangy but we couldn’t taste the lapu lapu.  The garnishes & sauce overpowered the main ingredient in the dish.  I do appreciate that we didn’t need to exert so much effort in taking the fish bones out though.  It was a great looking dish 🙂

• Pork a La Beijing (Php 338)

Pork puff that was put inside a lumpia wrapper.  It was very crispy inside (which is good as we love everything crispy!).  The dish was inspired by the peking duck dish.  Replacing it with pork worked really well.  Pork a la Beijing was very unique indeed and we loved it!  The pork wrap also had cucumber and carrots inside with hoisin sauce.

Aside from enjoying all the dishes we ordered, we had complimentary tea to go with them.

What a great way to celebrate!  I loved the food, ambiance and the service was superb!  Another great addition to the number of restaurants in Jupiter Street.  I do hope that IMC Kavino will continue on for a long time.

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IMC Kavino
136 Jupiter Street, Ground Floor, Jupiter Place, Makati City, Philippines
(02) 964-7545

I heard a lot about Yuujin Japanese Restaurant.  I’ve seen tons of reviews from blogger friends.  However, I haven’t been there.  So when a friend asked for a suggestion to eat at San Juan area, Yuujin Japanese Cuisine immediately came to my mind.

It was an enjoyable all girls dinner out.  All the dishes that we ordered were delicious!  We were all actually glad that we dined there.  It was a great discovery and I’m sure all of us would be back at Yuujin again.

Yuujin is a Japanese word for ‘friend’.  It’s such a coincidence that I was with friends when I first dined at Yuujin Japanese Cuisine 😛

Entering the restaurant is like entering a different world.  From the gate till we entered the restaurant, all the things that we saw were all shouting Japanese.  Yuujin definitely was successful in making us feel that we were going to have a Japanese meal.  What a great way to set expectations of dining customers!

When I looked up the ceiling, I was completely shocked.  The red/white umbrella covering the lighting was made of pure genius!  It was sooooooooo cute and sooooooo Japanese too!

Even the soy sauce dispenser caught our attention!  Usually, we just tilt the container so the sauce will pour.  This time around, we had to push the gray circle on top of the dispenser before the sauce would come out!  How useful and how awesome!  Now, we don’t have to worry if we accidentally bump into the sauce container.

I let my friends do the ordering.  I spent time taking pictures of the place as well as admiring the beautiful interiors of the restaurant.  Yuujin is a one of a kind Japanese restaurant.  Its location is good too considering the many establishments in Wilson Street!  Parking won’t be a problem either.

Here are the menu items we ordered:

• Homemade Brewed Iced Tea (Regular-Php 60, Bottomless-Php 80)

I love brewed tea.  Whenever I learn that a restaurant serve brewed iced tea compared to powdered iced tea, I’m immediately sold! 🙂

• Miso Soup

Will miso soup be ever missing in any Japanese meal?

• Spicy Salmon Maki (Php 200)

Spicy raw (yaiks) salmon and vinegared rice.  As this dish contains raw food, I didn’t dare try the dish.  I heard my friends raving how good it was though.

• Shake Sashimi (Php 240)

I’m the only one in the group who doesn’t eat raw food.  Gee, all my companions that day super love fresh raw seafood!  So I have to pass on the raw dishes.

Even when we’re almost done with dinner, they ordered raw fresh salmon.  I saw them finish the dish quickly too!  I guess, it was that good and satisfying!

• Ebi Gyoza (Php 225)

Restaurants just couldn’t stop innovating!  Yuujin’s Ebi Gyoza was a definite unique dish that I’ve seen and tasted for the first time.  It’s shrimp dumplings that was stuffed with pork and served with the usual dumpling sauce.  I really liked this.  A must order when you dine at Yuujin.

• Ebi Tempura (Php 385)

While we tried a new twist to the good ol’ Ebi Tempura, we never forgot to order this classic Japanese dish.

• Moyashi Teppan (Php 180)

The pork was just too good!  It was tender, flavorful and super tasty!  Perfect with Gohan (Japanese fried rice) – Php 50!  Yuujin was generous enough to provide extra sauce on the side.  And since we didn’t order any vegetables, the bean sprouts served with the pork was good to compliment our yummy meal.

It wasn’t surprising when I saw one portion of Yuujin Restaurant full of framed articles.  The articles were from magazines and newspapers.  It just showed that people are raving about the food and Yuujin has become a popular restaurant.  I hope that this blog post can be added there hahaha (I wish!).

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Yuujin Japanese Cuisine
221 Wilson St., Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines
(02) 727-5291

When I got an invite to celebrate Mario’s 40th anniversary with fellow bloggers in their Tomas Morato branch, I was ecstatic!

Mario’s is a household name.  I’ve been wanting to try out Mario’s restaurant for the longest time but I always had this impression that I couldn’t afford it.  After the enjoyable dinner that night, I can conclude that it’s not expensive at all.  I have to blame myself for assuming too much before.  The Mario’s brand is just too divine that I thought they would have a very expensive tag in each of its menu items.  My bad 😛

We were greeted by the Chef Anton Benitez.  He was game in answering all our questions.  As I listened, I found out that Mario’s Restaurant has undergone renovation.  Mario’s has been in Tomas Morato for decades.  In order to keep up with customers’ needs, Mario’s needed to step it up.

The renovation is more of blending the old look of Mario’s Restaurant with a new one.  Mario’s has now more open windows to give interiors more light and views of their garden (I really like what they did as I noticed most steak restaurant has dark ambiance).

In addition, lamp shades were added to the dining area to provide a more light yet keeping the elegant ambiance of Mario’s.

I was super excited to try out the food.  I knew we had to wait for the rest of the guests to come but my eyes were so fixed on the paella and oysters on display.  I wanted to dive in!

Good thing there was bread served in our table which is Mario’s own creation.  The bread was freshly baked, soft and most importantly, warm!  I couldn’t get enough of it.  The bread is free by the way. 🙂

At around 7:30pm, we started to eat.  Oh boy, I knew I needed to diet but it was times like those that I need to forget all about it.  Setting my diet aside, I enjoyed our dinner.  It was a blast!

Appetizers

• Gambas con Chorizo (Php 345)

I know shrimps and chorizo is a deadly combination.  However deadly they are, face it, they are most delicious!  I’ve never eaten a dish with those 2 food items cooked together.  I never thought that they actually work.  Ang sarap (delicious)!

• Oysters Rockefeller (Php 265)

Oysters baked with spinach and hollandaise sauce.  As I said earlier, I was looking at this dish for the longest time.  When we were given the cue to go ahead and get some oysters for ourselves, I immediately got some for myself.  Boy, it was heavenly!  Do not forget to squeeze calamansi to the oysters as it provided much more flavor and made the taste perfect!

Salad

• Mario’s Caesar

This is probably the most popular part of any Mario’s experience.  I find it amazing that we actually saw how the sauce was prepared live!  I had to write a separate entry (watch it out, it’ll be my next post) for it.  Now, we know why caesar salad is always everyone’s favorite to order.

Entree

We were asked to choose one entree from the menu.  We all wanted to taste the other entrees too as we wanted to share more Mario’s food in our blog entries.  We talked among ourselves and decided to order differently.  I’ve chosen to get the bacalao, Yedy ordered salpicao and Arpee got himself the corned beef dish.

• Salpicon de Mar Y Tierra (Php 425)

Shrimps, tenderloin cubes and chills served on top of the garlic rice.  The tenderloin was so soft and tender.  I do wish they cut the cubes smaller as I like it that way better.  Still, a great dish!

• Bacalao a la Vizcaina (Php 625)

Among the entrees, Bacalao was highly recommended by the server.  As I’m a bit on a diet and would have preferred fish over anything else, I decided to listen.  Unfortunately, as much as my blogger friends liked this dish, I somewhat didn’t like it.  I ended up eating just a bit of it and tried the other dishes.  I guess cod fish stew is not my thing.  Next time, I’ll remember to stick with steamed fish or fried fish.

This is a matter of personal preference, the Bacalao was a big winner in our table still 🙂

• Corned Beef and Cabbage (Php 395)

I always have this impression that corned beef are shredded meat.  However, I was really shocked when I saw Arpee’s order.  Mario’s Corned Beef and Cabbage were actually two strips of beef served with boiled cabbage, potatoes and carrots, 2 sauces for the beef: mustard & horseradish and a bowl of soup.

I love, love, love the soup!  It was actually the cabbage broth.  Yummy!

• Santol-Glazed Pork Chop (Php 380)

I was sad that none of us ordered the pork chop.  My face really lit up as I saw the waiter putting a plate of it in the middle of our table.  They had us try it!  Whee!  I was so regretting my order of the bacalao as I liked this pork chop way better.  I especially love the santol sauce.  What a nice twist to our old-time favorite pork dish!

Rice

• Paella Valenciana

Paella is one of Mario’s specialties.  It’s saffron rice cooked with seafood, chicken, pork, sausage, vegetables and herbs.  It’s already a complete meal by itself!

Desserts

I was too full that time that I couldn’t get myself to try out the different cakes served at our table.  I only got myself the Mango Jubilee which is a big hit in Mario’s.  What a way to end a wonderful, full-loaded meal.  Thanks Mario’s! 🙂

• Sugar-free Jello (Php 95)

• Apple Pie (Php 175)

• Canonigo (Php 90)

• Leche Flan (Php 95)

• Toffee Sansrival (Php 120)

• Mango Jubilee (Php 310)

Mangoes cooked in style!  I wonder how I can describe it better when I was able to take video of  it.  So I’m not going to describe it any further.  I’ll let you enjoy the video and see for yourself (if ever you’re not fond of mangoes, you can order for a strawberry jubilee or a banana jubilee.  Take your pick).

While we were having our delicious dinner, we were told about the history of Mario’s.

Mario’s was conceptualized by Mario and Nenuca Benitez in the hopes of having their own business.  They opened Mario’s in 1971 at Session road, Baguio City.  The restaurant gained popularity due to the delicious food especially Nenuca’s spanish dishes and steak dishes.  Mario’s cheerfulness and passion in welcoming customers was a great deal to its success too.

Mario’s decided to bring in the restaurant to Metro Manila when several customers requested for them to bring it in.  Good thing that the Benitez family did or else, we won’t be able to try out the wonderful food that Mario’s is serving.  It’s one of a kind!

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Mario’s Restaurant
191 Tomas Morato Ave. cor. Scout Gandia, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
(02) 372-0360

We had some free time that night.  Since it was our last night at Puerto Princesa, we decided to roam around the city.  We asked for recommendations and our tour guide was speaking highly of Thanh-Tam Chaolong Haus.

So even if we just had dinner at the hotel, we decided to follow the advice.  We rode the tricycle and went straight to Thanh-Tam Chaolong Haus.

The place is just a simple hangout place, nothing fancy.  However, when you start tasting the food, it’ll give you a big smile.  The food is that good.  Not to mention how extremely cheap their food are.  I was actually very shocked considering that they serve authentic Vietnamese food.

If you recall my Viet Ville blog post, I shared there some history about Palawan and why there are several Vietnamese living in the city.  This must be the reason why we have Thanh-Tam Chaolong Haus there.

• French Bread (Php 11)

This yummy french bread whether plain or flavored is a definite winner in Thanh-Tam.  If you order one, I suggest you eat it right away as it’s best when freshly toasted.

• Bread w/ Cheeze (Php 30)

We tried all variants of Thanh-Tam Chaolong Haus’ french bread.  First, there’s the cheese.  You can see the generous serving of the cheese.  It was spread all over the bread.  Just by looking at it will make you so hungry already!

• Bread w/ Garlic (Php 30)

Now the garlic.  Garlic makes every kind of dish yummier and this french bread is another example.

• Bread w/ Pork (Php 30)

If you like pork, then this is for you!  I got scared with the sauces though! hahaha!  I think I’d much rather want the bread with just the pork 😛

• Bread w/ Chicken (Php 30)

Some people prefer chicken over pork, so this variant is for you.  There wasn’t much difference with the pork variant, the pork was just replaced with chicken.

• Beef Stew Noodles (Php 45)

Another famous dish in Thanh Tam Chaolong Haus is their Beef Stew Noodles.  I’m still shocked as to why it was priced at Php 45 only!  The serving is really big and it was SUPER delicious!  I wish I wasn’t that full that night, I would have ordered one for myself and not just tasted from a friend’s order.

If you noticed through our orders that night, Thanh-Tam Chaolong’s specialties are their french bread and beef stew noodles.  I strongly suggest that you don’t miss this food place in your itinerary of Puerto Princesa City, Palawan.  This is a must-try!  A certified awesome foodie discovery in Puerto Princesa City in my book.

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Thanh-Tam Chaolong Haus
Dagomboy, Rizal Avenue, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines