Category: Restaurants

It was December 30.  We took the time to celebrate Christina’s birthday (a belated one).  We drove to Tagaytay wanting to enjoy the scenery and also, good food.  Restaurant Verbena at the Discovery Country Suites was our choice.

I’ve been to lots of restaurants in Tagaytay but it was my first time in Restaurant Verbena.  As expected, I was curious.  It was planned well.  Christina called Discovery Country Suites Tagaytay as early as December 24 to get a reservation.  She informed them that we’d be getting their Christmas menu during lunchtime of December 30.  On the day itself, she called again to reconfirm.  We were ecstatic while on our way.

When we arrived, I didn’t expect what I saw.  I always have this impression that high-end hotels would look like the ones we have in Metro Manila.  The ambiance is really ‘country’ type.  Wooden chairs, tables, doors & roof.  I guess I’m not really used to country-themed places.

Our chosen area was the one overlooking Tagaytay.  Perfect for pictures too because of the natural light plus beautiful scenery.  Do you see the beautiful glasses on the tables?  Soooo cute, I was in awe for a few seconds just admiring them hahaha!

As Restaurant Verbana is located at the lobby and I guess they were trying to prevent mosquitoes & flies from coming in, they covered the window view with metal screens.  The picture below shows literally what we can see while dining.  It was also raining that time.

Our visit was mostly pleasant but I was a bit disappointed that our reservation was worthless.  They mentioned they can’t give us the christmas menu even though it was confirmed a week before and on the day itself when my friend called.  When we heard that they won’t be giving us what we expected to get, our faces were obviously disappointed.  The staff upon seeing our reaction made some arrangements and finally gave us what was due.  We got the christmas menu we originally reserved for at Php 1,200+ per person.

While we await eagerly for our 7-course menu, we were served bread w/ 3 different sauces.  Butter was my choice as always 🙂

Here’s the 2010 Christmas menu of Restaurant Verbena (obviously it’s not available anymore but sharing with you our experience anyhow to give you an idea how the food there tasted like):

• Croqueta

Chilean Sea Bass croquette with mango-ginger-lime-salsa.  Presentation was perfect but taste was just satisfactory.  With every bite, you can definitely taste sea bass.  I loved the salsa too because it gave the dish character.

• Spice-Roasted Pumpkin Soup

my favorite among all the courses served.  Definitely, one of the best, if not the best pumpkin soup I tried so far.  True to the name, you can definitely taste pumpkin in every sip.  Served with light curry cream too.

• Baby Lobster Tail

buttered maccheroni pomodoro and basil with lobster tail on top.  When I see the word ‘lobster’ in any dish, my excitement really go up a notch.  I just love eating lobsters and since it’s quite expensive, I rarely eat.  I’m glad this was part of the Christmas menu.  I must admit I didn’t like the pasta but nevertheless, still satisfied with this dish.

• Pineapple Sherbet

Nice touch with the mint leaf.  This was definitely a good break with the food we have eaten so far.  A nice ‘intermission’ to our main course.

• Christmas Duo of Beef

2 types of beef in 1 dish!  It’s always a delight having more choices for food.  The presentation was truly beautiful and I was like a kid thinking which one to eat first.  There were braised short ribs and U.S. Angus Beef.  I must say the Angus Beef was way better, way tastier and way tender.  The ribs didn’t go well with my taste buds, I ended up just taking a bite and left the rest on my plate.

• Gianduja Tart

Hazelnut chocolate cake with gingerbread ice cream.  Not really a fan of chocolates 🙁  I’m sure the cake tasted good, my friend loved it!

• Tagaytay Herbal Infusion

Always a perfect way to end a meal.  Herbal tea, nice and hot.

I loved the experience considering I was with my friend.  We took lots of pictures and everything turned out so well.  Service was awesome too (except reservations).  I also noticed some awards Restaurant Verbena got displayed in the place.  I’m glad I finally tried it.

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Restaurant Verbena
Discovery Country Suites, 300 Calamba Road, San Jose, 4120 Tagaytay City
(046) 413-4567

Cav Wine Shop-Café was a bit intimidating so I was pretty glad when I saw a promo at Deal Grocer.  They offered 40% off on their 3-course European meal.  A rare opportunity that I wouldn’t miss.  I’m glad that finally I’ll be able to try out Cav Wine Shop-Café which was a new find.  I initially thought of it as a wine shop and was delighted that they actually offer food as well.

As we entered the place, it was quite empty 🙁  After a few minutes, a couple entered and I saw that they also purchased the Deal Grocer promo.  I realized that we visited Cav Wine Shop-Café during a holiday.  The place might be full during regular working hours.  Since they called their 3-course meal, business lunch, then I would assume that they are jam-packed during business days.  It would be such a waste if they aren’t because the food was good.  High quality if I may say.

The daily business lunch is priced at Php 780.  It’s basically a 3-course meal.  It changes daily though depending on the Chef’s recommendation.  On the day of our visit, it was sea bass!  More information on what we have eaten below.  Read on 🙂

We were first served bread while we await for our main meal.  I seriously LOVED the bread!!  It was baked perfectly, no joke.  I was ashamed to ask if we can have more hahaha!  So I got away with what was given to us.  Notice the poppy seeds with the bread.

Here comes our 3-course meal.  I cannot wait to try out everything.  I was taking my time as I wanted to enjoy the food.  I wished we coupled it with wine but I’m not such a fan of wines and liquor.  Not really my cup of tea.  I asked my mom and Christina too as they love wine.  They passed as it’s lunch time and they think dinner time would be the best time to enjoy wine.

• Vegetable Confit Salad

Salad as 1st course of our lunch.  Very fresh and healthy way to start a meal.  The ingredients blends perfectly in our taste buds.  Doesn’t feel bitter as we expected fresh vegetabless and leaves to be.  It feels so fresh with all those vegetables, watermelon seeds, roasted corn and even flower petals.  Yum yum!  Such great presentation too!

• Seabass, Saffron & Pea Risotto

I love risotto and I’m on diet so I really appreciate fish when I dine out.  Well, I was super glad that sea bass was the main course!  The fish was cooked just right, seasoned pretty well too.  Coupled with risotto, it was purrrfect!

• Strawberry Mille Feuille

Heavenly!  That’s the word I can describe our last course.  Strawberry sherbet with strawberry cake (?).  There were chocolate bits with the strawberry sherbet which tasted soooo good!  The biscuit was crispy too with fresh strawberries and custard (I think).  It was like 2 different kinds of desserts in one.

The food was great!  I love how unique and brilliantly thought of the recipes were.  They even offer different menu each day.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised each time you dine at Cav Wine Shop-Café.  With just Php 780 for the 3-course meal, we’re getting our money’s worth.  If you’re craving for a high-quality European meal, you might want to consider Cav Wine Shop-Café.

Not to mention, I had the meal with 2 beautiful important women in my life 🙂  Whatta way to spend a special lunch.

I was even goofing around hahaha!  I was making faces for the camera as Christina was trying out her new lens.

Cav Wine Shop-Café’s specialty is wine.  They have extensive collection of wines in the shop from premium wines to normal ones.  What’s cool is they allows us to sample their wines through their Cav’s enomatic wine machine.  We don’t need to purchase one whole bottle of the wine we wanted to try out.

Cav Wine Shop-Café’s Wine experience goes this way:

• get a tasting card from the reception.  a Php 300 security deposit will be requested and refunded upon return of the card.
• select a glass from the counter.
• insert wine card into the machine.
• select your wine.
• choose the size: tasting (25 ml), half-glass (75 ml) or full-glass (125 ml).
• press the button to serve wine in glass.
• purchases will be added to your final bill at your table.

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Cav Wine Shop-Café
Ground Flr ‘The Spa Bldg’ Lot 5, Quadrant 8 City Center, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
(02) 856-1798

My trip to Ayala Triangle Gardens was still fresh in my mind.  And I was so glad that we had lunch with colleagues at one of the restaurants there which I haven’t tried, Kanin Club.  Actually, the original plan was to have lunch at Wee Nam Kee but due to the long queue, we decided otherwise.

I was excited to try out Kanin Club.  I wanted to know what would separate Kanin Club from other Filipino restaurants in the metro.  Why was it called Kanin Club?  Are there anything special with their rice?  I was too enthusiastic to find out.  I wouldn’t have any problem if we ordered too much 😛

I was a bit disappointed when we walked up to the entrance.  We were waiting for someone to assist us so we could have a table.  We were calling the waiter but he told us he can’t help us and we should just wait for the receptionist.  We don’t even know who the receptionist is, we tried entering and was trying to catch the attention of their waiters, hayyy.  Fortunately, the receptionist finally showed up and walked us to our table.  The disappointment didn’t stop there.  It was just so hard to catch the attention of the waiters.  It seemed like they were avoiding being called upon.  That time, it was already past 2pm and the restaurant wasn’t full.  They were courteous though when we finally caught them.  I hope they improve on this.

I let my colleagues do the ordering as 2 of them already tried Kanin Club.  Both said they loved the food.  I was looking forward to tasting them.  So the ff. were our orders:

• Ripe Mango Shake (Php 97)

Their green mango shake was a bit more expensive.  I do not understand why.  I ended up with the ripe mango shake.

• Crispy Liempo (Php 142)

We all love crunchy food especially for appetizer.  We had crispy liempo which is pork belly strips made as a snack.  It came with 3 different sauces for us to dip the liempo into.  The sauces were chili sauce, soy sauce and vinegar.  The best sauce for it definitely was the vinegar in my opinion.  It felt like chicharon but not so devilish 😛

• Tinapa Rice (Php 149)

As soon as I had a spoonful of tinapa rice, I understood why the restaurant is called Kanin Club.  The whole dish tasted like tinapa.  Every spoonful of it.  Flavors were spread evenly, we could really taste the smoked fish all over the dish.  I couldn’t get enough of it.

On my next visit, I will definitely try out the other rice dishes.  If I don’t get the chance to dine in there next time, I would order for take out!  I can practically just eat this rice without any main dish (‘ulam’ in tagalog).

• Crispy Dinuguan (Php 261)

If you aren’t fond of liver, fret not!  As Kanin Club’s crispy dinuguan is made for us non-dinuguan lovers!  Such a unique creation!  I couldn’t believe that they could think of having the pork deep fried first then have the pork blood stew over it.  No liver, so we can indulge on this beautiful dish.

• Lemon Chicken (Php 224)

I always see lemon chicken in Chinese restaurants.  It was interesting to eat Kanin club’s take of the dish.  The chicken was definitely thinner and the sauce was not thick.  Their lemon sauce was sweet.  I enjoyed this dish.

• Turon KC a la Mode (Php 135)

Definitely the most unique turon I have ever eaten in my life.  This was a genius creation!  Think halo halo in a fried roll!  Gee!  I was in total awe looking at the dish and was even more impressed when I was already eating it.

This unique turon creation of Kanin Club has bananas, purple yam jam, sweet coconut strips and mongo beans.  You can order just the turon KC but we went a step further by getting the ala mode which has a scoop of ice cream.  This was such a treat!  A must order!

I loved the food!  To be honest, I didn’t expect the food to be so good!  I noticed one thing though, they took advantage of frying their food to the maximum level.  They know that we Filipinos, love crunchy/crispy food.  Kanin Club took note of that, incorporated it to their dishes and is very successful in executing it.

Just one look at the restaurant and you’d know it’s Filipino.  They probably got inspiration from the old Filipino times.  It works.  It was like modern Filipino food in an old Filipino inspired place.  Suited for all ages and their food definitely satisfies our tastebuds.

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Kanin Club
Restaurants at the Ayala Triangle Gardens
Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati City

It was a workday and we planned to eat out for lunch.  We tried out almost all the restaurants nearby so I was glad Mexicali was the choice.  It was not an easy find though as I needed help with directions since the restaurant is situated in a non-familiar street.  Good thing, my colleague met me somewhere so we could walk together to the entrance.

I rarely eat at a Mexican restaurant and come to think of it, it was my first time.  I’m glad I did because Mexicali has delicious food!  I just won’t eat again at their Bel Air branch as the environment isn’t safe.  When we were there, there were a bunch of drunk guys beside the restaurant and they were pretty wasted.  Good thing, they have branches in the malls.  I’ll dine there next time 🙂

Mexicali is basically self-service.  We ordered at the counter, paid for our orders and waited for our orders to arrive in our tables.  The food arrived pretty fast and I was really pleased with my order, all of us did!

Here are the food that we ordered:

• Chili El Reno Burger (Php 173)

Mexicali’s burgers are made with 100% beef.  There were 3 kinds: classic burger, chili burger and onion burger.  My colleague has chosen the chili burger.  Her order definitely looked so delish.  She mentioned there was cheese in it too.  Served with tortilla chips and salsa.

• Ground Beef Quesadillas (Php 129)

Mexico’s version of grilled cheese sandwich.  Their ground beef quesadillas is filled with shredded cheese and ground beef grilled on a flat iron griddle until the cheese melts.  Tortillas were toasted well before it was served.

• Taco & Chili Cup Combo (Php 199)

I was pretty hungry and I wanted a complete meal so I ordered their combo meal 1.  It has tacos, chili con carne and mexican rice.  I requested for tortilla chips instead of rice, they obliged with my request which I appreciated.  Their combo meals came with iced tea too.

I loved the chili con carne!  I was dipping the tortilla chips with it and it tasted heavenly!  Not so spicy as I expected but it’s pretty cool.  I actually forgot about the salsa dipping.  Their tacos are pretty great too!

• Regular Grilled Chicken Burrito (Php 145)

The burrito when opened doesn’t really looked presentable as the sauce messed it up hahaha!  But that doesn’t mean the taste was bad too (it turned out to be yummy!).  Their burritos is just soft flour tortillas filled with meat, beans, mexican rice, salsa, cheese and sour cream.

It’s actually Mexicali’s bestseller and main product.  It comes with 2 sizes and I find it really cute that they have a visual guide in the counter as to how big those are.  Can you eat the California size?  It looked sooo big!

The meal was pretty good.  While I was blogging this, my mom was even commenting that the dishes looked delicious.  I told her we can try this out next time.  I already have the mexicali nachos in my mind while I was saying it hehehe 😛

Have you tried Mexicali?  Which dish was your favorite?

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Mexicali
G/F JVR Bldg., 5782 Felipe St., Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines
(02) 895-1919

My mom and I was roaming around Trinoma Mall finding the best restaurant to eat at on Christmas Day.  The Rosario movie tickets we purchased wouldn’t start for another 2 whole hours and we had ample time to eat some yummy food.

After checking out almost all the restaurants in the mall, we decided to have our meal at Yakimix.  I tried it before with my best friend, Christina.  I knew my mom would love it too.  We were early so we had seats.  I think it was around 5:30pm when we entered.

We were greeted warmly by the staff.  The first of the staff greeted us and exclaimed, “irasshaimase”.  Then you’d hear the rest of the staff exclaiming the same thing!  Wahhh!  It was just funny coz we kept hearing the same greeting over and over as guests entered the restaurant.

I love the ambiance of Yakimix.  They have great lighting, comfortable chairs, huge place and awesome chandeliers.  It always amazes me whenever I enter restaurants and how they decide to decorate the place.  When it comes to dining out and choosing restaurants, there’s just so much to choose from that offering a great meal is not just the only component, but you must be able to offer an environment that is inviting to your customers as well.  Yakimix has a great conceptualized restaurant atmosphere.  From the refreshing and bright lighting, all the way to the glass dividers which were unique unto themselves, and the color scheme was simple but all worked well together.

I’m sure they’re used to having diners come in and stay for a while since they really do have a great variety of dishes.  We just had to stay as long as we could until we couldn’t stomach anymore food hehehe :p

Yakimix basically offers buffet.  Buffet that includes ready to eat food and food that we can cook at the table.  The price is pretty reasonable considering the variety of foods that are available and also did I mention that it was a buffet!

These are the prices for your information:

• Eat All You Can – Php 580
• Eat All You Can during monday to friday lunchtime except holidays – Php 499
• Eat All You Can for Children below 4 feet – Php 380
• Left Over Price per person – Php 699

They also have drink all you can at Php 65.  You can choose between lemonade, iced tea, water & softdrinks.  You can also change your mind during the course of your meal and change your drink to another variant.  I stuck with my blue lemonade throughout our meal though.  My mom, on the other hand, just loves Coke light.

Here is what you can expect to see at Yakimix:

• Maki and Sushi — soooooo many of them!

• Cooked food replenished like almost every 5 minutes.  We were like people who haven’t eaten for 10 years hahaha!  The favorites among them are tempura shrimps and fried lechon pork.

• Wide array of raw items for us to cook and season to our liking.  My favorite were the pork and intestines.  My mom got a lot of shrimp for us though.  She knows I just cannot get enough of freshly cooked shrimp!  And I just love that many of the uncooked foods were already marinaded and seasoned which definitely makes it even easier to get freshly cooked food that tastes so good.

• The Desserts section at Yakimix is most probably everyone’s favorite.  Aside from the cakes and other yummy desserts in the picture below.  They also have fruits and ice cream!  There were about 4 flavors of ice cream when we were there plus some toppings that we were able to choose from too!  They also have popsicles available.

My mom was busy cooking for us and  I can’t help but capture this moment.  I’m truly lucky to have a loving mom like her.  She spent Christmas with me!  Look at how focused she was cooking on the grill hahaha!  Sooooo cute!

It’s truly smokeless, we didn’t have to worry about the heat.  Oil was in the grill already so we didn’t need butter as well.

The picture below is what I looked like as I was enjoying my food.  Anyone who knows me surely knows how much I love shrimps, and I could go on for hours just slowly enjoying biting into each piece.  However, we obviously couldn’t stay in the restaurant forever, and oh how I wish we also had a bottomless stomach sometimes.  Honestly, if you look at my place close enough, you would see that my plate was full of shrimp.  I can’t say this enough, but what a great way to have Christmas dinner especially for someone who loves seafood.

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Yakimix Sushi, Smokeless Grill Restaurant
4th Level, Trinoma Mall, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines