Food Tripping: Megamall and Robinson’s Restaurants-Ortigas I love you

 i’ve been wanting to try this crepe place since they opened, i just haven’t gone in since for me the idea of crepes is either a light meal or desserts LOL like this one below:

it’s chocolate crepe with nutella (or was it caramel) and mangoes, so like fantastic pinay but a little leveled up by the chocolate crepe.

 ahhhhh the savory crepe.  this thing is the bomb!  it has spinach and bacon but the filler is the feta cheese.

 and donna’s order, strawberry chocolate crepe LOL it’s wonderful as well as lovely to look at.

 the ambiance is lovely, too.  quite cozy.

the price range is nearly the same as cafe breton.

and here we are a bunch of chicks satiated with the mirienda we just had.

friday night dinner at megamall, featuring xoi vietnamese kitchen and pepper lunch.

next to korean and thai, i’m really loving as in really loving vietnamese food.  so theBenj™ and i tried out this fairly new one at the megamall atrium.

i ordered something spicy so i thought it would be nice to have some iced vietnamese coffee (i was thinking like thai iced coffee or tea) to soften the blow of the spice, and this is what arrived.  you’re given a pot of hot water, this ground coffee sifter and a glass below with condensed milk in the glass.

so you wait for the hot water to bring out the taste of the coffee then it will go through the sifter and straight down to where the condensed milk is.

a view from the top LOL

and voila the finished product.

to help ease the spice down.  LOL this thing is the bomb, so many bombs!  i loved the spice by the way, it was not scary spicy but just warm, it was by the time that i was half way through the bowl when my nose began to run LMAO. tissuuuuuuuuueee!

theBenj™’s order.  sticky rice. topped with grilled chicken. YUM!!! the chicken was so tender! my beef on the other hand was not really tough, but not tender either.

next!

the friday previous to this last friday oct 7, we had dinner a mega mall, and this time we had it at pepper lunch.  yey.  so much better than pepper steak (seriously i don’t get the appeal of pepper steak)

remember that groupon/beeconomic for pepper lunch?  the half off deal?  it’s not cheap here that’s why.

well at least theBenj™’s order wasn’t cheap.  it had steak and stuff LOL

mine wasn’t inexpensive either, but to be safe i got their best seller to see what the big deal was.

sizzling, smoke in your face, glasses, HAIR AND CLOTHES.  this is why you’ll never catch me at a shabu shabu restaurant or grill anything at a korean joint.

in ferview, my order was really nice, if only i didn’t burn my mouth and tongue in the process of eating it.  if you wait too long the greasy ‘goodness’ would not be so good so i had to eat it after it had just cooked to medium well.

today, theBenj™ and I are off to greenhills looking for at least one of these:

lol, i’ve been getting misspellings and wrong words on my phone and growing my nails is going to be bothersome and texting at the same time LMAO.  

do i just live in ortigas or what?

where have you been lately?

Random Post: Finally Bonchon at Robinson’s Galeria Opens

Now this is walking distance from where i work! BonChon Chicken now has a branch that just opened yesterday.  No photo booth as of yesterday like they had in Mega, but the dude pointing in the previous pic apologized for that and said yesterday was sort of a soft launch.

we actually got there around 11:20 already the place was filling up.  i did warn my officemates that if the mega branch was any indication of the queues at this restaurant, then we had better get there early. so we did.

my order and the usual preferred order of many the crunchy spicy chicken wings! i took the meal, this one comes with a drink, mine was iced tea and 1 rice for PhP135.  extra rice costs PhP15 which i recommend you order, the spice and the amount of chicken given (3pcs) will make you order more rice.

Ria’s order.  the fillet breasts.  PhP145 with drink hers was iced tea as well.  she ordered the spicy flavor for her chicken, like i did

and Jule’s order the drumstick also PhP145 and comes with a free drink.  Jules wanting to try out both varieties asked for one drumstick to be hot and spicy and the other to be garlic something.  LOL it was consensus among us that the hot and spicy is better than the garlic flavored breading.

Crunchy spicy.  at least my two office mates understood why i’ve been harping on this since i saw their tarp/sign saying soon to open at rob gale.

Anyone else have gone to the Rob Gale branch?

 

Food Tripping Miss Polly’s Cakes after eating at Burgoo

my order, the brown derby!!!  this is a cross between their classic chocolate cake but with mocha icing.  so if you’re afraid to venture too far out from your comfort zone which is their classic best selling and award winning chocolate cake then this brown derby is the best first step you can try.

theBenj’s order, the chocolate icebox, which i ate most of. 😛  the icing is very cold, quite buttery and not too sweet at all.  the cake was quite fluffy coupled with the very light icing this is one cake that’s quite deceiving.  you think you can have more since it seems so light, then bang! half way thru it i couldn’t go back to my own cake LOL.

we had to wash it, the dinner we had, down with these Miss Poly’s lovelies.  because we had dinner at 

we had the incredible shrinking ‘buffalo’ chicken wings, tadaaaah, i distinctly recall these being bigger O_O

but at least our dinner had big portions!

it doesn’t look much? huwell.

this pasta bolognese means it when it serves two.  the sauce is tangy and a little too sour for my taste, just because i still remember how wonderful the pasta at Va Pensiero.  but i suppose for the big portion and passable pasta bolognese, this one from burgoo is ok.

theBenj’s order below:

surprise surprise, it’s meat!

and surprisingly more meat than just breading.  the gravy kinda ruined it for us but there was the ever reliable Lea & Perrins ® Worcestershire.

do you know that satiated feeling but you don’t feel gratified?  that’s how the hubby and i ended up feeling after eating at Burgoo.  funny, i didn’t used to feel that way about burgoo.  i always thought it was the better tgif(?) taste-wise.  all three orders without drinks had a total cost of 1k++

soooo off to miss polly’s we went.

Miss Polly’s is well known for their chocolate cakes.  having grown up in merville i’ve known them like hehehe a long time.  They’ve also been featured in either myx or studio 23, i forget which show that was.  the show interviewed the two daughters who were very ecstatic to be expanding out of their mother’s kitchen and are now at the Robinson’s malls.  what caught my attention and made me laugh out loud, was the girls joking plea to try out their new stuff and it now Miss Polly’s isn’t all about their chocolate cake!  and so we did, and boy i love that brown derby and that chocolate icebox! their blue berry cheese is quite good too!  it’s very cheesy!  

what was your last food tripping?  

Food Tripping: HYPHY’S at the Robinson’s Galeria Veranda

Located at the sorta new veranda area of robinson’s galeria, where we seem to usually go now on a friday night while waiting for the traffic to die down.

this is the row of restaurants where you find johnny rocket’s, papa john’s and that not so delicious, delicious kitchen by eat well.  so further down the veranda, you find a pricey Thai resto and starbucks at the end and this place.  

this is their grilled chicken fillet,

looks good, smells good, tastes pretty ok, but the serving or portion is too small for a hungry guy like theBenj.

my order, pasta con tuyo.  fine, anchovies LOL. spicy

it’s about 250-300 per person here.  AND MY PHONE LIKES THE WIFI HERE.  yeah, anyone on my fb or twitter would know, my phone is not young anymore and is really really fussy what wifi it latches on to.  so on the wifi and this super yummy.  the grilled chicken fillet is something you can skip unless you have a pea sized stomach or had mirienda around 5pm and will eat again around 630 LMAO exag? 😛


this place is a fusion resto, Pinoy fusion at that. as if Pinoy food isn’t a fusion in itself already so if you’re into that, this place is worth a try.  the prices are ok naman and my order was fun and really tasty.  even theBenj dove into my pasta after he finished off his food in like 3minutes LOL.  plus i like the ambiance.  the people are low key and QUIET!  i’d come back here with my phone handy and or a book 😉  awww dang i’m missing this pasta dish tuloy 😛

Food Tripping: Papa Johns Robinson’s Galeria –yum!

FINALLY, we got a table at the Papa John’s at Rob Gale. [last friday night]  the place is always so packed! even the out side tables are always full, yes even in the heat, people are willing to sit outside just to have a slice of a Papa John’s pizza.  but i’m a fan of air conditioning so it took us this long to grab a chance and eat this branch.
We were unfortunately seated near the door and their air curtain was either turned off or malfunctioning or was set too much on low.  so when the door kept opening and closing it was both a bless and a curse.  the pizza didn’t cold right away, but it meant i was too warm.
the chef’s were behind this great big glass window thru which we can see them toss the pizza dough and assemble the pizza, to which the kids had fun to watch.

this is a 12 inch pizza. we ordered the all meat, of course.  the crust is crispy thin.  super yummy meaty toppings, and the cheese mouth wateringly tangy and not too salty.  the tomato sauce was a good combination of sweet and sour that sorta drips down your mouth.  i can’t get over this pizza!  i thought the pizza the Benj and i had at Chelsea was really good.  this 12 inch goody costs PhP450.

the pasta…PhP190.  i’m afraid this one is run of the mill.  it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t orgasmic either.

i ordered a mocha flavored coffee.  to wash all that not so oily food down.  around PhP75.
over all i’d have to say i really really like the pizza.  the thin crispy crust topped with just the right tangy sweet sauce and it had a great helping of meat toppings from the ground beef to the pepperoni to sausages which were all well cooked.  i can eat this pizza every day!  well that’s if i could actually get a table at this joint right away!  so for now it’s the hit at the veranda because of it’s comfort food and not so expensive prices.
whatchathink? have you eaten at papa john’s?

Collective Haul over the past month – from different sales

I work near robinson’s galeria, so during breaks or lunches i unwind and get to see a few things that grab my fancy. last january was a month of clearance sale and other stuff and here’s a few stuff i came away with some were bought full price but some are already at a very reasonable price since it’s the japanese store.

the new kid in town, review on this by this weekend, i think i grabbed this instantly when i saw it.

so it’s the really uber less expensive version of this givenchy one.

since i’ve got a few nail polishes that i now plan to apply i opted to buy this nail whitener, hopefully it works.

stuff from the beauty bar’s on going sale. yahoo another theBalm eye shadow. and i got it at 45% discount ☺  and i needed a sparkly eye liner so it was prestige for me…the price of prestige and in2it are very competitive by the way.  just a heads up ☺

and stuff even from handy man.  woot, my ear plugs are about a year old and it may be time to update them.  [i had gotten used to using ear plugs from being on the night shift for so long (i used to sleep during the day), so now it feels kinda weird not having them on even if i sleep at night]

i love going to the japanese store, saizen.  who could resist those false lashes?  and oh, i learned that it’s wise to use the 5-toed socks from a kpop idol, park jung min so i wanted to try it out.

Bought a few scarves / bandana at rob’s dept store.  i thought of doing a tutorial inspired by girls gen’s, hoot ☺

hahaha. and my from st francis sq bwahahaha it’s my guilty pleasure.  they’re just os pretty ☺♥

as for my ‘last money’ that isn’t part of my real budget for bills and what not i even went and bought this disappointing magazine.

i just wanted to share these things, hehehe, i’m not much into jewelry or accessories but i am very much into kpop, kdrama, and makeup so i can mimic their makeup.

til the next time ☺♥

Food Tripping: Mangan at the Robinson’s Galeria Branch – comfort Pinoy food

Mangan restaurant at rob gale-photocred to click the city. the rest of the photos are mine taken with my panasonic lumix dmc-zs3

lightly fried fluffy garlic rice

my order since it’s something i hardly have.

the relish that comes with dinaing na bangus.

the juicy sisig

unwrapped

lechon kawali

bibingka

the free salabat.
it’s a friday pay day night and our norm to let the traffic die down is to spend time at the mall and maybe a movie.  no movie interested the Benj, so we said no to every other movie showing since we’ve seen the uber funny the green hornet.  we wanted to try papajohn’s but there were no seats, we wanted to try 8spices but the day before our home’s Manang Rebbie already spoiled us rotten with her nestle version of bagoong rice…so thai was out.
for comfort food it’s either DuRi or Mangan. it’s not too expensive comfort food.
the food: it’s your home cooked tasting meal.  the portions are almost tiny but at least they taste good.  my daing na bangus was fried medium well, so the meat soft but the top layer was slightly toasted.  the garlic on the fried milk fish was the same, toasted a bit but was still kinda juicy when i bit through one.  the lechon kawali was almost the same.  really crispy but the meat under the crispy skin was soft, tender, and juicy to bite through.  the sisig…i prefer my sisig dryer and crispier but then that dryer kind of sisig is something to pick at during drinking sprees while this juicier more tender kind of sisig is eaten with rice as a dish or meal.  i was surprised how small the portion was for this sisig, but then it’s a hundred bucks for this viand.
my fave: the bibingka, the no nonsense absolutely no extender, plenty of salted egg slices bibingka of mangan. an order of the regular sized bibingka comes with a cup of salabat or ginger tea.  as you can see, they give huge cubes of ginger, too.  if there is anything i would keep coming back to mangan for it’s this.
the ambiance: it’s a homey feel.  with the book shelve’s the capis chandeliers to the water buffalo horns hung on the wall.  the waiters have plastic aprons, which kinda freak me out.
the service: it’s fast and friendly, from our orders to arrive to paying, it was quick and easy.
the price: all of this that you see in the pix and an order of a cup of good native tsokolate is less than PhP630.  we had 3 viands and 3 orders of garlic rice, tsokolate and dessert.
word of advice though, if having lunch or brunch here and the mall had just opened, make sure the lechon paksiw is heated right through, reason why it took me and the Benj a full year to come back here is because this branch served us cold lechon paksiw.  apart from that, we’d come back here, at this branch, the one at sm north, or any branch.  it’s food we can rely on.

Johnny Rockets – a themed experience – pic heavy

In hindsight, the Benj and i should have brought my father, who brought me up on pop american music and culture, at this diner, when treated my dad for a birthday lunch.

it’s a 50’s-early 60’s themed diner.  so something like the one in back to the future, lou’s diner hahaha.

naturally, they have a juke box, and naturally, it doesn’t have 45’s anymore.  ooops i bet y’all don’t know what 45’s are anymore.  but anyhoo, it plays cd’s.

their menu:

and their really really expensive menu for what they really are i mean.

more comfort food.

and a little-back grounder of the restaurant’s story.

more comfort food and their prices.

the inside of Johnny Rockets, the Robinson’s Galeria branch.



i went through the Benj’s coins for me to get some Aretha’s Respect, the Byrd’s Turn Turn Turn, Wild Thing, and a Barry White song.

and oooh, 1buck per song.  yes, you can pay for an oldies song that’s on the list.  that night though i was the only one working the juke box.  but one other person in the whole resto was enjoying the music i chose and dropped a coin for.
what we ordered:

the cookies and cream milk shake thick and wonderful.  oh they actually make this in a bigger shaker, and what you see here is what just fills Benj’s glass.  the shaker with which the shake was made in was at my side and i tried [and failed] to sip from with their really narrow straw.  [pang soft drinks ang straw hindi pang shake…like quickly or zagu]

the burger.  the Benj got something similar.  but it was 100 percent beef with no extenders.  it was about an inch and half of juicy medium well grilled patty of deeeeelight.

and oh back to the really thick milk shake.  those cookie bits will never go through their really narrow straws. LOLz.

the ‘amusing’ part, the waitresses subject themselves to dancing to old tunes.  like the theme to hawaii 5-0 and irene cara’s, fame.

twice the Benj and I had to see them through this embarrassment.

the ambiance: except for the dancing they almost got it right, from the juke box to that thing where you drop the coin to select your songs at every table. to the chairs and even the interior.  just make sure of the songs you paid for, since the waitresses sometimes queue up their own songs, overriding yours, but you can call their attention to rectify that matter.

the food: we had a couple of awesome REALLY REALLY FILLING burgers.  they were grilled just right, very juicy, no extenders, no short cuts and very 50’s american.  the milk shake is a meal in itself.  yes, the food served here is bigger than the usual Pancake House or Iceberg servings, and guess what, that’s why there’s a hefty price tag per order.  the unlimited fries fills you all the more.  it’s a quarterly event for me i think.  i don’t work out so not eating like i’m a teen ager is how i stay in my clothes without popping the top button of my jeans.

the price: well you pay for the ambiance and the big a$$ food.  so it’s gonna be pricey, i won’t lie.  so it’s an experience rather than a place to eat on a daily basis.  besides, unless you’re on a gain weight program [the unhealthy kind] this joint is really really not a good place for your arteries hahaha.

the service: the service was fast and friendly, and the waitress did rectify the matter of my song getting overridden with her remote control, so it’s all good.  but the dancing is not amusing but merely embarrassing and totally not cute and un-cool. not rad.

will the Benj and i come back here? – sure for celebrations but not for date night, i think.