Abe, Trinoma

A lot of people have told me that I should dine at Abe someday, imagine my excitement when we decided to have lunch at their Trinoma branch that day. The tables were filled even if the lunch hour has already passed, they had a smoking area (I'm a non-smoker, my companions were) but since the weather was crazy that day, we decided to just stay inside. We were all hungry, and I just went with what they wanted to order.

The place was very homey, I loved the stained glass windows that took me back to the Baclayon church in Bohol. We had good service when we dined, which is entirely the opposite of what I've read on other reviews online. The waiters were ready with their baskets full of steaming white rice to refill your plate even if you're just about to run out.

So, what did we have? Their own version of the Crispy Pata which they called Knockout Knuckles (595 pesos), Pritong Baby Hito (270 pesos) and Klassik Kare-Kare (595 pesos). It was more than enough for the three of us. Honestly, I was kinda disappointed with the food. The Crispy Pata had a different kick to it that I could not describe, I've had better for just 290 pesos. Same goes with the Kare-Kare, it just had ox tail, tripe and vegetables, I want mine with chunks of beef. I didn't try the Hito at all, so I have nothing to say about it. They had unlimited rice, but I only had one serving.

How much did we spend? Around 1,800 for everything, kinda pricey for three people. Will I be back? Probably, if someone buys me lunch (haha) and if we order differently. It's a restaurant that middle-class folks can go to on special occasions, if you're a bunch who doesn't care about how much you spend on food, then Abe is definitely for you.

Abe Restaurant
3/F Trinoma Mall, EDSA cor. North Ave.
Quezon City, Philippines
(02) 901-5692

I'm still alive!

Hello to my readers, hope you're still lurking. My apologies for not being able to update since forever. I've just been really busy with work, but don't worry, my ink is back and I will be updating again. Expect a dump of entries soon. :)

Delish, Maginhawa Street

Maginhawa Street has been getting a lot of traffic (both virtual and real) for the past years because restaurants have been sprouting like mushrooms along this once quiet stretch in Quezon City.

I jumped into the milk tea craze and usually get my fix in Moonleaf along Maginhawa. Moonleaf shares the lot with another establishment called Delish, my officemates brought me there once for lunch and I liked what I ordered. So, I decided to take Echo there one weekend.

Delish is a small restaurant, I think it can fit about 30 people in one go. It was already past the lunch hour when we arrived and only one table was occupied. The waiter immediately set the table and handed us the lunch specials menu when he realized we were looking for something that wasn't on the regular menu. That day's edition of the Philippine Star was on the table, so I had something to do while waiting for our food to arrive. Aside from that, there are also colorful paintings mounted on the walls for diners to look at and enjoy.







Food. The waiter served us house soup, which was okay. I ordered what I had before, Crispy Binagoongan. It lived up to it's name, the pork was very crispy, the bagoong was the type I loved plus there's a small portion of ensalada (mango, onions, and tomatoes sprinkled with pepper and some herbs). Yum! Echo got Fried Hito, he expected it to be filleted but was surprised to get a whole fish instead.

House Soup

Red Iced Tea

Crispy Binagoongan

Crispy Hito

Service. The waiter stayed in the dining area with us, read the newspaper and even discussed money matters with the cashier, which turned us off because even though it was a slow hour, business details should never be discussed in front of diners.

The Verdict. Despite that little hitch with the service that day, I would like to go back and try their other dishes.

Delish Restaurant and Catering
103 Maginhawa St.
Teachers Village, Quezon City
(02) 355-5241

Homemade Red Velvet Cupcakes

It was a pretty slow Saturday plus four straight episodes of Chuck made me want to do something else. I remembered I asked my Ate Tessa for a red velvet cupcakes recipe a long, long time ago. Decided to get up and work on those goodies. :)

My ingredients were not complete, we set off to CK Bakers in Munoz but they were closed, so met up with an old friend, Chocolate Lovers along P. Tuazon in Cubao. After wiping the dust off our baking materials and of course washing them, I immediately worked on mixing the dry ingredients first, which was very easy, all I had to do was sift. Haha.

Now came the challenging part. The recipe required buttermilk and distilled vinegar (68 pesos a bottle in Cherry Foodarama), as a substitute for the former we mixed milk and lemon; and for the latter we used lemon too. It was really hard to measure our food coloring for it was in gel form, I had to settle with putting in a dollop a time to make sure I don't overdo it. The batter had the right shade of red, yay!

The cupcakes did not only look good, they were yummy too. Happiness! :) What I didn't like was the cream cheese frosting, we settled for Magnolia cream cheese because it was the only one available at the grocery. I added a lot of confectioner's sugar and chilled it in the fridge for a few minutes but it still won't thicken. Echo had to redo it, added a full bar of cream cheese, to no avail. We're thinking it's the cream cheese, we made frosting with Philadelphia before and it turned out great.

Of course, there will be another try and hopefully by then everything will be perfect. :)

Recipes - Trinoma

We decided to have lunch at Trinoma before going to Batangas, and since it was a Friday, we had to look for a restaurant which would lead us away from the temptation of eating meat. As a family, one of our favorite places to eat was Recipes, and that's exactly where our feet brought us.



My brothers concentrated on the seafood and vegetables section of the menu. We had Gising Gising as our appetizer, it's beans with ground pork and coconut milk. Wait, what? Ground pork? LOL! Yes, apparently, though this was under vegetables on the menu, it still has meat. Le sigh. My brother said we just go ahead and order Crispy Pata too. LOL. Tofu Teriyaki was a special Lenten offer from Recipes, I'm not a big fan of tofu, so I can't say much about it, what I know though is that the rest of the family loved it, because the plate was empty at the end of our meal.

Gising Gising (170 pesos)

Tofu Teriyaki (145 pesos)

Next up was Crispy Tilapia, strips of deep fried fish that you either have by itself or dip it in traditional Pinoy sawsawan of soy sauce, onions and sili. I believe the beauty of this dish is that it makes us feel as if we were dining at home because of it's simplicity. The Chili Prawns was something new for us, we were disappointed that the serving was small, my brother had to give me half of the shrimp that was already on his plate since I wanted more. Give me anything shrimp and I'll gladly attack, I love how the spice was just right! Yum!

Crispy Tilapia (215 pesos)

Chili Prawns (290 pesos)

The staff was attentive, armed with their pens and paper take orders and pitchers full of water or iced tea to make sure you won't go thirsty. It's easier to get a table on weekdays, however, a bit more patience is needed if you do decide to go on a weekend.

The Verdict. Recipes is a restaurant that families can go to every weekend, damage to the wallet would be around 1,500 pesos for 5 people. I will be back to order Chili Prawns just for myself! LOL.

Recipes by Café Metro, Trinoma
Trinoma Mall, North Ave cor. EDSA
Quezon City, Metro Manila
Philippines
(02) 901-3686

Operating Hours: 11:00 AM-9 PM except Fridays and Saturdays when they're open until 11PM

Mongolian Buffet at Sweet Inspirations

Shillette and Jog, our friends from the office introduced us to this quaint place along Katipunan, Sweet Inspirations. The glutton sleeping inside me always wakes up whenever we step into this restaurant. No, I don't have a super sweet tooth, what I always go back to is their Mongolian Buffet.

At one side of the restaurant is where the action begins, you take an orange bowl, and fill it up with your own mix of rice, noodles, vegetables, seafood and meat. The fun doesn't end there, you can have at least four different flavors with every trip back to the buffet. Maybe the thought of coming up with your own sauce scares you and think that this is just for people who cook. Fear not, they have a cheat sheet of what you need, to make a hot and spicy, sweet and sour, sweet and spicy or just plain sweet bowls. You then hand over your creation to one of the waiters, they bring it to the kitchen for cooking, wait time would vary depending on what time you arrive and then it's time for your stomach to party. My staple combination is rice, cabbage, carrots, beef, squid then I throw in scoops of Mongolian sauce, Szechuan sauce, Teriyaki sauce, labuyo or chili sauce and more.







The waiters are pretty attentive, if you're a regular, they would send a smile your way. I don't blame them if getting a refill for your drink takes a long time specially during peak hours. I work for the call center industry and things don't look good too when it's queuing.

You may want to come in early during weekends to avoid long lines. UAAP season, specially when the Blue Eagles have a game would result to a full house too, since Sweet Inspirations is right across Ateneo.

Their Mongolian Buffet is very budget friendly, shell out 310 pesos and you can have as many rice bowls as you can. In case you still have room for dessert you may want to check out their fridges full of cakes. We have already tried their chocolate delight (44 pesos) and banana cream pie (38 pesos), they're delicious too! :)

The Verdict. Definitely coming back for more. You might want to try this even if you're not a big fan of buffets. Plus, there's free wi-fi!

Cafe Sweet Inspirations

311 Katipunan Avenue

Quezon City

Operating Hours: 6:00 am-11:00 pm

(Mongolian Buffet starts at 10:45 am)

(02) 928-2557

Yabu, House of Katsu

We were supposed to be in Subic that Monday morning however a small but very painful incident (calls for another blog entry) set us back. I attacked my favorite friend, Google, and looked for other things to do. After a million suggestions which ranged from, "Should we go to Tagaytay instead?", "Maybe we should just eat out, I'm in the mood for Japanese!" and "Let's stuff ourselves and go to a buffet!" I convinced, more of forced Echo to drive to Megamall so we can try Yabu.

EDSA traffic moved fast! I think we traveled for less than an hour, and finally, Yabu! I have read a whole lot of blog entries about this Japanese restaurant that made me want to try it real bad! I was so excited to order. :)



I checked in to Foursquare soon as I sat down and there was a tip, you can get a free appetizer just by flashing your SM Advantage Card, that easily saves you 175 pesos. So, make sure you keep yours handy. Apparently, we get to choose two, we had the Edamame (Young green soybeans) and Hiyayakko Tofu (Cold silken tofu cubes in ponzu sauce, sprinkled with bonito flakes), happiness!


They then gave us this small bowl filled with sesame seeds, so we had to pound them to bring out the flavor, and just within minutes of "torture" I could already smell the flavor coming out. The next step was to pour their sauce into the bowl, the waiter specifically said, "Dalawa lang po, ma'am." My friends know me as safe, so I stuck to the formula. LOL.



Echo ordered the Rosu, 3/4 inch thick and juicy: rosu is Japanese for pork loin, wherein the slice of pork has a trimming of fat with it (365 pesos for 180 grams) and I got the Hire, 3/4 inch thick and flaky: hire is Japanese for pork tenderloin, where the pork has no fat attached to it (295 pesos for 100 grams). I was so overwhelmed when our orders arrived, wow, it was well worth the price! Aside from the katsu, there was Japanese rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage which was unlimited, plus pineapple and watermelon slices for dessert. It's a full freaking meal! YUM!



It was the best katsu I've ever had, the meat was so tender. I was kinda disappointed at myself for not being able to finish my meal, believe me, I tried. I think there was only one little sliver left but my stomach could not take anymore.

The staff was very attentive, they immediately refill your drinks and ask if you want more shredded cabbage if you are almost running out. Echo asked for katsudon sauce and when the waiter didn't know what he wanted, one of them came to the rescue and gave what Echo wanted. How's that for customer service?

The Verdict. Did Yabu win our hearts? Yes! We will definitely be back for more. One visit for two would set you back more or less a thousand pesos, it's not a restaurant that we people in the middle class can go to every weekend. But if you're craving for true blue katsu then you should go and experience it.

Yabu, House of Katsu
2/F, SM Megamall
Julia Vargas Avenue
Mandaluyong City
(02) 576-3900