On Valentine's Day

I'd double post if I placed everything here, so...

A geeky Valentine's day and Sister's take on the Valentine's day goodies

Dinner at P.F. Chang

To celebrate my sister's academic achievement of being the top 5 of her whole batch, we decided to go out for dinner at Alabang Town Center last Sunday. We saw that P.F. Chang was already open and there were a lot of people lining up at the reception at 4 in the afternoon. We had to try it.

Come 7PM, we had to wait for a while coz they didn't have a table for us, considering that we had them write us a reservation at 4PM. After a good 10 minute wait, we were finally seated and we started ordering.

Menu. Parents had a hard time reading coz the restaurant had dim lighting and the menu was written in small fonts.

Tamarind Iced Tea. Bottomless. They also have Jasmine Iced Tea which sister got but I didn't like the taste.

Roasted Green Tea. By the pot.

Vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil. Mustard, sesame soy, chili. To make a nice dipping sauce, mix the mustard, chili and sesame soy.

Pork Dumplings. Very much like gyoza. Choice of steamed or fried, pork or shrimp.

Egg Rolls with Mustard Dipping Sauce.

Egg roll with mustard.

Sweet and Sour Pork. Tender pork cuts and surprisingly, I didn't see any fat.

Beef with Broccoli. Beef was really tender and the broccoli, crunchy.

P.F. Chang Fried Rice. Choice of plain fried rice or with meat, chicken, beef, pork or combo. Didn't really enjoy this one.

Crunchy Honey Shrimp.

Lo Mien (or something like that). I'm not a fan of noodles so I only tried one noodle to taste. It was good.

Overall, the food was good, however it was on the salty side. Like all that we ate was on the salty side. But I guess that won't stop all the diners from going there. There were so many people and the lines were literally outside the resto. The price was okay.. For all that we ate, bill came to about Php3k++.

After dinner, we went to Powerbooks to try out my new discount card and to buy sister some ill-deserved gifts lol

Sister's.

Sister's.

Sister's.

This one's for me.

Gifts fresh from Japan!

Our family friend, Masaaki-san is here in Manila until Monday on a business trip. We've known him and his family for a few years now and it's been awesome! (Masaaki-san's son, Haru-chan, is also very, extremely cute.)

We've gotten these as presents from him and his family:

The stuff me and the sister got

Chopsticks and keychains!

White for sister, black for me~

It goes, "(long kissing sound) I love you!" when you press it at the center. So cute!

Each of us got chopsticks. They're all adorbs!

(L-R: Nanay's, Tatay's, mine, sister's)

These are soy sauce. Apparently, this kind is really expensive, like top-class soy sauce, I was told.

This is the second time Masaaki-san has given us bottles of this.

(Kelangan tipirin, mahal e.)

Cheesecake!

Little, bright cheesecake!

How it looks like. It's pretty much bite-sized.

Half of the cheesecake. There's a cream cheese filling inside. It's really good, not too sweet nor salty.

Everything's just right!

Earlier, as we were picking out gifts for Masaaki-san, Satomi-san and Haru-chan, sister and I chanced upon these earphones that were on sale. I bought one for each of us since she has another earphones from the same brand and they sound good naman:

 DCI earphones for Php695. On sale for Php382.25.

Pwede na diba?

And yes, those are goldfishes :D

Dinner: Isaw na Baboy!

I really love isaw. Whether it's chicken or pork as long as it's either fried or barbecued... I can live off isaw. Though thinking about it, I wouldn't really have that long of a life to live enjoying it if it's what I'll eat everyday...

Yum yum barbecued isaw!

Boyfriend doesn't like isaw. Even if he lives for chicken, he can't stomach chicken isaw. Kadiri daw. As if. Ang sarap kaya.

To top it off, I made a smoothie from a couple of fruits left over from Chinese New Year's. Bago mabulok.

Strawberry and grapefruit combo. White sugar, ice cubes and fresh milk. Didn't use water so this drink is a lot creamier than my other smoothies. (Mas konti din ang output.)

Lunch out at Cafe Publico

Me and some friends decided to try Cafe Publico last Saturday, to see if it can be a new tambayan for our group.

Verdict? We so love it~ The place is cozy, with a second floor where you can hold events. There even are some board games that you can use and they even have a giant chess board!

They have pasta, open-faced sandwiches, dips and pastries. For drinks, they offer coffee, beer, sodas and juice. And of course, gelato! We tried these dishes:

We started with Spinach Dip served with Crostini and Breadsticks. The dip was flavorful and light, crostinis aren't hard to the bite and the breadsticks are good even on their own, with garlic chips in them.

Boyfriend got the Pesto pasta. The pesto was packed with herbs and garlic and the pasta, al dente.

Ryan and I had the 3 Cheese Beef Lasagna. The sauce was really creamy and cheesy and everything was just right! The breadsticks went well with the sauce too.

Porkchop (yep, that's his nickname) ordered a Hoegaarden beer. First time I tasted a Belgian beer. And I like my SanMig better :) Ryan at the background, trying to be all Mafia-like.

Donny's Spicy Tuna Pasta. He said the spiciness of the tuna blends just well with the pasta. Leah ordered Pesto pasta as well.

I wasn't able to take pictures of Porkchop's Arroz al Pollo and Polo's Chicken Pie sandwich because just when I remembered to take a picture, they've already started digging into their food and they've already ruined the presentation.

So onto dessert! We all got gelato, except for Polo who got Affogato because he thought that all that was written on the menu under "Concoctions" were the only gelato that they had. So sux for him lol.

Donny's coffee-flavored gelato.

Polo's Affogato which was really yummy!

Yoda (green tea), Strawberry, Thai Tea and Vanilla gelato! All in small sizes.

 

Porkchop's medium sized Ferrero and Fudge gelato. There's an option to mix two flavors of gelato in one serving.

I just found out that I wasn't able to take a picture of Ryan's gelato, but he got two different flavored ones in small...I've also forgotten what he got XD

Peter, the owner, was very very accommodating. He came to our table often to check up on us. He even gave us discounts for all the gelato that we got :)

Definitely going back there, if not for the food, the Thai Tea gelato!

Cafe Publico is at the 2F of Greenhills Promenade.

Chocolates really make me happy

I really, really, really love chocolate!!

Royce' Nama Chocolate, Php580/box

Champagne! I like this better than the plain one

Pieces are pre-cut and coated with cocoa powder

It even comes with a pick!

ROYCE'

It comes in this insulation bag and they put a bit of ice inside so the chocolate won't melt

And the boyfriend gave this to me today!

Who doesn't love Kinder?

36 bars of Kinder goodness~

A bar

I still have a bar of raspberry chocolate at home which I got from Marriott. Will take pictures when I open it XD

Fruit smoothies and a Christmas dog

It has always been our tradition (my mom's tradition, actually) to have 12 different round (or close to round) fruits every new year's. And it has always been up to me, my dad and my sister to finish all the fruits before they go rotten.

This year, mom bought some fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and cherries. We had no problem eating the cherries since they're a family favorite, but the strawberries were a bit too sour, raspberries are too, and blueberries...well, we've never been a fan of fresh ones eaten on their own.

So what's the best way to finish all these? Make smoothies!

I made three different smoothies out of the strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and had my dad and sister drink them individually lol. But for me, I decided to make a mixed berries one:

Dark pink: raspberry, light pink: strawberry, violet: blueberry

I used corn syrup this time, instead of white sugar. I also added a bit of water instead of using just milk. I would've wanted to use some evaporated milk but we were all out so I had to settle for fresh milk.

I found the colors really nice and I just had to take a picture before mixing it. Also, quite nice that they didn't mix themselves up when i was pouring one after another. Strawberry was the base; added the raspberry next, carefully pouring from the side and I spooned the blueberry last.

And now, for a bit of cuteness, here's Bambam making himself cozy under the Christmas tree, just beside the gifts: