It Smells Like Christmas at Starbucks

On our way to the Universal Studios' Halloween event, we stopped by Vivo City to wait for the others. I was pretty tired from the all day walking so while Em-J was looking at sneakers, I went to Starbucks right beside the Converse shop and saw that Christmas came early.







Em-J ordered our Christmas favorite, Toffee Nut Latte while I tried their newest offering, Cranberry White Chocolate Mocha. I honestly didn't taste much of the Cranberry but I liked the drink.





It's amazing how Starbucks has become such a part of our lives that the coming of the red cups signal the start of the holiday frenzy. For my friends back in Manila, enjoy collecting your Starbucks stickers!

Saturday Lunch - Lucky Plaza and Jones the Grocer

Em-J's birthday celebration continued on with a couple more dinners but first I'd like to include our 2nd official Saturday lunch date with our new BFF, Phoebe.



We're easy to please so it's a simple lunch down at Lucky Plaza for some Filipino favorites.


Lechon Kawali (Crispy Pan Fried Roasted Pork)


Adobong Pusit (Squid Adobo)


Bulalo (Beef bone marrow soup)


Fried Tilapia

To continue our conversation, we headed to Jones the Grocer for coffee and desserts. Ronald and I first tried this place out a few weeks back and I liked their coffee and interiors.


Chocolate Cupcake


Best Brownies Ever!



Red Velvet Cupcake






Till our next lunch date.

Pique Nique

Em-J had no idea and no plan as to where he wants to celebrate his 30th. I suggested that we try Pique Nique at Ngee Ann City so we all met up at Orchard last Sunday.



I am drawn to restaurants that serve all day breakfast and that have simple but cute interiors.





The menu is simple. What's inside the menu is essentially already on the board. They have Cheeseburgers, Hotdogs, Macaroni and Cheese and All Day Breakfast. They have different toppings for each main menu item so you'll have about 7 - 8 different cheeseburgers to choose from.



Since we were a big group, I took the liberty of taking everyone's orders and writing it down in a piece of paper and I relayed it to the waitstaff.



My all time breakfast favorite would have to be Eggs Benedict so it's a no-brainer for me. I also wanted to try their cheeseburger so Em-J and I shared the Baconator.

The Eggs Benedict was okay, I just didn't like that the bread was cold and hard. You know how when you toast your bread and then you leave it out for a long time, it becomes hard and difficult to eat. That's what the bread was like.



The cheeseburger was good but as Em-J pointed out, how can they call it the Baconator when it only has one strip of bacon in it.



My least favorite from everything that we ordered would have to be the Caesar Salad, the dressing was fishy and was grayish in color.



I notice now that this post is starting to look like I didn't enjoy my time there. Don't get me wrong, I did. I would actually be back. I just wanted to share some things that we feel they could improve on.

Here's the rest of what we ordered.

Scrambled Eggs - Philly Cheesesteak



2 Egg, Bacon and Toast



Macaroni and Cheese and that's not a dollop of sour cream, that's actually a poached egg.



Hotdog Sandwich



and ice cream for dessert.





Em-J also had the Bailey's milkshake which he really really liked.



I so wanted to try the red velvet cupcake and their whoopie pies but there's simply no more room.



Thanks Em-J for the birthday treat. We all had fun.

Boracay Food Trip - Boracay (3 of 3)

Since I love taking pictures of food, I felt that what we all ate at Boracay deserves a separate entry. Since Em-J and Danny were flying in from Singapore and was terribly missing Jollibee's chicken joy, this is what we had as our first meal at the airport.



When we got to the island, we had Andok's and Jonah's avocado milkshake.





Dinner was at Cyma. I know that this restaurant is quite popular but I've eaten there twice and I have yet to be wowed. As with this dinner, all our orders were mostly misses.













Breakfast at Shangri-La's Vintana was the best. We never got tired of the food for the 5 days that we were there.











They also have a special area for the little kids. It was a nice touch, I found myself mostly going back to this station because of the mini pastries.







What I really really liked about them is that the fruit juices that they have are all fresh. No to powdered drinks or juice from concentrate.





We also found ourselves having lunch at two of Manila's popular food chains, Pancake House and Shakey's.

Best gravy ever.





I was craving for mojo's while Em-J was craving for their fried chicken. We ordered the set meal but the spaghetti and the pizza both were left untouched.







A trip to the beach would be incomplete without a halo-halo which we had at Mang Inasal.



When Danny got sick, Em-J and I stayed behind at the hotel and had dinner at Solana. I had the salmon and Em-J had the jumbo prawns. When his order arrived, I was blown away at the size of the prawns. We also ran into Chef Bruce there of AFC who was there for a Lee Kum Kee event.











My two favorite meals there were the one from Mañanas and surprisingly, Hap Chan.

The tacos were very very good, we had to just order another plate.





Everything that we ordered at Hap Chan were so good although I can really taste the MSG but who cares?