Magnum Mania

When Magnum was made available in Manila two weeks ago, my Twitter timeline was flooded with Magnum mentions. It was a huge success, so much so that it has already sparked a little negativity on Facebook.

It made me suddenly crave the expensive bars of creamy goodness. I originally didn't pay much attention to Magnum because there are Cadbury ice cream bars available.



I had a change of heart when I saw the ad below and I've been hooked.



Heist, Benicio del Toro, Bryan Singer and a gold ice cream bar, what's not to like?



When I finally found the time, I headed to the grocery and a new flavor caught my eye. Limoncello!



Except for lemonades, it hurts my throat, I love everything with lemon and this lemon liqueur flavored bar that tasted a bit of candies is not an exception.



The Irish Cream flavored ones are also good.



A 6-piece mini costs about $10 (330pesos) which amounts to 55pesos for one mini bar.

Last Sunday, my friends saw this new flavor, the deadliest so far.



2 caramel layers, 2 chocolate coating and ice cream.



One bar is about a 5km run. This flavor I won't ever have again, if I can help it.



A 4-bar box costs $15 (495 pesos), about 120 pesos per bar.

Seeing how pricey the ice cream bars, we got all excited when we saw the Magnum bars in Malaysia being sold cheap at about MYR10 ($4.34, 143pesos) for a 3-bar box!



We had the Chocolate Truffle since it's not being sold here. It did taste a bit like our Pinipig crunch but a good buy nonetheless.

Em-J's 29th at Swensen's

After finding out that the Embassy of China is closed on Saturdays, Em-J decided to treat us out for his birthday. We called the rest of our flat mates and waited for them at Orchard. We really had no plans so we couldn't decide where to go. We eventually ended up at Swensen's.

They have the dessert buffet which we have been planning to try for the longest time. 

We settled in and decided on our orders.

Abby and Em-J had the salmon which was nice. I don't think you can go wrong with any salmon dish.

Eli had this chicken dish and he requested the fries be changed to rice, he ended up being quite disappointed with the less than generous serving of rice.

Clarice was having a hard time deciding whether to have the chicken in a basket or the all day breakfast. She finally settled with Crayfish pasta. 

Eco and I both had the cheese steak sandwich.

Em-J was insisting that he wasn't hungry but he placed another order for himself, the chicken chop. 

The dessert selection didn't disappoint but come prepared with your ampalaya drink to battle the major sugar intake. 

The first station was the fondue and cake station which I skipped. 

I headed straight to the waffle station and prepared my own waffle dessert. 

I got carried away with the whipped cream. 

They have the sundae station where they mix and mash your ice cream and topping selections. I also skipped this since I prefer my ice cream plain and simple.

They have the ice cream (pictured below) and the gelato section where I went crazy. Good thing there were only a handful of diners because service can be quite slow. I think they are a bit understaffed since the person in charge of scooping out the ice creams are also in charge of preparing what's on their regular dessert menu. 

This is Eli's first dessert plate which I'm sure Choy would be curious to see. 

My favorite is their calamansi and soursop gelato, very refreshing.

This is us after our meal. 

Em-J gamely posed with his present. 

He was then given a birthday treat by Swensen's, more ice cream! 

Tweet Tweet

So I have a few photos from my phone that I was supposed to tweet about but never got around to doing so so I thought of just creating one blog entry for them.

The bad: I ordered a piece of turon, minatamis na saging and a small cup of fruit salad for a hefty sum of $6 (Php190) at Kabayan.

The ugly: The minatamis na saging was watered down, the fruit salad, too sweet and the turon, too tough. Never again. 

I wanted to share what Clarice and I had for dinner a few weeks ago. We shared this feast just between us two at Manhattan Fish Market.

I'm loving the new Goldilock's packaging. 

I'm also loving Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. 50% on all cakes after 6PM!

I was craving for Magnum Gold so bad that we had to go all the way to 7-11 more than 2 blocks away at 12midnight.

Morning rush hour, on a very crowded bus, this gentleman felt that his bicho bicho deserved a greatly desired seat better. 

I finally got around to arranging the pasalubong that AI asked me to bring along. 

Sizzler

One day after having buffet at Seoul Garden to celebrate Eco's birthday (post to follow since I don't have pics), Choy and I headed to Sizzler at Suntec City to eat at another buffet. Well, it's not really a full buffet, it just has an eat-all-you-can salad bar, but I can still consider this a buffet nonetheless. 

For $20 (dinner), you can have your fill from the wide selection of prepared salads, greens, dressings, pasta, fresh fruits, soups and soft serve ice creams which for me is already more than enough. For those of you who are not really salad eaters (like me), you don't have to worry since as I mentioned earlier, they have a pretty wide selection. There's so much variety that I marveled at the different salad preparations plus everything feels healthy so there's no guilt. 

The spread below is pretty long and this is just one side of the salad bar. They have another one with totally different ingredients. You mix and match, choose your own dressing and enjoy!

If you're not in the mood for a mix and match, then the prepared salads are also available. 

Here's my first attempt. Pretty tasty and I'm loving that I get to choose only the ingredients that I want in my salad. 

I also tried the spaghetti. The sauce is good but the pasta is soggy, very soggy. Feels like it's been soaked for hours. 

They also have different oils to go with your pasta but I didn't try any because I feel that they're best paired with pasta that's cooked just right.

Choy and I also ordered one main meal which already comes with the salad bar. Price range for meals would be about $25-30. Good value for money. The ribs below is a bit dry but pretty tasty and the baked potato is full of buttery goodness that I have to overlook the meal's shortcoming. 

The place has been around for quite some time. It actually feels like walking into a lobby of an old provincial hotel. Charming and nice, we spent quite a few hours just chatting there. 

Runaway winners: Soft serve ice cream, thickly sliced fresh fruits and the fresh greens.

My beef: Their staff. I didn't see a smile from any of them. I guess you really have to get used to it here. 

Upon checking their website, I realized one thing, this is actually the same restaurant that we ate at in the U.S. when I was way younger that introduced me to steaks. I'll definitely be back.