Entries Tagged 'Dessert' ↓

Marriott Café comes up with another deliciously themed buffet – the Ocean’s Surf! It’s a seafood buffet with a wide spread of ocean treasures that’s sure to fill your Friday and Saturday nights at Marriott Hotel Manila.

Drunken Shrimp

At a conservative estimate, I think I had about 8 different shrimp dishes in that single night last weekend.

This seafood buffet included the classic drunken shrimp, fried drunken shrimp, grilled shrimp, shrimp skewers, Thai-style Shrimp kebab, shrimp salad, ‘Suahe‘, Shrimp & Oyster, and Seafood Risotto – whew! (I think I missed one) 🙂

They also had a drink called ‘Ocean Deep‘ which is a combination of blue lemonade with soda.

Crabs

Ocean's Surf Shrimp

Salmon & Shrimp Salad

The Drunken Shrimp was courtesy of Chef Brammer who hand-picked the live shrimps direct from the aquarium into the cooking pan, added the liquor, shook the mongkok, and added the spices.

Chef Brammer of Marriott Cafe

Of course there were other seafood dishes including a gigantic Fried Lapu-lapu, Rock Lobsters, Tempura, Salmon, and other fish dishes.

Sinigang na Salmon

Recommendations

Aside from the fresh and delectable shrimps, the Sinigang na Salmon caught my palate’s fancy.

I suggest you grill the lobster against eating it as it is. This could remove possible unlikely aftertaste.

The Shrimp & Seafood Risotto is also highly recommended that night. The sticky risotto mixes well with the creatures of the sea. 🙂

Rock Lobsters

Thai-style Shrimp Skewers

Salmon & Crabs

Seafood Risotto

You could also have a seafood-break once in a while with other preparations such as Roast Beef, pasta, pizza (which had seafood flavors as well), fruits, and desserts among others.

Roast Beef & Fruits Buffet

My 4-servings of plates excluding dessert

More Seafood...Giant Fried Lapu-Lapu & Tempura

finally... desserts 🙂

Lastly, buffet dining is always better as a group activity. 🙂 It’s always better to indulge with your relatives, friends, or loved ones. It’s something you don’t do alone or just in a pair.

Enjoying Marriott's Seafood Buffet - Ocean's Surf!

Marriott Cafe in Marriott Hotel Manila is open everyday from 6:30am to 11:00 pm. The Ocean’s Surf Seafood Buffet is available Fridays and Saturdays at P1,750 nett (adults) and Php875 (children). Children 12 years and below get in half the price, 6 years old and below get in for free.

For inquiries and reservations on Marriott‘s Ocean’s Surf Seafood Buffet, check out their website at http://mariott.com/mnlap or call (632) 988-999.

Early last month, Magnolia Ice Cream announced a blog writing contest here to promote their Holidays Limited Edition flavors.

We express out gratitude for your positive response and to those who helped promote the contest to their friends and networks. We also had to extend the contest from Christmas to the first week of January to give chance to those on vacation or those coming home from the provinces during the holidays. Nonetheless, together with this extension is an upgrade of the prizes. The first prize was increased from P2,000 to P3,000. The second and third prizes were also upgraded.

In total, Magnolia Ice Cream is giving away P6,500 worth of gift certificates (GCs) to our Top 3 placers. And as promised, the winners will be announced today.

It was no easy task for the judges from Magnolia and NomNom Club to score the entries as most of them are outstanding and made us want to get some ice cream as well. It was good that we were in the San Miguel Corp office when we had our first meeting and deliberation of the entries. It was easy to have some servings of Magnolia ice cream around. 🙂

The scores were completed and averaged based on the contest criteria:

Creativity and Writing Style – 50%
Originality, Grammar & Adherence to Theme – 20%
Photo Quality and Relevance – 20%
Overall Impact – 10%

Some entries were very creative but suffered from grammatical errors while some were also affected with the photos they used (remember the mechanics stated early on that it should be yours and does not infringe any copyright).

Fast forward to today and without further adieu, the winners are:

First Place (90%) – “Head Over Heels with Magnolia’s Limited Edition Apple Strudel Ice Cream”
– by Mona of Eyes on Manila (http://mverdida.wordpress.com/)

"Head Over Heels with Magnolia Ice Cream..."

Second Place (85.5%) – “Enjoy While It’s Here”
– by Vivian of Trips & Falls (http://divineviva.blogspot.com/)

Enjoy While It's Here

I Love Magnolia Ice Cream

Third Place (85%) – “My Magnolia Ice Cream Experience: Enjoy while it’s here”
– by Gerald of I Love Magnolia Ice Cream (http://ilovemagnoliaicecream.wordpress.com/)

Third Place (85%) – “Magnolia Ice Cream New Limited Edition Flavors -Enjoy While It’s Here!”
– by Marie of Anything Under the Sun (http://eamangaliman.wordpress.com/)

Magnolia Ice Cream

Congratulations to the first placer! You will receive P3,000 worth of MIC gift certificates while the second placer will receive P2,000 MIC GCs.  You read it right, there are two who tied at 3rd place so each of them will receive P750 worth of MIC GCs. You will receive an email in the addresses you provided in the comment section within this week.

“But wait, there’s more!” 🙂 To the fourth to ninth placers, you automatically get exclusive invitation to an upcoming Magnolia Ice Cream product party to be held by end of February 2011. Details to be announced by mid-Feb in this blog as well.

Again, congratulations to the winners and thank you to all for participating in this Magnolia Ice Cream Holiday Limited Edition flavors blog-writing contest.

The Ayala Triangle Gardens was then just a garden behind the business-heavy Makati Stock Exchange within the Makati Central Business District. But in the recent months, Ayala Land developed it further and now morphed into a leisure park complemented with a line of restaurants and dining places to enjoy – chat with a friend, nourish oneself after a healthy jog, or simply binge to your heart’s content. 🙂

Ayala Triangle Gardens

And indeed, I got the chance to somewhat ‘binge‘ a few weeks ago with friends. This was actually my second time at the Ayala Triangle Gardens. My first was a dinner of authentic Hainanese Chicken Rice at the famous Wee Nam Kee from Singapore. And after that night, I swore to be back and try the other restaurants.

And so it was. This time, I made sure I came earlier, which was in the afternoon.

Banapple

Similar to a famous food blog, dessert comes first. We took it the other way around and first indulged in Banapple. Aside from the usual Banapple Pie, we also had their in-season cake – Banana Starry-berry Custard Cheesecake.

Banapple

BonChon Original Chicken

Next stop was Bon Chon. We got a small order each of the Korean chicken wings in soy garlic (non-spicy) and of course, the ‘Hot & Spicy one. They took care of the latter while I feasted on the former.

BonChon Chicken

A small order of 6pcs. cost P185 while a medium order (12pcs) is P365. They also have drumsticks, chicken combo and chicken chops. In any variant, you’ll love the different crunch of the interestingly-breaded chicken skin.

Pho 24

It’s Vietnamese food, and I am most delighted with the traditional Vietnamese Pho Noodle Soup served to us. Complete with condiments served on the side, it included beansprout (taw-ge) and lemon slices, among others. The soup was both filling and internally refreshing as common in most oriental soup.

PHO 24

If you want to make it more exciting to taste, you can also add some Sriracha Hot Chili sauce by the table side.

* Expect a dedicated blog post on what else we had on each of my Banapple, BonChon, and Pho24 experiences. 🙂

Almost all the restaurants offered an open al fresco dining experience facing the greens of Ayala Triangle Gardens.

MOMO Cafe & CBTL Soon!

Chef Laudico's BFast

Other restaurants include Amici, Cara Mia, Omakase, and Chef Laudico’s Bfast for an all-day breakfast menu. There were some shops which are stilll under construction though. But it won’t be long before we can try Momo Café, my darling Kanin Club, C.B.D., and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL).

Golden Spoon

Next on my restaurant list when I come back at the Ayala Triangle Gardens is Golden Spoon for their frozen yogurt delights. I’ll be bringing a ‘golden fork‘ to complete the pair. 🙂

HalfMoon Asian Cafe is known for their, well, half-moon BibingCrepes. BibingCrepes on the other hand is a combination of Filipino delicacy ‘bibingka‘ and western crepes.

Giant BibingCrepe

A few weeks ago, HalfMoon Asian Cafe invited us over to witness their record-breaking gigantic bibingcrepe cooked right at their branch in Timog, Quezon City.

Survivor Bibingcrepe? 🙂

The giant bibingcrepe spanned a huge table a little bigger than a clan’s dining table. It would take at least 6 people with arms wide-stretched to ‘hug‘ the bibincrepe‘s circumference.

The live cooking of the bibingcrepe was broadcast live that same day over GMA’s Unang Hirit morning show.

Yes, we missed the cooking and mixing of their bibingka recipe but we were the consumers that night. The halfmoon giant bibingcrepe had two kinds of spread – chocolate and cheese. I liked the chocolate more  (And here we are again on the Dove chocolate and Toblerone chocolate series). 🙂

Hot Bibingcrepe

Full Moon Bibibngcrepe 🙂

Just like bibingka, you should always have your bibingcrepe served hot and fresh, jst like what I had in HalfMoon Asian Cafe that night. Needless to say, it is matched perfectly with a serving of their hot chocolate for a very chocolaty experience. 🙂 A cup of low-sugar brewed coffee would also do to avoid a sugar-rush.

Bibingcrepe Designs

If you can’t get attention with size, try the cuteness factor. We, the guests, gamely joined a mini-contest later on which is ‘Dressing-Up-Your-Bibingcrepe.’

Aside from the Halfmoon bibingcrepe, we are to squeeze out our creative juices accessorizing it with marshmallows, chocnuts, chocolates sprinkles, cupcakes, cheese cubes, and M&M’s.

HalfMoon Asian Cafe Bloggers

Half Moon Asian Cafe

Of course, ourteam won. 🙂 We didn’t eat it though ‘coz our hands were all over it while decorating ’em. ‘Til the next BibingCrepe experience at HalfMoon Asian Cafe! 🙂

Have you run out of gift ideas to give your friends and officemates? Does ordinary chocolates and candies look cheap? I always wanted to give sweet simple things, but it should look nice. But with lots of parties and events to attend to this Christmas, it’s really hard to do so – so I’m sharing this lazy bone convenient discovery with you, my nomnom friends. 🙂

Toblerone Christmas Transparent Pack

From the iconic triangular Swiss chocolate with honey and almond nougat, Toblerone releases new special packages designed specifically for Christmas. It’s a chocolate Christmas weekend! Having just blogged about Dove Chocolates and Krispy Kreme’s Holiday Doughnuts a few days ago, now here’s Toblerone’s Holiday Treats in tin cans!

The first of which is the Toblerone “Holiday Treat” pack. The triangular-shaped pack contains four Toblerone Milk Minis, three White Minis, and three Dark Minis. A gold ring on top of the box makes it easy to hang on Christmas trees as well!

Toblerone White Minis Bag

Aside from the Christmas packs, Toblerone has also released a new variant – Toblerone White Minis 200g bag! Inside each bag contains 16 bite-sized white minis.

Toblerone bars also come in beautiful tin cans with two convenient sizes—perfect for your officemates and friends. 🙂 The large tin can contains a 100g milk bar and a 100g white bar, while the small tin can contains two 50g milk bars, one 50g white bar and one 50g dark bar. Both come in holiday-themed designs. You can of course, go green and resuse these tin cans.

Toblerone Tin Cans

True to Toblerone’s thrust to encourage us to say “thank you,” Toblerone’s Holiday Treats and tin cans are perfect quick thank you gifts this Christmas. 🙂 I want each of those! 🙂

No, it’s not yet Valentine’s Day. 🙂 From the makers of long-time loved global brands of chocolates such as M&M’s and Mars comes Dove Chocolates.

Dove Chocolate comes to the Philippines at an opportune time of Christmas fit as gifts of love and care. It also comes in four chocolate variants:

• Dove® Milk Chocolate (43g)
• Dove® Dark Chocolate (43g)
• Dove® Milk Chocolate with Hazelnut, Almond & Raisin (43g)
• Dove® Chocolate with Crispy Rice (4og)

The plain milk chocolate has the silkiest chocolate among the four. It’s the best seller as well.

The dark chocolate is for those with a little more sophisticated taste which prefers their chocolates dark, like I do. (LOL)  🙂

The other milk chocolate with hazelnut, almond, and raisin comes next to my heart as I love good texture in what I eat.

The last one with crispy rice is a tricky choice as you must make sure you are getting new chocolates. I love rice crispies as well, though. 🙂

Me-Time Moment

Dove Chocolates

My me-time moment is quite simple. It is my habit to eat snacks while browsing sites in front of my netbook in the comforts of my home. So undeniably, my me-time moment is having Dove dark chocolate while surfing my favorite food blogs, travel blogs, and technology blogs. 🙂

All the four silky smooth Dove chocolate variants are now available for P45 at all local supermarkets and convenience stores in the metro.

Magnolia Ice Cream recently launched its newest limited edition flavors for the holidays – Vanilla Praline, Caramel Cheesecake, and Apple Strudel.

In line with this, Magnolia Ice Cream is holding a blog writing contest where you could share your Magnolia ice cream experience with your family. The flavor in the blog story could be any one of the holiday limited edition flavors.

Complete mechanics are as follows:

1) Concept

Write a blog about an experience you and your family had with any or all of the Magnolia Ice Cream Christmas Limited Edition Flavors with the theme “Enjoy While It’s Here“.

2) Article

The entry should contain at least 200 words and a maximum of 500 words. The words ‘Magnolia Ice Cream’, ‘limited edition’, and at least one of the three variants (Vanilla Praline, Caramel Cheesecake, Apple Strudel) should be mentioned at least once anywhere in the whole article or blog. At least once, the word ‘Magnolia Ice Cream’ should be a link to http://www.magnoliaicecream.com.ph/

3) Photo

The blog should contain at least one photo containing any of the three variants/flavors relevant to the article. Make sure the photos are yours and does not infringe any copyright.

4) Share

Encourage other readers to join the blog writing contest as well and link to http://NomNomclub.com/affairs/2010/magnolia-ice-cream-blog-writing-contest. Leave your blog post URL as a comment below including your email address where you will be notified in case you will emerge as the winner.

5) Duration

The writing contest will be from December 6, 2010 to 25 January 8, 2011. Announcement of winners will be on December 31, 2010 January 16, 2011.

6) Criteria

•    Creativity and Writing Style – 50%

•    Originality, Grammar & Adherence to Theme – 20%

•    Photo Quality and Relevance – 20%

•    Overall Impact – 10%

7) Prizes

The winners’ gift certificates (GCs) shall be couriered to any valid address in the Philippines:

• First Prize – P2000 P3000 worth of Magnolia Ice Cream GCs
• Second Prize – P1500 P2000 worth of Magnolia Ice Cream GCs
• Third Prize – P1000 P1500 worth of Magnolia Ice Cream GCs

Magnolia Ice Cream Flavors

Your Filipino Christmas festivities are not complete without Magnolia Ice Cream in the table. Try one or all  of the three limited edition variants (Vanilla Praline, Caramel Cheesecake, Apple Strudel) today!

Today, Starbucks marks its 13th year of presence in the Philippines. Its first branch of Starbucks in the Philippines opened December 4, 1997 at 6750 Ayala Building in Makati City.

The 1997 opening of Starbucks in the Philippines was significant as it became the third market to open outside of  North America.

The Starbucks experience has since spread throughout the Philippines. In fact, it’s first branch in Mindanao has opened just last month in the province of Cagayan De Oro (CDO).  Starbucks continues to innovate with new concoctions and products such as their latest introduction of the Starbucks VIA Brew instant coffee. They have also released their Starbucks Planner 2011. They are also having the rounds for their Christmas Starbucks Cheers Party around the Philippines.

And as a Starbucks treat to it’s loyal customers, all branches of Starbucks in the Philippines are giving away complimentary cupcakes to it’s first 50 customers in each branch today. Happy Anniversary Starbucks!