Entries Tagged 'Where To Eat' ↓

Mom says that as much as girls like flowers, giving something edible as a gift on Valentine’s Day is more practical. I think this is what Max’s Restaurant – Max’s Corner Bakery had in mind for this Valentine’s. 🙂

Max;s Cupcakes

It start early this month and until February 29, 2012, Max’s Corner Bakery cakes and pastries offers the following to complement you Valentine gift ideas:

• Valentine’s Pastry Bites  – it’s a box chocolate bites with choices of dark or milky chocolate,  some are covered with almond slivers and filled with caramels. (P199 – box of 15)
• Valentine Cupcakes  – cupcakes of 3 in one gift box (P135 for a box of 3 or P50 a piece)

– Black Forest Cupcake  – combination of rich and smooth chocolate flavors with ganache swirls without missing the cherry on top and a chocolate base.
– Blueberry Cupcake – your favorite cupcake with real blueberries.
– Choco Banana Cupcake  – a moist banana cupcake with choco cookies topped with cream and a big heart-shaped black and white chocolate flat.

• Valentine Chocolate Moist Cake -  a medium-sized heart-shaped chocolate cake, coated with a layer of chocolate ganache and garnished with chocolate curls, topped with cherry and sprinkled with powdered sugar (Php 199).
• Sugar Cookies – fancy sugar cookies with a choice of either the Valentine Heart or the Valentine Bear.  (P25 – pack of 2)

Max’s Pastry Bites

Max's Cupcakes for Valentine's Day: Blueberry Cupcake, Black Forest Cupcake, & Choco Banana Cupcake (left- right))

Sugar Cookies (Valentine Bear and the Valentine Heart)

Highly Recommended

Among the above, It’s the Valentine Chocolate Moist Cake which NomNom recommends best. It lives up to its name and would surely be loved by most. It’s visually appealing and can easily be consumed by a couple because of it’s size.

Chocolate Moist Cake (P199 - medium size; one size)

Max's Restaurant Cake

Valentine’s Promo from Max’s Restaurant

Starting today, until February 14, 2012, a minimum purchase of Php 1,500 on your favorite meals in Max’s Restaurant such as Max’s sarap-to-the-bones Fried Chicken, Sinigang, Crispy Pata or Kare-Kare, entitles a customer a free box of Pastry Bites from Max’s Corner Bakery worth P199.

All Cakes in Heart Shape

Chocolate Cake

Highlighting the mood of the season even further, all Max’s Corner Bakery’s  cakes will be heart-shaped from February 10-14! Talk about Valentine cakes! 🙂

Check out more of Max’s Corner Bakery Cakes and Pastries at Max’s Corner Bakery’s FB Page, Max’s Restaurant FB Page, and http://www.maxschicken.com.

Valentine Cake

I already got three of the heart-shaped cakes from Max’s branch in Gateway Mall this morning for my love. How about you?

And do you know why I got THREE heart-shaped cakes as a gift for Valentine’s? You guessed it right. 🙂

NomNom got the chance to try out the newly opened SumoSam in Greenhills Town Center (near Gilmore). More specifically, we had the Samurai’s Choice bento box.

Samurai's Choice Bento Box

Although I was surprised with the hefty Php488 price of Samurai’s Choice at first, the menu indicated a lot of ingredients including chicken teriyaki and beef misono, among others. Moreover, I know that Sumosam is about quality and authentic japanese food so I’m did not pass judgement in a whiff.

And as I expected, I was not disappointed. All the ingredients were freshly made and satisfied my palate. To complete the set, Samurai’s Choice consists of a handful of chicken teriyaki serving, generous beef misono strips, slices of dory tepan, and some chunks of tuna with salmon sashimi, kani stick, a dash of bean sprouts, yasai itame, gohan, and dilis.

Japanese Rice with Black Sesame Seeds

Chicken Teriyaki and Dory Tepan

I love them all. The dilis in particular might appeal to the Filipino taste. It’s a bit tricky though since if not prepared properly and fresh, it might go the other way. The presentation is also outstanding as norm in Japanese standards.

Tuna and Salmon Sashimi

Sumosam Dilis

Beef Misono (US Beef Knuckle)

If there’s anything lacking, it’s just my favorite – tempura. 🙂 Nonetheless, with a lot of ingredients that go with it, adding tempura might already be too much. You can share the bento meal with a friend, by the way, just add extra rice. 🙂

Perhaps they can offer variants in the near future substituting some of the components with tempura.

Bean Sprout

SumoSam Greenhills / Gilmore Samurai’s Choice bento meal definitely gets a thumbs up from NomNom. Try one yourself soon as it is only available from 11am – 2pm daily and only at SumoSam Greenhills Town Center branch.

Filipino coffee company Figaro taps into satisfying its market from breakfast ’til night with it’s newest offering for dinner – Figaro Dinner Meals.

I got two try the first two variants namely the Chicken Rice Bake and Tofu Steak Rice.

Chicken Rice Bake

The Chicken Rice Bake is a cup of flavorful chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms, carrots, rice in creamy white sauce baked and topped with mozzarella cheese baste.

Paired with a cold glass of lemonade it is priced at P150.

Figaro Dinner Meal - Chicken Rice Bake

Tofu Steak Rice

Next is the Tofu Steak Rice. It’s a deep-fried Tofu glazed with a flavorful special sauce with hints of onions and topped with white sesame seeds on steamed rice garnished with parsley.

Tofu is known to be rich with health benefits such as being a good source of protein. Check out the health benefits of Tofu here. It would make a healthy vegan meal for those looking for one and is paired with a complimentary cold glass of lemonade (Price: P150).

Recommendation

Being familiar with the common Chinese dish Mapu Tofu, the Tofu Steak Rice was no stranger to my taste buds. The sauce tastes good, however, paring tofu alone with rice as “ulam“, falls short to my expectation for a filling meal. My thumbs-up goes to Chicken Rice Bake, instead.

On the other hand, I had a crazy idea/recommendation of combining the two – Chicken Rice Bake + Tofu Steak (without the extra rice). Chicken, Tofu, and baked cheese as a comfort food fills the complete meal set.

If you have a big appetite and welcomes the extra rice from the second meal, try ordering both and ‘taste‘ what I mean. 🙂 If ever Figaro would be reading about this and happen to combine the two and logically offer it at around P200, that would be great! 🙂

Figaro Milk Tea Craze

Taro Pudding Milk Tea

Figaro Milk Teas

In that visit, I was also surprised to see Figaro Milk Teas. They have cached-up with the milk tea fever. 🙂 Curiosity piqued and I tried the Raspberry Milk Tea. It turned out to be just average and  instead, I liked the Taro Pudding Chiller Frost Milk Tea my other friends ordered.

Try Figaro Healthy Dinner Meals of Chicken Rice Bake and Tofu Steak Rice. It started to be available at all Figaro stores and outlets nationwide since the start of the new year.

Together with some foodie friends and food bloggers, we were able to dine on a Chinese New Year buffet at F Restaurant in F1 hotel located at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) a few weeks ago. This is such a fitting article for this season – Chinese New Year. Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Cucumber Slices

One of my co-writers have actually featured the restaurant here in NomNom Club a few months ago so I am glad to see the place myself. 🙂 They are currently offering a Chinese New Year buffet consisting of the traditional Szechuan/Sichuan Beef, Peking Duck, and Crab and Corn Soup, among others.

Appetizers

To start with, we had a set of appetizers namely Jelly Fish, Beef Kimchi, Cucumber with Garlic and Chili Sesame, and Cold Pork Knuckle. Be sure to share these much appetizers to leave room for the main course.

Jelly Fish

Cold Pork Knuckle

They were all good but the cold pork knuckles with vinegar was new for me. I would compare it to a version of the Philippines’ local ‘kinilaw.’

Beef Kimchi

Although the jelly fish and cucumber came off too ordinary for me, the mix of garlic and chili sesame with the cucumber was a good twist.

In this appetizer set, the Beef Kimchi is the winner in the aspect of taste. Although I was surprised at first because I expected Chinese dishes while kimchi , as far as I know, is basically Korean.

Crab and Corn Soup

Fried Noodle

Soup and Noodles

To further elaborate the list and hold the mystery of the main dishes, we had a bowl each of the Crab and Corn and Seafood Spinach soups. They were both satisfactory and filling.

The Deep Fried Noodle followed right after mixed with sliced pork, bokchoi, carrots, mushroom, and the Chinese signature X.O. sauce.

F Restaurant in Best Western Premier F1 Hotel

Main Dishes

A quick run down of the main dishes include the Peking Duck, Steamed Marlin with Soya Sauce, Deep Fried Pork Ribs with Salt and Pepper, Sichuan Chicken, Sichuan Beef, Steamed Asparagus with X.O. Sauce, and Lechon Macau.

Sichuan / Szechuan Chicken

Sichuan / Szechuan Beef

Lechon Macau

While the Sichuan Chicken and Sichuan Beef needs more spices for that needed oriental taste, the Deep Fried Pork Ribs with salt and pepper and Lechon Macau made up for it.

If there is any that you shouldn’t miss, it’s the above-mentioned Deep Fried Pork Ribs with Salt and Pepper, Lechon Macau and the Peking Duck (I missed their Deep-Fried Tiger Prawn with Salt and Pepper though).

In the background of the Lechon Macau photo on the right are fellow foodies and food bloggers including Anton Diaz, Spanky Enriquez, Ivan Man-Dy, and Stonibert Lim.

It was generally a good oriental buffet at F cafe / restaurant with a wide view of Bonifacio Glocal City and ongoing area developments.

Steamed Marlin

Mango Sago for Dessert! (It was full of small tapioca pearls and mango bits)

Although the Chinese New Year was just over, don’t fret. F Restaurant’s Chinese New Year buffet menu will still be available  until January 31, 2012 for lunch and dinner buffet for the price of P998++.

Best Western Premier F1 Hotel Chinese New Year Promo

F Restaurant, F1 Hotel

For reservations, call +632.928.9888 or +632.908.7888. F Restaurant is at 5th Flr. Amenity Level., Best Western Premier F1 Hotel, 32nd Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig 1634, Philippines

This is the first time cocktail mixing will be featured here and it was really quite an interesting experience. The Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute (CTHI) invited NomNom Club late last year to seat in and participate in one of their lifestyle courses entitled Cocktail Mixing 101.

Cocktail Mixing 101

Popular cocktail drinks featured during the seminar were Strawberry Margarita, Frozen Pina Colada, Strawberry Mango Daiquiri Frozen, Mojito, Strawberry Mojito, and Tequila Sunrise. And as expected, we tried all of them! 🙂

Strawberry Margarita

Strawberry Margarita is a mixture of pureed strawberry, Tequila, lime juice and crushed ice served in a sexy margarita glass.

I personally love the Pina Colada Frozen. It’s a mixture of rum, pina colada mix and crushed ice served in hi-ball glass and garnish with pineapple wedge and straw.

For the Strawberry Mojito, you can use 7 mint leaves, strawberry halved and 2 lime wedges, rum, fresh sour rocks mix, pureed strawberries topped with soda.

The Tequila Sunrise is the easiest to prepare with few ingredients just the Tequila, orange juice and grenadine with orange juice and straw to garnish and serve in a hi-ball glass.

Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute

June Bug

Strawberry Mojito

Tequila Sunrise

Cocktail Surprise

Moulinex

Love vodka? Try the Melon Ball, a mixture of vodka, melon liqueur and orange juice. Serve it in a double old fashion/rock glass and garnish with orange wheel.

Melon Ball

This three hour long cocktail mixing 101 seminar was delivered by Sir Joel. It was an information-overload for me, but I learned a lot from choosing the right glass, mixing and garnishing, and knowing how to prepare popular cocktails in a professional way.

Here’s video taken during the seminar.

Special thanks to Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute.

Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute (CTHI)
2nd Floor Paragon Plaza, EDSA Cor. Reliance St. Mandaluyong City
Telephone Numbers :861-1061/ (+632) 584-7343
Website: http://www.canadiantourisminstitute.com/9/home

CTHI

The Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute (CTHI) is the first international franchise of the Canadian Tourism College (CTC) based in Vancouver, Canada. With its thirty (30) years of providing real-world quality tourism education, Food and Beverage Services is just one of the many programs being offered at CTHI.

Programs are divided into three areas- Diploma Courses, Certificate Courses and Professional Development.

Cocktail Mixing 101

Before the Cocktail Mixing 101 seminar ended, Sir Joel did us some flair bar tending exhibition. It was an interesting show as he juggled and flipped bottles and shakers with amazing skills.

A lot of people don’t realize that in the midst of the meat-eating restaurants, there are also vegetarian alternative places to go and eat. If you are a vegetarian, finding these restaurants can be difficult if you don’t know where to look.

They are around though and easy to locate. If you can look away from socializing on the internet or playing Foxy Bingo for a while, it is very easy to find vegetarian cuisine here online. If you aren’t a vegetarian, though what are the benefits of trying the food?

Sabah Vegetables (close to our 'Kangkong' but less leafy and more on trunks/stems)

Vegetarian Alternatives

The answer is simple: vegetarian food tastes better than what people expect. Whether you fancy Chinese, Italian, Indian or even Thai, there is always a tasty vegetarian option. For example, you could eat vegetable fried rice, vegetable curries, soups, potato samosas and vegetable sushi. All delicious alternatives.

Nurture Spa's Garden Salad

The choice of restaurants that serve vegetarian food in Metro Manila alone is vast. Places like Barbara’s at the Orchidarium, a Thai style restaurant that offers soups, tofu and vegetable dishes, or Green Wok Deli & Café in Quezon City which supplies all the flavor you would expect of a meat-based dish, only without the meat. Vegetarian Chinese food is also available in places like the café, Happy Veggie Health Food on Masangkay Street, Manila or Kong Tiak in Quezon City. You don’t know unless you look. 🙂

Vegetarian Menu

If you have problems with the menu in a restaurant, there are ways around the issue. Ask the chef if he can make you something vegetarian with the ingredients in the kitchen. Remember they want you to dine again so they will help if they can.

If you are dining around someone else’s house, make sure you let the host know your preference in advance. This will be less awkward if they supply a meat-only meal. Offer to buy vegetablesfor the cause or bring a dish over to share with fellow guests.

Starbucks Philippines' Roasted Vegetables on Flat Bread

Great vegetarian food is just around the corner from you, wherever you are in the country. You just need to keep an eye out.

The new Philippine tourism slogan was launched last Saturday and marked the start of DOT’s new tourism campaign. It says: “It’s More Fun in The Philippines!“

Slogan issues discussed in this article aside, the propagation of the slogan highly depended on social media and its viral nature. To be more specific, the DOT wanted to promote the Philippines online through a meme.

Wikipedia defines a meme as

1. An element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.
2. An image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another.

It's More Fun in The Philippines

‘It’s More Fun in The Philippines‘ Food Meme

And as NomNom Club‘s contribution in this social media effort, we have joined the ‘Fun‘. I opened up food-related folders and looked for something Filipino.

First of our contribution which I released this afternoon is the ‘Banan Leaf‘ meme. This is a shot I got about early October of 2011 at Venuce Piazza in McKinley Hill, Taguig City. We were dining alfresco in one of their dining promos.

I encourage you to create your own food memes too that will fit in promoting the Philippines as a fun food destination. Feel free to post your food photos Facebook and Twitter with the hash tags #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines #1ForFun so that it will automatically be collated. Feel free to share our post in Facebook. Check out this tutorial on How to Create Your Own It’s More Fun in the Philippines Meme.

Help out and prove that it is indeed ‘More Fun in The Philippines!’

The Food Adventure at Venice Piazza is back. It’s where you can taste the flavors of 12 restaurants for P600.

We have tried something similar to this mid of last year and another one about three months ago called Platter for 8 also in Venice Piazza where 14 participating restaurants offered big servings of dishes fit for eight people only for Php800.

This time, the Food Adventure if from 12 restaurants and only for P600! I have yet to try this one but they will start this weekend January 7 and every Saturday and Sunday following that until March 31, 2012. It is also offered only during 4pm to 9pm. Let’s see how this compares soon.

The Participating restaurants are :

• Blackwood Bistro
• The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
• Empire Deli
• Figaro
• KBOP
• KUSE
• Little Asia
• Old Vine Grille
• Pho Hoa
• Pinchos
• Red Crab Alimango House
• Ramen Bar
• Sol Gelato
• Yo Swirls

Food Adventure at Venice Piazza

It’s nice to see Figaro joined the promo this time as they were not in the list of previous promos (or maybe it’s a new branch, I don’t know). 🙂

Check out the details of the promo mechanics at Taste of Manila blog (click on link).

12 Restaurants - Php 600

So if you’re not doing anything this weekend, you might want to drop by McKinley Hill and check out the Food Adventure at Venice Piazza. Personally, I suggest you try it starting January 8 onwards, you wouldn’t want the inconsistencies of first day blues that goes with new activities. On the other hand, I’ll be at Market Market on Saturday, hopefully I can pass by. Bring your family to enjoy!