Nomnomnom, Eat, Nomnomnom, Eat, Nomnomnom

Ok, this is actually not the freshest news, but I just had to point it out. 🙂 In the past few months, you may have noticed a lot of changes in Greenwich‘s food line and store make up.

And hence the commercial phrase: “dahil ang favorite pizza chain ninyo, nag-level up na!”

They ‘leveled up‘ a lot of things.

From the regular Hawaiian Pizzas, they leveled it up into a new premium pizza offering called the Ultimate Hawaiian Overload with 2x more Hawaiian toppings of ham, glazed pineapple, smoked bacon and 100% Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese.

And it comes in a stylish generally-black-and-white pizza box designed by Team Manila.

More on food, Greenwich also introduced two new American Lunch Specials: the Quarter Slab Ribs and Thick ‘N Tender Chops. The Tender Chops comes at P179 with java rice, mixed veggies and a regular drink

I have tried the quarter slab ribs and it was good. Surprisingly, it’s only priced at P199 already with java rice, mixed veggies and regular drink. You wouldn’t find that price range for a slab ribs even in non fast casual stores.

The new Greenwich Pizza Fries also serves as a good partner to their pasta and meals. It comes in pepperoni and cheese & garlic flavors plus a special pizza sauce dip.

Wait, there’s more! 🙂

You’d  see that almost all stores had a make-over as the new Greenwich fast casual stores. In a press conference two months ago, they introduced Tim Yap as its ambassador. The set up is now more young and fit as a barkada place for the adventurous and outgoing.

The crew also had a ‘level up’ with the stylish and colorful new store team uniforms designed by renowned Randy Ortiz. And finally, to complete the package is their presence on the web with the new Greenwich website www.greenwich.com.ph.

Greenwich started 2010’s first quarter with a bang! Expect to see more from your favorite pizza chain as they continue to ‘Level Up!’

The Venice Piazza‘s newly opened restaurants Kuse and Old Vine has a new alfresco dining promo.

Customers of both Kuse and Old Vine both gets 30% off on all drinks and pica-pica 9pm onwards everyday!

Kuse serves traditional Filipino cuisine while the term, which originated from the Filipino word ‘Kusinero’, means ‘chef’. Old Vine offers Mediterranean dishes with a wide variety of wine collection.

Among the pica-pica and dishes you could order for the alfresco dining include Buffalo Wings with tomato-coriander (P210), Hot and Spicy Dynamite Roll (P190), and Tokwa’t Baboy (P200), and of course, beer.

For inquiries on Kuse and Old Vine, call: 836.4966, 836.4969 or 0920.9243044. Email at larrycortez_chefsquarter@yahoo.com.

Tapella Restaurant will celebrate Easter with kids and family this Sunday – April 4, 2010.

Jump for joy and have a blast from 4pm-7pm with magics, mimes and clowns! Games and tricks, egg painting contests, balloon twisting, fun filled activities and loads of prizes await kids in the much awaited Easter Egg Hunt.

Gather the most number of eggs and get prizes from Star Paper. Kids will be delighted with Dunkin Donuts upon registration. Spaghetti and other kiddie snacks will also be available during the event. For only Php500 nett, kids and family will have a holistic Easter Sunday.

Kids at heart will also enjoy a sumptuous Easter special starting from Php300 and delight in the comforts of Tapella’s serene ambiance.

Tapella is a Spanish dining creation by Gaudi located at Greenbelt 5. Headed by executive Chef Alexandra Cacho, the restaurant specializes in tapas and paellas with a wide range of salads, pasta ,dessert and wines. For inquiries and reservations you may call 7572710.

Contrary to the usual business practice of closing shop during commercially low-profile holidays such as the holy week, Little Asia Restaurant will remain open even during Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

Little Asia Restaurant

“We are open 365 days a year“, adds Charlemagne Lim, Little Asia Restaurant Manger.

Their food service starts 11am until midnight. They currently have three (3) branches in Metro Manila namely Tomas Morato in Quezon City, Promenade Mall in Greenhills (San Juan), and the new Venice Piazza Mall in McKinley Hill (Fort Bonifacio, Taguig).

For the lent season, you can have Little Asia’s Crispy Codfish and Steamed Minced Shrimp Tofu as shown in the photos.

If you plan to stay home and can’t go to their branches, you may inquire to check if your area is covered by their delivery.

Little Asia's Steamed Minced Shrimp Tofu

Contact Little Asia Restaurant at telephone numbers (632) 727-5265,  (632) 727-5785, (632)3730609. Have a long, holy, and stomach-filled holiday weekend!

My Sunday was spent lazily at home. Being very busy for so long as I can remember, it has been months since the last time I spent the whole day lounging around the house and doing nothing. It was a healthy welcome respite.

I got to catch up with some cooking shows and foodie features on cable TV, and surf the net that’s not part of work. 🙂

What interestingly took my attention was the local ‘Healthy Cravings‘ show with Iza Calzado and Chef Jeremy Favia on QTV yesterday morning. They featured a salad concoction using the regular pechay instead of the usual iceberg lettuce. Pechay turns out to have more nutrition value than its counterpart, more affordable, and readily available.

The cooking shows tickled my long-time fancy as a chef. When the show was over, I hungered for more and checked out the internet which led me to the foodie site Kitchenomics.com. The site provided relevant information for chef wannabes like me or moms looking for affordable and nutritious meals for their families.

I suddenly remembered mom who always made sure weekend family meals are made extra-special because everyone’s at home; the family was complete.

Ok, this is a foodie blog, not a personal blog. 🙂 Enough of the drama, back to Kitchenomics. 🙂

The site also offered membership where benefits include access to Del Monte Kitchenomics’ library of practical and delicious meals. And just like being members of NomNom Club, Kitchenomics members would be the first to know of exclusive events and promos – something I think that really ‘clicks‘ nowadays. 🙂

Further exploring the website reveals features which facilitates interaction with other foodies by sharing recipes, tips, and expert culinary resources. My favorite though is the Kitchen Tools and Equipments section because it can serve as my reference for kitchen equipments whose names I always forget. 🙂

Enough of the watching and the reading. Putting these gathered foodie knowledge from Kitchenomics.com into action would be a good agenda for the upcoming long holy weekend where I’ll be stuck at home. 🙂

From a list of almost 500 restaurants endorsed and nominated by Spot.ph readers last year, the judges thereafter shortlisted the nominees. This lead to the announcement  of 13 admired restaurants in each of their categories recently concluded at the Nescafe Gold Spot Awards 2009.

Encore (previous Embassy Superclub) was filled with food industry players, food enthusiasts and the media for an afternoon of foodie glamor and tasty anticipation for the would-be winners of Nescafe Gold Spot Awards 2009.

This year’s judges include Chef Aileen Anastacio, Yummy editor-in-chief Becky Kho, Chef Him Uy de Baron, award-winning blogger Franco of Table for Three Please, food writer and blogger JJ Yulo and actress Cherie Gil.

Sponsored by Nescafe, online voting via Spot.ph ended last January 31, 2010. With more than 250,000 votes cast for 55 restaurants in 11 categories (2 categories were purely by the judges), without further adieu,

Manila’s Best Restaurants for 2009 are:

Best Japanese Restaurant – Inagiku
Best Filipino Restaurant – Abe
Best Steakhouse – 22 Prime
Best Delicatessen – Santi’s Delicatessen
Best Bar – Cav Wine Bar and Bistro
Best Chinese Restaurant – Shang Palace
Best Italian Restaurant – Paparazzi
Best Buffet – Spiral
Best Dessert Place – Cupcakes by Sonja

*Best Restaurant Chain – Cibo
*Best Service – Cibo

*New Restaurant of the Year – Lusso
*Restaurant of the Year – Lolo Dad’s

*Best Restaurant Chain and Best Service was solely determined by readers through mobile and online votes while New Restaurant of the Year and Restaurant of the Year were purely from the panel of judges.

Cibo is the only one which brought home the bacon for two categories while Lolo Dad’s got the most coveted title of Restaurant of the Year.

I have tried Lolo Dad’s Brasserie in Makati where I met Chef Ariel Manuel but I haven’t been to their main branch in Malate. I hope to do so soon.

I shared these information earlier online on-the-spot during the event through my twitter, plurk, and facebook network accounts. Among my networks, Shang Palace got the most cheers which tinkled my fancy about the restaurant.

I want to visit Shang Palace very soon! Congratulations to this year’s Nescafe Gold Spot Awardees!

Lead by president Erwin Elechicon, Chowking recently celebrated its 25th year in the foodservice industry with a familiar vibrant color.

Last week, the Fort Bonifacio branch was immediately filled with bloggers, cosplayers, celebrities, and Chowking’s own Managing Director Edward Arandia and Brand Group Manager Chris Monteron.

The event’s highlight was famous local actor Jericho Rosales who is also their latest endorser for Chowking’s newest product – the  OH!some OH!range Chicken.

As expected, the presence of Jericho brought the house down with cheers and jeers especially from the female admirers. Also known as “Echo“, Jericho is game with almost everything and readily interacted with the crowd without any of the negative superstar complex. Something rare in the entertainment industry. Hats off to Jericho.:)

Now, for the OH!some OH!range Chicken, Chef Rosebud Benitez introduced it as Chowking’s newest serving of crispy chicken with the orange twist.

The OH!some OH!range Chicken rice topping meal was served with chunks of the crispy chicken, rice on the side, an orangy and tangy amber-colored glaze syrup, and some real mandarin orange bits.

The Orange Chicken rice chow meal is priced at P69 while the lauriat with crispy noodles, chicharap, and buchi is P99. The Salo-Salo set for sharing is P125.

The deal looked enticing and Oh!some with its color and real orange bits. It smelled good too. However, the product can still be improved with lesser breadings on the chicken meat and some more orange syrup just like in the product photos.

They also need to work on the consistency of the ‘tenderness’ of the chicken meat. I’m not too sure though if this was just an effect of the cold dishes served that night.

I would  have to say though that the program was fantastic. The party’s level of energy was always high led by Jericho’s oh!some chicken dance. Crowd participation was more than satisfactory. Surely, the videos of the varied chicken dances are now all over the internet and YouTube. 🙂 If the info I got was correct, it was not surprising that I discovered later on that Robbie Carmona, who was also present at the party, organized the oh!some event.

With over 400 branches, Cheers to Chowking‘s 25th year in the food industry! I’m a lauriat suki and the Chowking halo-halo is always a great heat quencher for me especially now that it’s summer.

Sounds familiar? I bet. But this is not your chocolate bar snack, it’s your chocolate flavored Jollibee Sundae.

Perhaps trying to move beyond the seasonal stereotype of having Jollibee sundaes only during a hot day or summer, Jollibee is trying to gear their sundae concoctions as something you’d want during a break.

To let call center professionals experience a similar break from work, Jollibee recently visited Sykes Asia call center in Marikina City and surprised  them  with a Jollibee Sundae treat.

It came in three flavors: Rocky Road Brownie Sundae, Black Forest Sundae, and Chocolate Sundae. The target was for about 600 call center agents to experience the sweet and satisfying break with their colleagues..

Yes, I was there. Lucky me,…or so you thought. I had a bad case of colds and cough that day so I had to endure watching them with my favorite servings of sundae.

Although my favorite is the vanilla sundae cone, you can have more options with Jollibee‘s Rocky Road Brownie Sundae and the Black Forest Sundae priced at P36, while the Chocolate Sundae is at P29.

For my personal opinion, although the generous serving of chocolate syrup makes you feel the worth of your buck, I think it can get overly sweet. I hope for more of my sundae and lesser of the chocolate syrup.

My cough is almost gone today, hello Jollibee sundae!