Emborg

Monique picked up some Irish Cheddar by Emborg, the Danish food brand of the Uhrenholt family.  It's a firm cheese, not too hard nor too soft, tasty but not salty.  I wouldn't know what differentiates the Irish cheese-making methods from that on the continent, but the end product is wonderful!

Wacky Races

* picture from geocaching.com

Talking about lovable screen villains, who could forget Dick Dastardly?  He drove the Mean Machine in the Hannah-Barbera cartoon series Wacky Races, which ran sometime in the early seventies.  He and his sidekick Mutley could never win the race because he always came up with different methods of cheating.  My lovable role model would always say, "Drat, Drat and a Double Drat!"

Circles

It was the quarterly get-together for Vicky's friends, and this time we chose to have dinner at the Circles Event Cafe of the Makati Shangri-la Hotel.  The restaurant is bursting with good food.  Oysters, prawns, rock lobsters, hearts of lettuce, cold cuts, roti, maki, sushi, lamb curry, roast beef, grilled lamb chops, roasted duck, udon, pizza, pasta, flourless cakes, creme brulee...

Buffet prices differ and can range from around P1,600 to P2,200 per person, depending on the time and the date (lunch is cheaper, and weekends are more expensive).  I don't know if the menu has material changes though across different schedules, usually grand preparations are made for Friday and Saturday nights, and also Sunday lunch.  Unless you have a reservation, it's best to steer clear of these time slots, as the place can get full.

My diet was thrown out the window that night.  However, I stopped myself from taking alcohol; the food was more than a match already.  Good food, good conversation, great company!

The Phantom

* from Wikipedia

Reading the the comic section of the newspapers when I was a child was always the treat of the day.  I grew up reading the stories of The Ghost Who Walks, the crime-fighting mystery man in purple tights--the Phantom!  I even had a garter-gun holster in the same stripes as what he had...imagine that!  Memories of childhood are fresh as the day they were made...

Chops Greenbelt

You cannot eat at Chops for say two or three consecutive weekends.  The food is just too rich.  It's not healthy at all.  But it's delicious.  Monique and I met up with Vicky, Andie and and Becca at their Greenbelt branch for supposedly a light dinner.  Monique and I had tried their branch at the Shangri-la Mall, and we were excited to get some feedback from Vicky and Becca.  As usual, we over-ordered and we went home literally stuffed!

First on the table were our Oysters Rockefeller.  Spinach was very soft and while I thought the cheese should have been more generous, the tangy lemon juice was enough to give the dish enough chutzpah.  Baby back ribs, lamb chops, and a rib-eye steak (medium) came in successive order.  To top that, we also had lasagna, a burger and more nibble food--Vicky's favorite onion rings.  No wonder we had to get some of these wrapped for take-out!

The rib-eye steak was quite good.  Tender, juicy, salted just right.  We had the fats trimmed and re-grilled.  True enough, it was char-broiled buttery when they gave it back to us. Conceivably a pure cholesterol high for the senses.  Be prepared with at least P1,500 per head if you will dine here, as imported USDA or Wagyu cuts are expensive (that could go up to P4,000 per head). However, if you aren't in the mood for a binge, they have food items that will only bring around a P700 per person dent in your wallet.  Service is fast and reliable.

LUSH

I enjoy passing by the LUSH shops.  You can smell the fresh scents from a mile away.  Each whiff takes me closer to Nirvana, and it seems that I can window-shop there all day long.  Monique is an avid patron, and together, we make it a point to drop in every time we see their store.  Prices aren't cheap, but the products are definitely A-1, handmade, no shortcuts, no unnecessary chemicals.

Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel

It was the height of typhoon Mario when Monique and I ventured out to the Trinoma Mall in order to buy a required book at National Bookstore.  Not finding any on stock, we went around the mall and sat for a few minutes at the Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel, lost in pensive thought, weary from the pounding of the rains.  It was a good recharge.  This idea of allocating space for chapels at malls is very productive, not only in attracting clientele, but also for the community that works in the area.

Kobe Chicken

People have heard of Kobe beef.  But Kobe Chicken?  To those who grew up in Manila in the sixties, Kobe chicken was roasted chicken, skewered and cooked on the spot (at the groceries).  The stands, however, started to disappear in the late-seventies, and to date, I still wonder what happened to the brand.  It was delicious!  I saw some frozen chicken in Crossings Supermarket--could this be the same brand?

Brut

I cannot believe they still sell this.  I was at Unimart in Greenhills when I came across a bottle of Brut Classic by Faberge, selling at something like P350.  Manong Pete introduced me to this cologne in the late sixties, and for a while during my childhood, it was the standard male scent that I knew.  Three cheers!

Kulinarya

My lunch meeting at the Rockwell Mall wasn't a planned event.  We just had to discuss a few points for a deal that we were working on, and we decided to have a fast lunch at the basement.  Kulinarya seemed liked a good option, so we sat and asked the food attendant if the food was good.  Of course, she says "Yes!"

I liked the sushi, which had no vinegar-rice.  I don't know how they do it, but the nori was crunchy and the mango puree mixed in quite well.  The pumpkin soup heated up our tummies, and we proceeded to start our three-course meal--beef salpicao, callos, and lengua.  Good choices; we licked the serving plates clean!

Our dessert was a fancy rendition of the ubiquitous turon na saging.  Flambeed bananas and langka on crunchy pastry, topped with ice cream.  Well okay, it wasn't flambeed, I got a bit carried away with the nice design.  ;-)

We spent something like P1,000 per person, but it was quite good and satisfying.  The waitresses were kind enough to allow us to stay and discuss our business for close to thirty minutes after we had dessert, and we were impressed with the service quality of the staff.

Ariake

It was a Friday night, and we were famished.  Monique had no car, and I had to fetch her from school, and on the way to fetch Vicky at her office, we had to make a quick decision of where we were going to eat.  It was close to 8pm and we had not eaten since late brekky.  Monique suggested going Japanese, and I knew that Vicky would pose no objection.  Ariake was a mere two blocks away from her office, and we ordered to please our tummies!

We first concentrated on having fast appetizers and sushi/sashimi.  The spicy tuna was coated in something crunchy, and had a dressing that tasted very good.  Uni was Vicky's request, together with some agedashi tofu.  Monique had salmon sushi, while I went for the oysters butteryaki (which to me was heavenly).  Everyone took some gyoza.

We were pretty happy with the main dishes--some cold tempura udon (with raw quail egg), grilled unagi for Vicky, soft shell crab tempura (crunchy and freshly made, Monique's fave), and beef teppanyaki for me.  We spent something like P800 per head, which is not bad for Tomas Morato standards. True, we were very hungry, and we probably over-ordered; in the end, however, we left the restaurant grinning from ear to ear.  Clean environment, good service, good food.