Food Diary September 2017

There were plenty of rainy days this September which made it pretty crappy to go outside, but the gloomy weather provided a cozy atmosphere for cooking and eating hearty home made food. My friend and I tried some of the Massaman Curry paste which I bought on a whim in Bangkok and since I wasn’t too familiar with that dish, I was plenty excited to test it out. I didn’t notice the number of chilis on the package until I got home which indicated the level of spiciness, the Thai Green Curry bearing 3 pieces of chili while the Massaman only had 1 lol. Hence we went for the latter since probably the Thai green curry paste by Thai standards would be way too spicy for us.

There was a recipe at the back which proved to be quite helpful since I was in the dark about his type of curry. Apparently, Massaman curry contains coriander, cumin, cardamom, star anise, nutmeg and cinnamon which all seem innocent enough.

I woke up to this sunrise after a little rain in the morning. Quite pretty and photogenic in my opinion.

We made beef patties from scratch and decided on curry burgers since it was easiest to prepare.

First, we fried the beef patties and onions, then set aside.

The Massaman curry called for coconut cream as the base of the sauce which we mixed in after frying the curry paste and other ingredients. Season with fish sauce and sugar to taste, then simmer with the meat for a few minutes until the sauce thickens and it’s done!

It was so delicious! We added only a small amount of the curry paste since we didn’t want it to be too hot. Although the coconut cream could be too cloying for some people when it’s too much, you could always loosen it down with some water or use a different form of cream or other liquid. All in all, it was a hearty fabulous meal and we were so stuffed after!

My friend brought this sachet of Nestea Hokkaido Style Milk Tea for me, and he said it was popular now on the internet lol. Apparently it sells out fast in the super markets. There were other variants too and I was curious about all of them. The Milk Tea was good but too sweet for me, although diluting it with more water made it more bearable.

We went to Serenitea after dinner to try their Hong Kong Milk Tea. They’re also offering Burmese Milk Tea which I want to test out next time!

Their Hong Kong Milk Tea had the strong and bitter aftertaste of black tea (I only had 50% level of sweetness) which would probably taste better with more sugar lol. They use that Chinese brand of milk in the photo for the drink.

Recently, Tim Horton’s has been giving out free donuts for every survey completed every time you purchase and keep the receipt. The promo is valid every 15 days after redeeming the donut, and you have to make a purchase first before you can avail of the freebie. I’m always crazy for their chocolate dipped donuts. Yumm!

Their large coffee servings are just HUGE and totally worth the money!

I found these cute decorations from a cake stall in Megamall during our visit to the Mega Food Fest (read my blog post about that event here). So pretty!

I love the pastel striped cake. Even the name of this stall is cute!

Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory‘s huge advert for their Hokkaido Style Cheese soft serve. Of course I just had to take a photo with it haha!

I hadn’t noticed until now that SM Megamall‘s Supermarket underwent a significant face lift which greatly improved the overall look and increased the floor space as well.

It looks less cluttered now, with brighter and cleaner interiors. Yey!

This new branch of All Day Convenience Stores in Salcedo Village, Makati is too adorable for words! They just opened this July and I love all the details of the interior. They’ve set-up barrels and sacks of produce, reminiscent of European markets.

No doubt the prettiest convenience store I’ve ever been to! There’s even a splash of greenery to keep the space fresh and vibrant.

My friend and I attended the Food and Drinks Asia 2017 event (read my blog post about it here) which was a super fun and enlightening experience. We learned about lots of interesting food and products on the local market, as well as franchising and other food businesses currently on the rise in the Philippines.

After a full day of food and eating from the event, we randomly decided to watch the movie IT. The movie translated well from the book to the big screen and it was fastidiously horrifying. It’s a must see for horror and suspense fans!

One time I went to Boulangerie22 since I’ve been craving for one of their Chocolate Espresso Creme Frappes, and noticed they have several cute cakes on display. Snorlax is still available after all this time. Yey!

This cake looks soo chocolatey good!

Boulangerie22 has several promos every month, and this time they were offering a Holy Hot Cheesus Jr. for every 300 peso purchase. Omg they’re so little and cute!

I bought the regular sized one at a promo price. The spicy one is my favorite!

be up to date with Boulangerie22‘s promos and discounts on their facebook

My friend visited me from Malaysia and he wanted to try out Mad Mark’s Creamery & Good Eats best selling ice cream, unfortunately the Half-Baked Madagascar was sold out (as always)! It’s such a popular flavor. We decided to come back next time.

During the Glorietta Art & Book Fair (which I wrote about here) I discovered these super delicious matcha filled marshmallows by Chef Roger’s Food Products. One pack cost only 50 php and every bite was creamy matcha filled heaven! I wish I could’ve bought ten lol.

I received this adorable Singapore magnet from my friend from his recent trip there. Thank you so much!

I took these mouth watering photos from our family dinner in Bistro Ravioli. Their Spaghetti alla Bolognese is one of our favorites, with delectable meat sauce and fresh, chewy pasta noodles.

Their Three-Cheese Ravioli is my personal favorite and I was in awe of how much the hot melty cheese was overflowing this time. Yey!

The Manila Sundance Fashion Fair was held in Glorietta on a couple of rainy weekdays, but that did not deter me from checking out the shops and splurging on clothes lol.

And there were some food booths as well so I went to investigate.

There were plenty of cute clothes and outfits which made it hard to choose.

Mura Shop literally translates to “cheap shop” lol. That’s a good way to promote your business imo.

Colorful Sunnies.

Quirky bags and shirts by Aniya Clothing (ig: @aniyaclothing)

The food stalls were peddling easy to eat snacks such as hotdogs and sausages on buns.

Desserts and potato chips were also within easy access.

On another rainy day, we went out to get some lunch as well as hang out in the mall despite the elevated signal of the coming typhoon lol.

The weather was perfect for some Katsu Curry Rice from Katsu Sora and piping hot tantanmen ramen for dinner from Tabachang Tan Tan Men House (read my review of the restaurant here)

8 Cuts Burger Blends held their 88 peso promo for select items from their menu to celebrate their 5th birthday. I promptly lined up by 11AM along with plenty of other people who had the same idea to come early lol.

You can only order a maximum of 2 items from their birthday menu so I chose the Q-Daddy and Party Spaghetti. Also, one of the rules was that all members of the group had to be present in order to secure a table.

The place was already packed even though they just opened the restaurant a few minutes ago. Since I went by myself, I easily got a table compared to those who came in large groups. Whoop!

Even though I was easily seated, the food took a looooooooong time. Probably there was a queue for the orders. The Party Spaghetti tasted like your basic tomato meat sauce spaghetti which came with garlic buttered buns. Original price: 199 php

The Q-Daddy was topped with onion tanglers, jalapeno garlic ranch tossed lettuce, smoked bacon, yellow cheddar, sauce no.3 and barbecue sauce. Original price for a quarter pounder: 295 php

It was a hearty (and affordable!) meal, although I doubt there would be another birthday promo next year since I heard on the internet that this branch would be moving out of Greenbelt soon. Awww.

The same day, I decided to try Joe’s Cheeseburger from Army Navy for dinner. I always did love that restaurant’s burgers and fries, but this time, their sandwich only served disappointment since it looked nothing like the one on the advert. lol oh well, it cost only 99 php and 150 php with Freedom Fries and their famous Libertea.

On a random trip to BGC, we came across so much cats, I just had to include them in my blog since I took a bunch of nice photos haha!

This friendly fatty was offering me it’s tummy to rub. Gosh i wanted to cuddle it so bad!

Very demanding. Yes, I am your slave lol.

I was in kitty heaven! After such euphoria, my friend and I had dinner at Marugame Udon, which I wrote about in this blog post

After dinner, we walked to Uptown Mall and splurged on gourmet marshmallows from Pufft Marshmallows. I think I was getting addicted to them lol and I bought plenty of matcha and strawberries & cream marshmallows to tide me through the evening.

Just look at those gorgeous slabs of puffy goodness!

Their matcha mallows are sooo good! Read about my blog post on their grand launch here

I haven’t really been here at night so my friend showed me around. The lights looked very pretty!

We watched the musical fountain show which was awesome, so I took a video for my family lol.

I tried cooking Massaman Curry again, but this time I used diluted powdered milk instead of coconut cream so that it wouldn’t be too heavy.

The result was a much watery curry but it was lighter and still tasted delicious! I’ve decided to opt for milk again next time.

Rustan’s was selling some nice looking cubes of Australian beef which would taste great cooked in stews or curry at a cheap price! I wish they would provide it all the time.

One of my friends visited me and after lunch, we had some gelato at Caffe Ti-Amo. I had some of the cheese and dark chocolate gelato which was always a favorite combo of mine lol.

I cooked Massaman Curry again, this time adding more vegetables such as carrots and onions.

I’m quite addicted to this dish, I wish I bought more packets of that curry haha!

Another try at this curry when I thickened the sauce a little with some flour roux. The color and consistency obviously differed but was still yummy!

We had a birthday celebration at Viking’s SM Marikina and I found some interesting looking dishes. For instance, this Fried Ravioli with raspberry and chocolate sauce. I guess it’s a kind of pasta dessert lol. It looked like sweet style dumplings. Didn’t have a chance to try it though.

Some Carrot Flat Noodles.

My usual plate of sushi and sashimi.

I tried a bunch of cheese with slivers of pita bread.

Their Vanilla souffle was kinda nasty.. lol.

This looked promising but I didn’t plan to eat so much sweets in this buffet.

The egg waffle was so gorgeous as a display…

Expectations vs Reality LOL. The waffle was hard as a rock and was incredibly dry, cold and tasteless. Sorry, but this is an insult to all waffles and desserts in general.

I added some marshmallow toppings to doll it up a little for photos haha!

On a trip to Cubao, we saw these Rainbow Frost “Unicorn Donuts” by Go Nuts Donuts.

I’ve actually already seen these on instagram, but never bothered to go find them until this random encounter lol. This is probably the closest to a mass produced Unicorn Donut which could be found in the Philippines.

I forgot the price, but probably it’s bordering around 30-40 php. The dough wasn’t fantastic but the icing was tolerable which tasted like condensed milk turned into icing. Maybe if it wasn’t so melted, I would’ve enjoyed it more. Just buy it if you feel the need to photograph rainbow food lol.

I didn’t notice these sculptures in the fountain area of Gateway Mall. Looks cool!

Wow now this is intriguing. I can’t wait for them to open soon. I sense something pretty and girly coming from this cafe. Whee!

I love both coffee and flowers so I will come back for you!

The old building of Isetan looks so nostalgic and creepy cool! I like this area of Cubao.

Cute wine glass print lol.

These pastel chinese lanterns are just fab!

After our trip to Bengal Brew (blog post now up here) my friend and I passed by this art market in Gateway Mall. These rubber stamps were cute and cheap at only 20 php each.

Oodles of sticky tape in various designs and cute characters.

There were plenty of cute writing supplies for sale as well as random trinkets like these matroyshka dolls.

I ended up buying a super cute whale notebook, fluffy pink keychain and envelope pouch. Ugh lol.

Lotus Biscoff had a pop up store in SM Makati where passers-by could sit down and sip some free coffee as well as snack on samples of their brand of cookies.

The cookies and cookie butter spreads were all for sale.

I wanted to buy their cup lol. Sadly, they were only for display.

We had black coffee which was surprisingly delicious paired with the biscoff cookies. Since the cookies were quite sweet, they tasted well with the bitterness of the coffee and made for a delightful afternoon snack.

In SM Makati‘s Supermarket, we saw that Mooncakes were already being sold in time for the Mooncake Festival in October.

DEC’s always has delicious Chinese dumplings and traditional sweets for sale. The rice cakes are my favorites!

I didn’t know Mi Goreng had their own booth in the food court lol. They’re a popular brand of Indonesian instant noodles in the Philippines. My friend likes it a lot.

I found these Buy 1 Take 1 Wagyu Meat Balls in Rustan’s. The price was fairly affordable and the amount of meat was hefty! I think it’s a good deal!

These Australian Beef Burgers were also on the same promo.

I haven’t tried Bangus Hot Dogs yet. I need to do so soon!

Very interesting Fresh Carrot Noodles.

Hmm Although I don’t really eat much instant food, I kinda want to try this brand of instant curry noodles.

Juju Candy in cute snail containers lol.

The beef gelatin among the ingredients of this packet of marshmallows caught my eye. Kinda ew? but i still love marshmallows hmmm lol.

Super cute mother and child matching outfits awww.

I claimed my prize for The Craft Central‘s birthday celebration which I had to randomly pick like a lottery.

Some of the prizes at stake.

I picked “stickers” as my prize and the staff let me choose 2 sheets. Yey! They’re cute food related stickers too!

This bottle of Kecap Manis was a present from one of my friends after his trip to Indonesia. I just love having it with rice crackers as a snack lol.

For dinner, my friend cooked Mabo Dofu using a packet of pre-made sauce from the supermarket. Editing it a little with some sugar made the taste perfect (the sauce was quite salty on it’s own) and irresistibly mouth watering especially with rice! The level of spiciness wasn’t too hot; I want to use this sauce again!

Some pan grilled scraps of the tofu to be eaten with the dish.

Recently, I’ve been ordering the Dory Katsu set whenever we ate at Tokyo Tonteki. I’ve been enjoying the light sauce with the crispy fish a lot. So yummy!

Our usual orders in Omakase at Ayala Triangle Gardens. They make the best sushi for me always!

Cute snoozing kitty nearby.

We dropped by the Makati Street Meet, which was just walking distance from the restaurant. I tasted some of these cupcakes and the matcha cream cheese was so delicious!

Lots of good food were cooking, such as these steak cubes.

Butter Coffee aka Bulletproof coffee!

Cha Tuk Chak is a milk tea shop which I’ve been wanting to try for the longest time, but couldn’t since they were located somewhere in Pasig which was too far for me. Just my luck they were here in Makati but I wasn’t able to buy any since they said their drinks were all very sweet lol.

The pink looked so cute but I didn’t want to chance my blood sugar rising.

Don Bao also has a stand here. I’ll be blogging about my experience with them at The Ultimate Taste Test Pro Edition soon!

Thirsty Turtle is such a cute name!

Lots of these pretty decors were scattered around the venue.

I tried this Matcha gelato from Mio Gelati‘s food truck and I think it’s one of the best matcha flavored gelato which I’ve tried! The matcha flavor is deep and prominent, bitter just the way I liked it!

I ate a late lunch at Tokyo Tokyo Express which provided take away meals from their menu. It was ok, tasted like the usual, although they didn’t provide any service water which was a point against them.

My friend randomly visited me in my house one day and brought some fancy looking Belgian Chocolate in the shape of seashells. Cute!

I got these Hawaiian Macadamia Chocolates also on another day. They were pretty tasty too!

The story of Hawaiian Host.

Yum Yum!

Dory Katsu Night again! I asked for extra sauce for more flavor lol.

random cute shoe display in the mall.

We headed to Tim Horton’s after dinner to try one of their Smile Cookies, and all proceeds will go to a local children’s charity.

Their cookies were crisp yet chewy, and the “smiley face” was made out of dollops of colored sugar icing. Yum!

On wards to the next month!