Xin Wang Hongkong Cafe . Ph

Nice, an outlet of XinWang Hongkong Cafe here in Ph. It's in MOA. I've come to know this cafe during my trips in Singapore. At Sg, there's one at Bukit Timah right outside the gate of my friend's village where I would stay everytime I visit the lion city. Hence, that branch became our default dining place when we wish to eat near.

Similar to the one I know in Sg, this one in MOA has a happy vibe interior. A mix of pop art walls, zen tables and Chinese ceiling.

Interested to check if the menu was exactly the same with the one at Sg. I saw familiar dishes and decided to try some that I haven't yet..

.. but I made sure to introduce to older daughter, this giant mango snow ice which personally has been my favorite from this cafe.



This was mine in Sg.. Compare, compare to..

..hers in Ph. No doubt o.daughter whose taste seems to be a twin of mine, likes it too. Ofcourse,  it was too big for her and didn't finish it. She immediately thought of her sole sister who was at home that time.The attentive server suggested to box the left over for take home. It arrived home melted ofcourse but a little freezing and the mango snow ice got back to its form. Not the way it has been plated thu', but definitely my younger daughter enjoyed the rest of it.

deep fried mango n' prawn roll. With green salad I always love the combination of mango and shrimp. I took a bite of the roll and realized I'd stick with the combi on salad. I needed some dip to finish the rest of the roll and ask a server for some. He said it is eaten w/o like that. I didn't like it.

black pepper chicken chop n' french fries. This was my daughter's plate. I forked a little of the chicken and it was ok. Edible but nothing to rave about. Daughter like it thu'. Oh well, she was hungry, she would like anything on the table.

I ordered a bamboo rice. wt#!!! I forgot a promise I made to myself that I won't have any bamboo rice again after the mistake I made of having one here.



Hk braised beef brisket bamboo rice. A rice topping dish with beef brisket. The rice I was thinking, I would share with my daughter since her dish had no rice and she wanted some rice. But the rice, we didn't like. It was mixed with dried small shrimp ( I think it's called "hebe" in tagalog ). I am never a rice person, I don't know what came to me to order a bamboo rice, haha. Again, wasted!



Even in Singapore, I couldn't remember enjoying the food at Xin Wang Cafe, except for the snow ice. In fairness, in MOA branch, service was the best!

Balut

Looks like I'm a vendor here, yes?

And what do you think I'm selling here..
haha.
Could be I had ran out of mollah to pay the hotel and fares and resolved to do some work?

Possibilities.
haha.



This was in Boracay. Balut by the beach_ best combi! I just had the sudden craving of balut when I saw those random people ( I didn't know them ) eating balut right in front of the hotel.

best eaten when hot, crack the egg to make a window then drizzle with salt and  spicy vinegar mix, then slurp, slurp..try to ignore the embryo instead try to think of it as part of the softie yolk, enjoy!

I swear I never had that much of balut ever. Even when I ate balut with husband, my max would only be up to two. That night I had like 4 eggs. And I was like wanting more but had to stop myself. Why? Cos I didn't want to end up in the hospital, silly.



Balut is a boiled duck embryo and quite popular here in my country and in some others around Southeast Asia.
It's not for everyone thu'. So for the benefit of the aliens, I won't share here a close-up shot of it. But if you're keen_ do google balut. You'll see what I'm sayin'.

Pho Hoa

I had to comb my archive if I already did a post on Pho Hoa Noodle House. I was surprised to find out that I haven't yet cos it's one of my favorites and one of the most frequented ones. Under my label of  vietnamese cuisine appeared only one _ Yummy Viet. Funny but in that post, I seemed not to like Vietnamese cuisine yet, except for the spring rolls. But that was already very archive-y.

I came to love Pho Hoa at the hype of watching husband weight. Like a year or two ago. We were working-out together quite seriously. Outside our home kitchen, Pho Hoa (@ ATC) had been our extended dining corner where we both enjoyed light vege-ful dishes. So it was more of just me and husband minus our girls.

Last weekend, I brought my girls to Pho Hoa and this was the actual face of my younger daughter. haha. It didn't help that I ordered, especially for her + first time, a huge bowl of beefy noodle soup. Both of my daughters love beef dishes.



Pho Nam, Gan - flank and tendon soup.

My thirteenier really found it bland, until..

.. I drizzled her little bowl with spiracha, which is the house chili sauce and I think the only spice they have aside from the dark sauce..

and the fresh basil they serve separately. The plate also has a handful of fresh beansprout and a quarter of lemon.

Oh well as for the older daughter, no problem. Everything I eat, she eats. She's like my twin-tummy. The younger one is the dad's twin-tummy. We're even!

The o.daughter shared my plate of fresh spring rolls. Still my favorite. I asked y.daughter to try it and try she did but no likey yet.



But she loved the fresh lemon juice.

Shellacked by Backyard BBQ

During our most recent Boracay (Nov.'12), Backyard BBQ at D'Mall was up on the list for us to dine in cos 1st we hadn't tried it yet and 2nd my younger daughter's staples include bbq ofcourse. And there's 3rd_ the buzz over the net hyped my curiosity.
One of the evenings, we went but all tables were occupied plus there were q's waiting next. We didn't have the energy to q so we ate at...

...Shakey's. It was quite a consolation that it was by the beach, haha. Besides, that time my girls had enough of the island's dishes and already craving for fastfood fix. Shakey's pizza & chicken by the beach tasted so much crunchier and delish, Case in point._even Jollibee burgersteak would surely taste better when eaten at Boracay, haha.

So one other night, again we were scouting for a place to dine. We passed by BBBQ again and thought we would get lucky cos the place particularly looked not full that night. Only to find out that tables were already fully booked. So they do reservations here huh?



So we planned for a daytime meal at BBBQ, lunchtime. Same thing. Still full packed. wt#!!!!

So I concluded to my girls to ditch the idea of Backyard BBQ, atleast for this season. Better luck next time. And added : if you want bbq...

..here I give you.. your favorite Gerry's, haha. We settled for a lunch at Gerry's Grill in Station 2 with no q hassle at all.

Plus our all time favorite kare-kare. I told ya when we are ultra hungry we reach for our comfort foods.

Everyone was happy then. We thought we'll just have bbq at our backyard when we get home, haha.

Crisostomo @ ATC

Here's another themed resto at the relatively ( I had to add the word cos I've been referring to it as new for quite sometime now, haha) new wing of Alabang Town Center (ATC). Crisostomo is very Noli Me Tangere/El Filibusterismo. 

Quite detailed, if I may. Check the name of our waiter_ Tiburcio! I checked other servers and all the names I remembered from Noli and Fili.

Browsing the menu, you get_ (samples) from the vegetable section : Noli Me Talong, Pilosopong Pinakbet, Okra Clara. (samples) from the meat section : Tadyang ni Tiago, Mechado ala Bonifacio, Crispin at Basilio. (samples) from the salad section : Ensaladang Erehe, Crazy Sisa Squid... and many many other interesting entree names.



Lots of them but only two made it to our table. We were there to fill up our ranting stomach, it was just a random lunch. Not for degustation event, haha. We didn't order drink from here even. My girls bought their milk teas outside ( I think Gong-Cha?) which the resto kindly allowed.

kkk bbq. whatelse.is.new? You can browse all my pinoy resto posts here and always my younger daughter orders bbq. Call it deprivation. At home we rarely have bbq, if ever, it must be a take out from a certain resto. So when we eat outside. definitely she bbqued!
This one she loved big time. Just like the rest of the bbq's, haha.

kare-kare kura. ok, you may do the same as I mentioned above ( browse my archive, haha), to find out that kare-kare is another default dish we have when we eat filipino outside. Especially, this time around that I intentionally not cooking this favorite at home. Cos we are so "only 3 eating".
We enjoyed this kare-kare, we ordered for more rice. But we always like kare-kare. In this town, you would rarely find bad kare-kare.



When we are hungry like that, we play safe. Like we order dishes that we already know would serve us right, no matter what.

Given more space, the detailing of Crisostomo would surely be more interesting.



Detailed even more_ this is the bill holder. nice or what?

Icing & Frills @ Vanilla Cupcake Bakery

@ Glorrieta 4,Makati, my daughters caught a glimpse of the frilly interior of  Vanilla Cupcake Bakery and instantly wanted to get in.

I got caught by the equally frilly cupcakes on display.. and right away gave-in to another high-sugar- laden

noon.

The girls fell in love with the doll house vibe of the cupcakery. The place being moderately empty that time was a haven for us who are easily discourage by painful queue. It was a day of a week after massively busy X'mas holidays. Exactly how we always wanted a place to be. That greedy, we love to own the place, haha.

I noticed the distinct presence of a particular brand of chair in every table in this cupcakery_ the Daphne's chair. I wonder if Ms. Daphne O. is the owner?

Then the cupcakes were served. Mine was the one in the small mayo jar. It's banoffee. Nothing's frilly to it. If there was, it was the icing. The cream was too much. I hardly finished the jar.



These two cupcakes were my daughters'. I didn't get the names. Also unfinished.

Sorry but those three we tried, we didn't like.



The packaging is superb thu'.