J.CO Donuts

If I were Snowhite, the jealous stepmother/queen could have never  poisoned me with an apple. I don't like apple.  But she could easily have poisoned me with a doughnut..
... preferably J.CO Donuts !!! Addiction to the max!! After its first store opened ( SM Megamall) in Manila this year, sometime in March, we had to wait for a nearer branch (SM MOA) to open last May this year also, so we could start our wicked indulgence.

And please wicked stepmother queen_ minimum of one box, so you could include my two daughters too in this fairy tale massacre. haha. Weird but this latest J.CO craze of us is a huge massacre of our healthy diet.. a mad guilty pleasure, the three of us couldn't resist! We had never been this crazy to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, for the record.


 At this point we have already created a list of favorites. I love the " black forest" one. I'm sure it's not what they call it at J.Co, but eventhough I've eaten more than 100 pcs of it by this time ( #pure exaggeration:), I still don't know how they call it there. I just point a finger for it to be included in the box. I also love the one with blueberry filling. I also don't know the name, haha. I wanna indulge, without the torture of memorizing each doughnut name.


 Older daughter would have anything that has chocolate and in dark colors..




Younger daughter favors the white chocolate flavored and anything with coffee on it.

But we don't actually stop ourselves from trying the other flavors. So far, we love everything we let J.CO puts in our boxes. Only we haven't tried the savory ones yet. Maybe later..

I actually only had been once in a J. Co store at MOA. Only once so far cos everytime we passed by it, the queue was mad long. I haven't been to Megamall branch and still waiting for ATC (Ayala Town Center) branch to open.



I got lucky to walk-in with a breezy queue inside. It was only because it was sooo off-peak hour/day. It was a Tuesday at 2pm.

Luckily too, that day they had a free yogurt with toppings came in every dozen of doughnuts bought. I came to love their yogurt too.

I was sure if my younger daughter was with me that day, she would surely never make a pass to taste their fraps.



Isn't it cool? They name each section with J.CO like J.COffee and J.COol. The store at MOA is quite small. It's really just appropriate as to-go. The size of the store is too claustrophobic for a dine-in.

My older daughter is actually our official buyer of J.CO. After school she would drop at the store to grab some take home for us. She actually introduced this sinful pastry to me and her sister. I remember seeing a store of this in Indonesia and Singapore but I hadn't gotten the chance to try.



Last week, on a Thursday, she called-up to ask if we wanted some J.CO cos she was at MOA and wanted some for herself. Surewhynot. Only, she said, she had to battle a queue. I replied if it's mad do it next time. But she insisted and thought it wouldn't take the whole afternoon of her. Big mistake. She got home already after sunset.

At home she showed me a photo of the queue she took while on it. That mad!!!



Wt#!!!!

Mesa @ Food Street

Here's another restaurant at the Food Street of Southmall_ Mesa. I'm glad dining outlets are now coming here in the South. Unlike before that we had to drive to MOA, Makati, and as far as The Fort or worst to QC, just to dine. No need to frequent BF Homes too, thu' nearer than the mentioned dining places, still Southmall and Alabang Town Center are a lot accessible to where I reside. I'm loving the new wings of these two malls.

It was after the week that I was always running for errands ( per my husband demands, haha) everyday and I was so consumed, I  didn't have the chance to cook decent meals at home for my girls. So they missed home cooked food and wanted to eat Filipino.

We entered Mesa past lunch time and it was still full packed with people still finishing their meals. Luckily there was a single table available for us.

Drinks : buco shake, mango shake & sago gulaman. Everything was refreshingly good as we expected.

Younger daughter had these pork bbq's all to herself.

And more than a cup of garlic rice. I think two cups?

Oh well, need I elaborate more on how she loved the bbq here?

Me and older daughter shared the best pork binagoongan ( shrimp pasted pork, if I may translate. I wonder how you call it in English, haha ) I ever had. It was tasty, tender and the balance of spices were just right.


 We actually rarely eat pork at home. Beef would be once when lucky a week. Fish, chicken and veggies are staple. Pasta frequent more on our table rather than rice, which is I think the culprit of the stubborn fats around my belly and some at my back. Too much carbs! Not even counting the sweets, pastries and lots and lots of sinful doughnuts on a daily basis. So it's given that when we eat out, we have what we deprive ourselves at home _ pork.meat!!!

We also had laing two ways. Both versions were good that for the first time my carnivore younger daughter started to eat laing ( taro leaves in coconut cream) and enjoyed it with her bbq.

The first version was taro leaves in coconut cream topped with adobo ( Filipino style pork stew) flakes. Creamy delicious. Yum!

I was not sure about the difference between the two. Only the other one was creamier than this one, but also good.

Older daughter loved everything, she had extra rice that much! haha. joke. Those were our rice cups all together.



Younger daughter with her plate she had swiftly emptied in a flash, haaha.

But the fact that we ordered for extra cups of rice and that we all had our plates emptied clean, meant we really loved the foods here. Rare!

In less than an hour we were bellyfull and ready to go. The place was now uncrowded and opposite of the scene when we got in.



We only had three dishes from the menu, definitely, we'll comeback for more. I would recommend this restaurant for our "balikbayan" friends/relatives who are missing our homegrown dishes with some twist.

Black Canyon Coffee

The Food Street of Southmall smells laggard in terms of filling in the restaurant spaces along this new wing. With only limited choices, we find ourselves  dining in the same restos.

Black Canyon Coffee is one of them. It is so much more than a coffee shop. It serves Thai cuisine but again not limited to. I browsed over the menu and found it very extensive. From soup to salad to sandwiches to pastas to rice plates to cakes to many other dishes. It's so easy to forget that you are in a coffee shop. I only dined here twice. This was the second.


 

The first time was a month or two ago with my Sydney based girlfriend who loves Thai cuisine. I had a plate of  phad Thai which I liked and a rice plate with spicy shrimp for my friend. Both of us got tall glasses of   fraps. I think mine was chocolate something.  We weren't disappointed..

... So when daughters nudged me to bring them in, I was easy.


 
My girls went straight ordering each a glass of fraps.One got black hazelnut frappe and the other one got black crunch frappe. Both were almost done when their main dishes were served.

green curry stir-fried rice with tuna stuffed in omelette. I was not that keen yet on eating so I thought I would play and try. I got interested with this looong named dish. Nor I'm fond of green curry. I just thought this must be interesting. Looked like it but then I consumed no more than 3 spoonfuls and was done. The tuna tasted nothing fancier than the canned ones. The whole dish was real spicy. I was longing for some detour taste, like a dash of sweetness and a bit of sourness. Perhaps I was just being biased cos before that day I had a Japanese or was it Korean? rice omelet too with seafood on it, topped with mayo dressing which I loved so much.


 

fried prawn with tamarind sauce. This plate was my daughter's. She just ordered a plate of plain rice with it. I got to eat some pieces myself. Breaded prawns were good but the sweet tamarind sauce was kindah new to us. It's the sweet and sour of the Chinese cuisine with a kick of sourness of tamarind.


 
fried fish with kotsu fried rice. This was a hit to my other daughter. She had the plate clean slate  in less than 20 minutes. She always loves fish fillet that's why.

I guess my older daughter enjoyed our meal here, so much so that the following weekend..



... she had her date here with her bestfriend.


 

And guess what they ate --> the fried fish with kotsu fried rice.



For fraps they got cookie & cream frappe and chocolate frappe. good thing beverages here are relatively more affordable than other more popular coffee shop in the metro.