a night out at apt 1b

it's been more than a year since we got together. g and m arranged this whole dinner thing which is something new since i am usually the master planner. anyway, m has been a regular at this place so she practically ordered everything she liked.

we want something light, so we had the house salad. i liked this salad, it has walnuts, grapes, blue cheese, greens and a raspberry vinaigrette. i usually don't like blue cheese but this one is a creamy mild flavored cheese which just worked well. too bad the serving was small - a tiny plate that is.

we also had the broiled cheese and garlic prawns. it's crab fat pasta with veggies topped with prawns. the pasta was creamy but i wasn't able to capture the crab fat essence so to speak. the prawns were humongous so you get a lot of shimp meat. for almost 800PHP a pop, i'd have second thoughts ordering this dish. actually, if the pasta would have been bigger in serving then it would have just been perfect.

another of m's fave is the baby back ribs served with a honey bourbon sauce and corn and veggies on the side. i'd say this is the best ribs among the once i've tried in the past month or so. tender but not that meaty, the sauce was perfectly balanced with the tart, sweet and salty hints of flavors but of course i would love to have the smoky hint too. i like that the corn was freshly shredded from the cob.

it was a pleasurable dining experience. no misses. the only drawback i saw were the prices. but i am definitely coming back because i have yet to try the other menu items.

apt 1b
one lafayette square
sedeno st. salcedo village

quick stop at five cows

when i first learned about five cows i got pretty excited. then later on, i have read so many not so great reviews that my interest slowly dissipated. however, i was about to catch a film with some friends and we were on a tight schedule so i suggested five cows for a quick fix.

we got creamy beef and mushroom pasta with penne. i actually liked this dish. it was a creamy pasta with thin beef slices, similar to the ones used for sukiyaki. so the beef was tender and with some strips of fat, it was definitely yummy. well seasoned not bland and not salty either and the pasta was al dente.

another pasta dish is the gamberetti. shrimps cooked in olive oil and white wine??? not sure on that but they gave it a twist by adding sundried tomatoes. i love sundried tomatoes but the ones in the pasta are just too big. they should have chopped them more finely. there was something a miss with this dish...more olive oil and garlic perhaps? anyway, it was so so.

been looking over other tables and i just fancied the unusually shaped rectangular pizza. we got the margherita pizza. it wasn't flavorful, no hint of herbs whatsoever. but i like the crunchy crust (definitely premade) and the fact that they used loads of mozzarella cheese.

if you're tired from malling or in a rush to get a decent meal before your movie starts then five cows is an option. i haven't tried the desserts which they probably do better so i have yet to come back.

five cows
trinoma, cinema level

magic chips

here's a food find. magic chips. it's thin baked crackers with cheese or bqq flavoring. they taste like piattos actually. i love it because it's guilt free since they're baked and they taste like chips.

gaster deli @ 6750

this is a long overdue post. had lunch with other foodies. we tried out gaster deli at 6750. we were looking forward to trying out some of the food items featured in other blogs. unfortunately, they changed the menu and everything we wanted to try were all out.

jv and i decided to split everything since we just didn't find food that is extremely interesting. we had some pumpkin soup. no amount of pepper and salt could remedy this soup. all i could taste was cinnamon.

we also had the gaster burger. wagyu beef patties with foie gras. the beef didn't taste/look anything wagyu at all. i found a string in my patty too. jv said the foie gras didn't taste like foie gras and i didn't know what she meant then i eventually knew what she meant. foie gras should be fatty or atleast glistening when you eat it but this one isn't, it was too livery in taste and texture. and the aioli, it was just bad....it was already translucent with no distinct flavor at all, they could just have given us bottled mayo. the sad thing is, the burger costs around 600PHP.

hiro had kurobuta pork belly, they claim that it's from snake river farms. kurobuta is the wagyu of pork. it was a huge chunk of pork belly that is so tender. the flavor actually reminds me of humba, sweet and salty. it came with mashed potato and crispy greens which i'm not sure what it's made of =).

i wasn't really satisfied with our meal so i guess that's enough clue. the pork belly is delish but i think it's overly priced. as i've said they've changed the menu so all the ones available online are not accurate anymore unless they have been updated.

gaster deli
6750 ayala ave

lotsa fooda at bubba???

here's the last installment of my greenbelt tasting menus adventure. nothing unique about bubba gump but my friend was overly fixated to this place. the tasting menu was simple.

you can choose between the soup of the day or bbq chicken salad. we opted for the latter. it was an ample serving. the dressing suits well with the chicken bbq strips, the crunchy tortilla strips also gave texture. but again, another overly dressed salad.

the dixie style baby back ribs is tender and meaty. the bqq sauce is your usual american style sauce that is thick and tangy.

i liked the spiciness of the chipotle shrimp. the creamy sauce was not overpowering but i wish that the shrimps were bigger.

the alabama mud pie is so so. nothing spectacular with this this frozen cake dessert.

in terms of flavors, the dishes were pleasing to the palate. but i just found the entire dining experience so so. i guess it was because the food wasn't nicely presented and because the servings were not that substantive. i understand that the menu only costs 600 PHP which is relatively cheap but i'd think that people would be willing to shell out more just to get bigger servings.

i actually felt like the food was being served from a cafeteria of some sort. the salad seemed like it was just put over a plate and topped with some crunchy tortilla strips. the chipotle shrimp and baby back were served in the same plate, they just look so lonely in a huge white plate on top of newspapers. i guess it really boiled down to the sizes. they could have just used a smaller dish served the two dishes together with a surf and turf kind of thing going on. the uber small mud pie obviously looked like a small piece of of cake taken from one slice. it could just be the presentation of the food that needs improvement or increased serving sizes with the menu price being adjusted as well.

NOTE: items might look big but they're not actually :)

bubba gump
2nd level greenbelt 3

pepper lunch is now here

finally heard news about pepper lunch. it's opening on may 16 at powerplant. i sense a lunch break in rockwell next week... i hope hehe.


click here for more details

lunch @ brenner

finally, something casual. we knew that the menu at max brenner was quite heavy so we opted to get it for lunch. we initially had caesar twist, which is basically caesar salad with a twist. you get your usual romaine lettuce tossed with a caesar dressing, croutons, cheese and loads of bacon bits plus slivers of white chocolate. the only thing i noticed is that it was heavily dressed so you can probably opt to have the dressing on the side or request them to use less.

we then had chicken nibblers, which is basically chicken strips. lightly breaded with japanese bread crumbs with tender and juicy chicken strips inside. the plate was dusted with choco powder and served with a dip on the side. i actually think they could do better with the dip, a lot more chocolate and chilli powder would probably make it more interesting.

but the meal is not yet over, we were then served with bbq honey glazed baby back. the sauce was not heavy, it has a sweet and sour bite. the ribs were meaty but could go a bit more tender. the fries were perfectly cooked, thick home cut fries that were crispy and dusted with some parmesan cheese.

for dessert, we had banana trifle. fudge brownies, pound cake, bananas, custard with strawberry sauce and slivers of white and milk chocolate. it was so tempting that you simply cannot skip it, having the pound cake less crumbly would be perfect since it wasn't that great in the palate.

i think that max brenner's tasting menu is a winner in terms of the amount of food. the entire menu could probably feed 3-4 people, and based on what the wait staff said, you can get up to 4 trifle for dessert. probably not a date place but a very good meal to have with a group of friends, very filling and satiating as well.

NOTE: accdg to a friend the tasting menu is not available unless you have a coupon from the launch not sure if the tasting menu was just complimentary or this involves the coupon that you can find in appetite magazine.

tasting menu (may1-30): 1200PHP

max brenner

greenbelt 3, first level