Double the Fun (Part 2)

Another restaurant that I ate at this week was Cafe Juanita in Burgos Circle, Fort Bonifacio, for my dearest friend's birthday dinner.

I've eaten at the original location several times. I find it amusing how, after admiring the shabby chic interiors there, you can buy a piece of it yourself to take home!

Peebee had all the food laid out on the table, family style. I've heard some people say that the franchise at The Fort just wasn't as good as the original, but it tasted the same to me. It just lacked in knick-knacks!

Sinigang again! They served each bowl individually as we sat down

Adobo cooked two ways: crispy flakes and regular. Delicious! I like the flakes the best. You can never do it at home without it tasting really oily.

Here's their version of laing. We were joking Anjeanette (whose hubby and their family hail from Bicol) that she would be a critic of the dish. She said the flavor was good, but didn't understand why each leaf wrapped a piece of pork.

Aside from mish-mash interiors, Cafe Juanita prides itself with a mish-mash menu, perfect for people who want to eat all sorts of things at the same time (like me!).

I love Thai food, and this mango catfish salad didn't disappoint, even though it was a "Filipino" restaurant

As I mentioned in part one of this post, I'm allergic to kare-kare, but look at its similarity to the sinigang from Mamou Too

Looking at these photos now reminds me of what a friend in LA told me when I took him to the only Filipino restaurant there, the Jeepney Grill. He said, "Filipinos like to eat a lot of fried or brown foods." Here's another brown fried meat, with brown sauce on top

The crispy skin is so yummy you would give your right kidney for it! This next dish is a winner. It's deep fried lapu-lapu with tamarind sauce (yes, its brown too!). It seems that Cafe Juanita has mastered the art of the "deep fry netting techinique"!

Last but not the least is dessert. Because a friend had eaten a different version the day before, when I saw sticky toffee pudding on the menu I ordered it. It was very good, but a bit on the sweet side

A perfect end to a meal with good friends and a family I have known for years!

Another plus for Cafe Juanita is that my 6-year-old was playing with the celebrator's 7-year-old nephew and let's just say they were a bit rowdy with their fighting techniques. Now, my son is usually well behaved. Nobody complained (though I did read on a restaurateur's Facebook they wanted to ban children from their restaurant. You can tell they don't have any!). The food was good old home-cooking, nothing hoity-toity, and somewhere you can bring your whole family (and even a yaya or two). Thank goodness for places like Cafe Juanita!

Happy birthday Peebee!!

Cafe Juanita
Burgos Circle, Fort Bonifacio
Tel +632.403.1952

Holy Gastronomy!

Do you ever get the birthday blues?

I do, the day before my birthday. I guess I look back on what milestones I've achieved since the last birthday, and since none of us aren't spring chickens any longer, reflect on what I desire for the future. Feeling deep, no?

My birthday began with some of my bestest girlfriends at our favourite neighborhood hangout, Apartment 1B (and if you follow this blog, I'm sure you are gagging with the thought of another salmon eggs Benedict right now).

Being surrounded by loved ones is always a mood enhancer, better than anything out there you can buy!

When I got to the office, a surprise was waiting on the table. Danelle and Prateek from Dusit Thani Manila always remember me on my birthday, thank you once again! The Tatler family thanks you too, hehe!

Then remember when I told you that I had foie gras earlier in the week for my birthday?

I decided to treat my family to Enderun's Restaurant 101. My cousin Tricia is its marketing director and she used to invite me to events when it was still in Ortigas. Aside from the venue, I can safely say the menu has come a long way from then. From comfort foods such as baby back ribs, it has ventured into more sophisticated dishes for discerning palates.

Amy's foie mood was infecting me so I ordered this

It was a small plate but well presented and cooked perfectly. Just the right amount of bite and condiment for the foie.

I had a sea bass for my main course, and ordered the Kurobuta pork belly with rice pilaf for Enzo. Unfortunately they weren't very flexible when it came to some orders (no plain rice, only rice pilaf; some dishes arrived ahead of others) but hey, it's a learning curve.

For dessert, they treated me to this (thank you cousin!)

Aside from spelling my name correctly (yayy) they had that fabulous little chocolate rectangle that I tried when Alain Ducasse was last in Manila. Pure heaven! Everyone enjoyed trying a little bit of everything and getting surprised at the flavors and the mediums.

So, I started another birth year celebration with a bang in my belly, but a birthday so worth the calories and especially, the company...

Apartment 1B:  tel +632.843.4075
Dusit Thani Manila
Restaurant 101 at Enderun 

Birthday at Antonio's

Hello, dear friends! I am back from the dead, literally speaking, in the blogosphere.

Life has a funny way of catching up with you and getting in the way of important things, such as updating one's blog. Summer is practically over, and all I can do is look back and not regret having a real life instead of just a virtual one. Moving on...

I recently celebrated my birthday and all I wanted to really do is have some opulent QT and really excellent food with good friends.

In true Pig Out Fashion, we first made our way to Santi's for some wine, cheese and cold cuts and without further ado (there was some ado about something, but not much) A and I left for Tagaytay to be in the company of pine trees and fresh mountain air and our beautiful icon, the Dame VC. After settling down in our home for the weekend (thanks seester!), we decided we needed MORE supplies- and I'm not talking about a Japanese woman who pops out of a cake. So to 7-11 it was, for chips, water, milk tea, ramen noodles, chocolate and mints. All for one night!

When K and T arrived from Manila, we made our way in the Venga Bus to Antonio's, the most romantic spot in Tagaytay. Chef Tonyboy was there to greet us.

the entrance to opulent gluttony

They asked if we wanted to sit inside or sit in the garden. We all enthusiastically agreed on "Garden!"

our view

The menu was fantastically proportioned with everything good to eat and this made it difficult to choose, despite having eaten cheese, salami and chips only a couple of hours prior. A, who had been on a foie gras and steak kick all month, was also rattled. A, rattled?!

While enjoying some wine and fresh mango shake and strawberry balsamic shake, we were trying to think when the three of us were last at Antonio's together, and recalled it was when we wanted breakfast and were told Breakfast at Antonio's was being served there...we said it had been too long and must make another trip back. And we haven't even eaten yet!

We ordered our mains, and this came with a house salad and soup of the day and dessert. Beat that!

cream of cabbage soup

The salad always tastes as if each leaf was handpicked straight from the garden. I love the bitter varieties...

The kids got to choose from their own gourmet menu as well. Both Enzo and T opted for the good ol' favorite, carbonara. It arrived first and we all wanted a bite of its creamy goodness!

For our main dish, we all wanted to order the same thing, but I decided to change my order since I had some foie earlier in the week and just share both dishes with B. Of course, hers and Amy's were champion. Meet duck with foie gras

Whereas, here is my Sounded Better on the Menu dish, the assorted seafood Thermidor in a vol au vent pastry...

Cue: wahhhh-wahh sound effects ala Saturday Night Live. Looks kind of nothing special, no?

The flavor was good, the scallops and prawn cooked well, but compared to that duck and foie, it fell on its face and ate dirt.

So, it all turned out fine because we had the soup and the salad and then we shared and then we still had dessert to come. And B gave me a big serving from her plate.

To make up, I ordered chocolate souffle for my finale, while A and B ordered chocolate cake and homemade ice cream.

We were so full and happily satiated, we rolled Spike Lee-style out of that joint, making a vow and promise to definitely come again real soon.

Antonio's
Bgy Neogan
Tagaytay City
0918.899.2866

Oh Joy, Its Choi!

Brudder Jack turned 40 and to celebrate this momentous number, he treated us family to a feast fit for kings at Choi's Garden. Now, he and my sister Margie introduced Choi's to us a couple years ago at the culmination of Chinese New Year. Not being Chinese, we were unaware of the date, but noticed most of the diners were clad all in red. The great thing about eating in a place you've never eaten before is not knowing what to expect. The interiors were interesting. When you enter, you go through a walkway that made me feel like I was in the belly of a whale or some sci-fi movie. The second floor was decorated with 70s style chandeliers...it reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, for some reason...

And that fateful day, just as for Jack's birthday, we were all blown away by the quality of the food.

Choi's was started by an ex-owner of Gloria Maris and some other investors, and word on the street was that it imported its Peking duck straight from Hong Kong. Now that's a promise we wanted to see delivered. Strong words...

For Jacks big 4-oh, Margie asked her Chinese friend for recommendations, and this is what we got. We began with an assortment of appetizers. This one had, from left top: barbecued pork, tofu, roast chicken, seaweed and the last but not the least, suckling pig in the middle. It came with sauces of hoisin, spring-onion ginger and a sweet sour sauce. My favorite was the suckling pig with skin so crunchy you could cause the floor to shake by a single bite.

The next course were these deep fried crab claws in angel hair served with kani salad. The crab claws were full of meat and very succulent, but the whole thing got a little messy once I really began to eat it in earnest. The kani salad was refreshing to eat after the claw. 

For long life, they ordered birthday noodles with lobster. Oh em gee. 

For some reason, there was enough to go around and then some. Don't let this picture fool you, those lobsters were HUGE and the noodles never seemed to empty...so while some were working on this I opted to move on to the next dish:

This cute little present contained chopped broccoli and scallop and was just so darn cute to eat...for like 10 seconds. I don't what this alluded to when I was talking to Joe and how his eating habits of changed due to a certain er, procedure. Now, here comes the hot mess prawn salad in mayo. Oh, those prawns were so succulent, but damn, I was getting full...

As you know and have read, I am a new blogger and the reason why I haven't started earlier is because I always eat all the food before I can take a picture (but I'm getting better, I swear!). So I'm sorry but all the Peking duck was gobbled up and so was its second cousin, the fried duck bones. Alas, the huge hotpot of lapu-lapu and other ingredients I could see when I could finally peer over the edge of the bowl was not photographed either. Perhaps I was too satiated to photograph it...but all of those dishes were winners. Really.

You can imagine, after eating all this food, the words "A little grease never hurt anyone" were swirling in my distended belly and I was feeling a little overindulged. But came dessert, buchi and this simple concotion:

It was an almond flavored milk served with crushed ice, almond jelly and lychee. All of those greasy feelings: gone! How do they do that?

We family member tried to guess how much that whole meal was. Lobster, prawn, Peking duck, steamed lapu-lapu, crab claw, scallops...

Well, we were 15 people so I though it was about Php25,000.

Surprise surprise, Margie said it was only Php900 per head, making this grand meal only the bargain price of Php13,500!! Now that's what I call a sulit meal...

Choi's Garden

Anapolis Street, Greenhills

+632.727.7489