Jem's Birthday Celebrations in Rome, Pino, Solaire and Sofitel

We celebrated Jem's birthday with a Strawberries and Cream Cake in Rome. We refused to accept the fact that she wouldn't be able to join us in Europe, where we agreed to celebrate her birthday this year, that we just brought her with us whether she wanted to go or not.

Hope you enjoyed the trip Jem!

So since we were travelling, Jem invited us to celebrate her dinner last night instead. She wanted to try Pino, a Filipino place with a modern twist in the heart of Quezon City (meaning it's quite hard to find it if you're not really familiar with the area). We arrived quite early but only the tables outside were available because we didn't have reservations. Turns out, reservations aren't really required but one of the owners of the place reserved the inside tables for another party.

The birthday celebrant with a new haircut
and Naked eyes.

I liked their starters the best.

Salted Egg Shrimps
If you get over the ickiness of eating the shell, it's quite good.
It's better without the sauce, so you can really taste the salted egg.

Fried Kesong Puti and Quail Eggs Salad with Mango Vinaigrette

Sisig Tacos with Mango Salsa
It's the first time Jem ate Sisig. I liked it so much, I ate three pieces.

We must have ordered a lot, because when we asked the waiter
if the food was enough, he added another table so the dishes would fit.

Deconstructed Pork Binagoongan with the sauce under the Bagnet
I think the dishes are meant to be for one person but the servings
were very generous.

We ordered Fried Hito but I think it was matinik,
so I only had the pickled mangoes on the side.

We also ordered a Single Serving of Kare Kare with Bagoong Rice.
It was also deconstructed with bagnet and veggies on the side.

We also ordered Kansi (Beef Cubes cooked in Tamarind Broth)
because it was supposed to come with Roasted Bone Marrow.
They only told us there was no Bone Marrow when we looked for it,
so we just returned this dish.

Jem and Ivan with all our food. Yummy.

After dinner, the waiters brought our the matter-of-pride birthday cake that I bought before hand.

Our Happy Birthday sign finally made it to Jem!
(Tim and I bought it in Singapore, to stick Jem's
face on for all our photo ops in Europe) 

Happy Birthday Jem!

Ooops. Sorry for the blurry picture.

Hope your wishes all come true!

We also had Coconut Ice Cream, which was so rich,
it wasted almost like sweetened Gata.

We also ordered Dark Chocolate Ice Cream,
which literally tasted like Tablea - not in a good way.
It went well with the Cake though.

It's been quite a while since we really managed
to finish a matter-of-pride cake.

Ivan was not too happy to be given the honor of finishing the
last slice.

It was so funny when we tried to call the waiter to take our picture,
because we were all ready with our Chocolate Teeth na.

Bones needed a re-take.

After dinner, we went casino and hotel hopping. We visited the new casino at Solaire (sorry no pictures). Surprisingly, it's more open that other casinos. When you get down at the lobby, you can directly enter the gaming floor. No walls, no additional security checks. So during the day, I don't think they even pretend to keep it dark inside. Drinks are definitely free flowing. I am not sure how the food works. My impression was a lot of the crowd was of the lower LSM, though not all of course. Bones wanted to try the slots, and on his first bet of Php40 he already won Php800, so me being me, I insisted that he cash out already because normally it's the house that always wins so we went for coffee at Sofitel instead. So in this case, it was Sofitel that won. Hahaha.

Bones and his Iced Cappuccino

Jem and Ivan with their Ginger Ales.

Happy happy birthday Jem! Thanks for treating us to the yummy dinner! Sayang, sana we also brought Tim!!! He could have finished all the food and the last slice of cake. just saying.