Locavore is my new favorite place for Pinoy Food

I've heard a lot of good things about Locavore, but since I am not really fond of Pinoy food, I never went out of my way to try it. But when I had lunch with friends from work a few weeks back and they recommended this place, I was glad I would get a chance to finally try it.

Reunion of sorts with friends from work.

Since Anna messaged us with the usual dishes that she orders, we just followed her lead and ordered everything she suggested.

Baked Scallops with Aligue Butter Php 500
Super duper yummy!!!

Sugpo con Mayonesa Php585
Another win, sauce palang ulam na, tastes deadly good too!!!

Sizzling Sinigang Php475 photobombed by the Oyster Sisig Php350
The Sizzling Beef Sinigang was so flavorful especially if you like your
sinigang with the Asim-Kilig factor!

The only thing I could do without was the Oyster Sisig since I'm not really
an Oyster fan but I just saw in their menu that they have a version of this with
Lechon for Php10 bucks more. I think that would have been more to my taste.

For dessert we had the Torta Mangga - which was a frozen dessert where you
don't really taste fresh mangoes, so you can skip this.

The only catch if you eat here is that everything is so yummy, and everything is really a flavor bomb to your taste buds, you will need to order rice (I ordered Garlic Brown Rice) and Coke Light, to fully enjoy your meal. 

Thank you girls for a great catch-up and for introducing me to this winner place. Lunch tyo ulit! just saying.

Locavore BGC

Forbes Town Center, 

Burgos Circle, 

Taguig, Metro Manila

+63 9062858264

Reservations recommended for dinner as the place gets really busy

Must Try Dishes at Samba in Shang at The Fort

Back to Manila. Back to Work.

Good thing I have a new favorite restaurant to go to, when I want to escape my life as a corporate slave even for just a short while.

We first tried Samba, the Latin American Restaurant by the poolside of Shangri-La at The Fort to celebrate my birthday. I liked it so much, I have already been back two times since then since they make the Best Tres Leches Cake Ever (and Ady also wanted to eat here for her birthday)!

Hooray for new birthday traditions.

Chips come free

The drink menu looks like a treasure map.

The food menu. I just noticed most of their specialties are seafood.

The dishes that come highly recommended are the Quinoa Risotto, and the Seafood Rice dish similar to Paella.

The Quinoa Risotto is so yummy, I made my friend order it, even if we
came for dessert so I could grab a spoon or two.

Their version of seafood paella is also good, but it tastes much milder
when compared to the quinoa.

Since I'm a carnivore, we ordered the pulled pork braised for many hours,
but I didn't find it outstanding.

My favorite part of the meal is always the Tres Leches Cake for dessert.

It even comes with Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream, which other people
love but I can ignore, since I love the cake. So good with brewed coffee.

I loved Samba so much, I was back with Carlo for dessert after we went to
dinner. But yes, that's quinoa risotto for dessert.

We had dinner at Samba with the whole family for Ady's birthday.

In search of meat, we finally tried the Lomo Saltado. The off-menu kid's
version is much better. The beef is served on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes.
While the beef quality was good, I prefer how Cucina Peruvia does this dish.

We also tried the octopus which is excellent.

The whole fam bam...

Happy Birthday Shobe and Reen!!! They gave us 2 Tres Leches cakes, one
per celebrant.

Since our favorite dessert came for free, we ordered the dessert with
Guyabano and meringue and it was surprisingly very good.

It comes in a chocolate shell that you're meant to lift
and break on the plate... but not quite like this I think.
Hahaha. Super WTF shobe!!!

Voila! This is what happens to the dessert when Sofia happens to it.
Hahaha. It was good anyway.

After 3 visits in less than a month, I don't think I will be back to eat here so soon. But that's the bright side of going back to work. Best Tres Leches Cake walking distance. just saying.

Samba at Shangri-La at the Fort

30th Street, corner 5th Avenue, 

Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, 

1634 Metro Manila, Philippines

Phone: +63 2 820 0888

Singapore's London Fat Duck

For a restaurant, or actually anything to be successful, having a good product or service is one, but the more important thing that will determine your success is you marketing concept.

I think London Fat Duck - a local restaurant in Singapore has done that extremely well.

Fact 1: London Fat Duck is a LOCAL Singapore Restaurant. Hahaha.

The London in their name is a marketing gimmick, riding on the hype and expansion into Singapore of well-known Duck Restaurants like the Four Seasons Restaurant famous for it's boneless roast duck. You can read about Four Seasons Restaurant in London here and their expansion to Bangkok here.

Fact 2:  London Fat Duck

While the Restaurant does not originate from London, they claim that to use IRISH DUCKS, and they call it the Wagyu of Duck riding on the popularity of Wagyu Beef worldwide. Seriously, before this restaurant started their marketing campaign, you would never hear the term Wagyu of Ducks, or Fat Ducks from Ireland. Hahaha.

But in fairness to them, their strong claims make you curious enough to try it, and once you do, they deliver.

I first tried their roast duck as take away, because Sofia wanted to eat elsewhere. It was very tender and tasty, but the analogy to Wagyu might be stretch. Don't worry, it's not priced like Wagyu anyway so it's not like you're getting ripped off.

My second chance to try London Fat Duck was take away again, because I was rushing to catch a flight and I just had to pick up our Salted Egg Chips from Irvin's on my way to the airport, and they had a branch within the same area in Vivo City.

Since this was totally unplanned, I just ordered some Black Pepper London Duck Buns to go, since I heard this was also a popular product.

It's quite good... You'll like it if you like Black Pepper Dishes and
Tim Ho Wan's BBQ Pork Buns as it's a good fusion of both.

During our last trip to Singapore, I finally got to try to eat at London Fat Duck in Vivo City.

London Fat Duck is Tim's favorite duck place in Singapore.

Assorted Roasts

It tastes much better than it looks... The duck is fairly consistently.
unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to ask for the spring onion and ginger
sauce because that would have made it so much better. 

Sofia and I give London Fat Duck our stamp of approval, but I think the Boneless Roast Duck from Four Seasons is still the best, or most convenient to eat. just saying.

London Fat Duck 

*Multiple Branches in Singapore

VivoCity

1 Harbourfront Walk #B2-29

Singapore 098585

Tel: 6221-6689

www.londonfatduck.com.sg/locate-us/ 

Loved the Flat White at Sarnies

Off to a few weeks holiday. Looking forward to all the eating we plan on doing. Passing through Singapore but not long enough to grab a flat white from Sarnies. Perhaps on our way back we can.

Sarnies is one of the coffee shops that have been converted from shop houses in the Telok Ayer Area. It's a bit understated in a sense, compared to all the hipster places sprouting up left and right, but they have a loyal following because their coffee is really good.

The space inside is small, but they were quite busy for 3PM and
most of their clientele was foreign.

A lot of people came in to order lunch to take away.
Funny though because as I was there, this guy got a stick,
and started covering up the lunch menu with a curtain.

Voila! Lunch time is over. Hahaha. He did the same thing with the window,
he opened it slightly, so I guess the AC was too strong.

Can you spot the elephant on the wall?
I guess the mismatched not really put together vibe is it's own charm.

I'd come for the Flat White anyway. 

 

Maybe on my return flight I can. just saying.

*This blog is on a break, just like I am! Enjoy my previous posts and Happy Easter,

Sushi Ninja down South (of Manila)

My peg for sushi is Minami Saki!!! It's the best. You can read about it here.  

But if you're fond of maki and rolls, I'd say Sensei Sushi (post here), and Ooma of the same group but I think their Megamall branch is better than the BGC branch (post here), and Ogawa (post here) are good. I don't normally make it to the south, but when I found myself in Alabang for work, we tried Sushi Ninja, and I'd like to include it in my list of places with yummy maki rolls.

Sushi Ninja has a wide selection of rolls and traditional sushi.

I loved everything we ordered, except for tempura (which isn't sushi anyway).

Spicy Tuna Salad Php300

The Shinjuku Maki Php490 was great.
Though it's also spicy tuna inside since I don't like Salmon.

The Oedo Toshi Php360 or Wagyu Beef on Fried Sushi Ball was also good.

I normally need real food to go with my sushi, so I convinced everyone to order a few dishes to share.

I loved the Beef Yakitori (Php200 for 2 sticks).

It was so yummy, because there was so much fat camouflaged.

The tempura is a huge serving, but only order this if you
want Fried Breading and very little shrimp.

My friends also ordered the following dishes which I didn't try.

Gyuniku Sute-Ki Don Php395

Okinawa Toshi (Seared Salmon, Cream Cheese and Truffle Oil) Php360

Sushi Ninja is located in the same area as UCC. I would definitely come back for the rolls and the beef sticks, but only if I were already in the area. just saying.


Sushi Ninja
Westgate Center, 
Filinvest Ave, Alabang, 
Muntinlupa, 1770 
Metro Manila, Philippines

Phone: +63 2 556 7706

Healthy Snacking with Tahini-Free Herbed Hummus and Baba Ganoush

I've decided that I wanted to lose weight, hopefully in a sustainable way, so I went back to the Nutribullet diet. Sorry, no photos of that because no matter what I mix, my smoothie always comes out green.

The premise of the Nutribullet diet is you make a smoothie from fruit and vegetables (spinach and cucumber work best if you don't like the taste of drinking veggies - their flavors are mild enough to be masked by whatever fruit you mix in) and you take it as a meal replacement. The key is ensuring you use it to replace calories for one meal and not take it as additional calories.

I've tried stretching it further by taking mine for brunch. But for that to work, I needed low-calorie smart snacking solutions within the day for me to make it to dinner without feeling like I'm starving to death so I can eat sensibly or as I normally would.

While searching the net for ideas, I discovered that you could also use the Nutribullet to make healthy dips like my favorite Hummus and Baba-Ganoush and there are actually recipes where you can make them without Tahini (which is difficult to buy in the Philippines, and which also add calories to your dips).

After two attempts, I finally got my recipes just the way I want them. It's very easy to do so you can just mix it up, stick it in the fridge and voila! you have a healthy snack whenever you start to feel hungry.

Tahini Free Baba Ganoush

Ingredients:

1/3 cup parsley 

4 medium sized eggplants - grilled, skin removed

1 clove garlic

juice from half a lemon 

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Just mix everything in the Nutribullet then you're good to go. Eat with healthy chips or carrot/cucumber sticks if you really want something healthy.

Tahini Free Herb Hummus

Ingredients:

1/2 cup parsley 

1/2 cup basil

*Recipe called for 1/4 cup Tarragon (but I just put in more basil instead because I didn't have any)

1 big can chickpeas or garbanzos (450g) 

1/3 cup water from the canned chickpeas

1 clove garlic

juice from half a lemon 

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Just mix everything in the Nutribullet then you're good to go. Eat with healthy chips or carrot/cucumber sticks if you really want something healthy.

I personally like the Ritz Corn and Wheat Baked Chips or Carrot Sticks to go with my healthy dips. Seems to have worked too because I lost 1.3kg (close to 3 pounds in the first week). Now, the challenge is just making this part of my lifestyle, after our vacation in Europe of course! just saying.