Pinto Revisited, Siraulo Lunch and Lunch with the Family at Kulay Diwa

It was an artsy-fartsy relaxing weekend for us which is actually Sofia's idea of fun. With nothing really planned for Saturday, we impulsively decided to make the trip to Antipolo so we could take my Aunt, who's visiting from the States, to Pinto Art Museum, and so we could also buy suman (sticky rice rolls) and cashew nuts which are all sold beside the famous Antipolo Church.

I've been to Pinto Art Museum before, and I knew Sofia and my aunt would enjoy it so we went just in time to have a late lunch.

Sofia read looked at the pictures from the post I wrote on Pinto, so before we could go straight to lunch at Siraulo sa Pinto by Bizu, we had to stop so Sofia could also take pictures where she saw me and my friends posing.

Family Field Trip

Model pose before we start exploring

Our favorite Horsey

Pass the message

Looks like the hula hoops are too big for this little girl. 

After a few stops, we just took the short way to the restaurant, and we just worked our way back after we ate. The service at the restaurant was extremely slow, but the food was quite good when it finally arrived. Servings are small though so it felt mejo bitin.

We ordered the duck and truffle pasta dishes,
fried sole and roast chicken. 

The main dishes (non-pasta) were the best value because for Php595, it comes with Soup of the Day - the Tomato Soup was good unless we were just starving, and dessert (which is Php265 if ordered separately) was to die for.

The yema tart was so good! Though in reality, it's more puff pastry
than yema, but it's served with a big scoop of the best
Salted Caramel Ice Cream I've ever tasted. Goes really well with the tart!

We actually ended up ordering two main dishes because
Ady also wanted to try the Molten Chocolate Cake,
which was good in hindsight since the servings were really small.

It was only when they brought out the dessert did we realize why it took so long, it probably took them forever to paint the trees on the dessert plates, but it was definitely in tune with the ambiance of the place.

The two chocoholics were happy.

After lunch, we did more exploring to burn off the carbs.

Sofia was jut running around everywhere!

But she would occasionally stop for a few more model poses.

This little brainiac on the brain chair
loves interactive museums.

We couldn't resist taking a picture with the inverted pirate.

We would have loved to walk around some more but we had to run when the sky started getting dark. We made it just in time to buy the suman and cashews from beside the church before it started pouring. Over-all it was a good outing and we were all happy we decided to go.

But our artsy-fartsy weekend was in no way over. Tito Bobbit invited us for Sunday lunch at Kulay Diwa, an art gallery which was also his home.

Count that! I spy 1 - 2 - 3 little piggies!
Charlie was able to blow their house down so they became pritchon!

We were less than 20 people so there was even pritchon
left over for dinner. Yummy!

There was also pasta

and prawns and so much other food.

Sofia ate so fast because she wanted to run around and play.

On the swing

We had to take a picture with our matching shorts
because Sof wanted to jump into the pool.

If Sofia were a little mermaid she'd look like this.
She's such a water baby she went swimming in her undies
 because she didn't bring her swimsuit.

Bonding with buddha.

Family Picture with San Agustin aunts, uncles, cousins,
nieces and nephews.

Thanks for inviting us over Tito Bobbit! The company was great and the three little piggie pritchon was excellent.  Hope your CCTV wasn't working. just saying.

Family Mooncake Festival 2013

It's PuaTiongChu (mooncake festival dice game) time of the year again, and this year the Mid-Autumn Festival happened to be in September, so it was also the perfect time to celebrate the birthdays of the five celebrants in our family.

Happy Birthday Auntie Stell!
Thanks for hosting, and for the yummy turkey!

My favorite quote of the day is Jo-E asking
if the turkey stuffing is sisig (pork cheeks).

There was so much good food, but I really loved the
Mango Duck Salad.

I didn't get to try the pritchon (fried suckling piglet) but
I couldn't resist taking a picture with the mooncake pig.

Taikong always likes to try to carry Sof,
but we all stop him because he might break his back.
Photobomber Ninong Jacob included at the back.

Taikong wanted a better picture so we did
a re-take.

Happy Birthday Lukey, Auntie Stella, Ninang Angeli,
Uncle Boy and Jo-E!

As part of our family mooncake the tradition, it's normally last year's winner who sponsors this year's game, and fortunately or unfortunately for me, Sofia won last year, so I had to organize this year's prizes.

Last year's winner and our Unilever Showcase! Hahaha.
Deos for the whole family!!!

I didn't realize we didn't have dice, good thing auntie Stell had
the coolest chrome dice giveaways for the guys!
Thanks Lolo Aris, Uncle Mig and Ninong Tim for donating yours!

Thanks Auntie Stell for the words of wisdom on the girls giveaway!

No matter what the prizes are, everyone in our family
always takes this game seriously.

Congrats Miggy!!!
I really hope the prizes next year is not a P&G showcase!

Hope everyone has a happy harvest! just saying.

Sinfully good food from Main Street in McKinley Hill

Sorry I haven't blogged in ages. My day job took over my life, then flu germs from Sofia made me a zombie for two weeks (sorry if that's TMI), then the day job took over again. Excuses, excuses, I have a lot of them I know, but I'm back to blogging for now because we tried this new place on McKinley Hill and I must say, I enjoyed it a lot so I am already planning to invite family and friends to go back.

For full disclosure, I'll admit that we tried out Main Street because one of my friends owns part of it and it opened just a few weeks ago. I thought we were jut eating there to be supportive,  and I wasn't expecting to be impressed. (Dennis- no offence meant!)

We went for dinner after work, so with the bad traffic from Manila, all of us arrived starving. It's a good thing the starters were so good, we were happy to stuff ourselves with it while waiting for the others to arrive.

The deadliest dish we tried. Also the common favorite.
Pork Belly with Salsa Verde and Garlic Bread

The crunchy pork belly is chopped in small pieces so you don't even get a chance to remove the fat because it's easier to pretend that you don't see any. The salsa verde and garlic bread go really well with it that each bite is like an explosion of flavor (and fat!) in your mouth, you'll be immediately asking for Coke Zero to go with it. I think it would go really well with rice too, except I pretend I don't eat rice.

The Moules Frites (Mussels and Fries) is also very good.
Dunking garlic bread into the buttery white wine (guessing!)
sauce brings back memories of Leon's.

We also really enjoyed the Poutine (Chunky Fries,
Rich Gravy, and Mozarella Chunks).

We also ordered Main dishes, but I may have gotten full from the starters already because I only really enjoyed one dish.

Steak and Eggs on top of rice with herbs.
I think you can never go wrong when you put Steak and Eggs together. 

Main Street also serves homemade Ice Cream in interesting flavors such as Maple Bacon (but I found the maple taste too strong, pancake nalang kulang!), Smores, Maltesers, and Cookie Dough. A lot of my friends liked it but I honestly thought the Ice Cream was too sweet and except for the maple, everything sort of tasted the same. Give me Ben & Jerry's any day.

Overall, I enjoyed the meal and the company. I think their pricing is reasonable coming from some comments I heard, but I didn't really get a chance to look at the menu. I can't wait to bring my moules and poutine loving best friends and siblings to try it. just saying.

MAIN STREET

Upper McKinley Road
Taguig

https://www.facebook.com/main.st.restaurant

Apologies for the bad photos, I took the pictures with my tablet.