For this installment of Eats in Cubao, my friend Andrei and I try out the food at Banapple at Gateway Mall. This was also my first time eating at Banapple so I didn't know what to get. hehe

We went here after our shift around 9 am, and nobody was around yet. Thankfully the branch is open from 8:00am until 10:00pm. The place was pretty cute. Each of their chandeliers were unique, but had similar styles, all had curly wire and red lamps on the end.

There's a huge mural of a meadow and trees on one wall. Then there were exploded sandwiches on another. The chairs are pretty simple, metal form and wooden seats. The table was adorable. It had like a million white thingies on it. Not so sure if they are marbles, more like round shaped white glass pebbles. hahaha

They will provide you with a menu upon entering the restaurant, but if you want to place your order you have to go to the counter and line up. They also had a bunch of pastries and cakes on display near the counter. Makes you want to try them all out!

We ordered 2 mains and 1 drink. All of which we split between the two of us. Then we also got a free Brownie Overload thanks to Smart's promotion. :) And then we proceed to wait for the food

We had to take a ton of photos while waiting... Of course.

We ordered three items that summed up to 596 and we also got the brownie which cost 75.

 Trio of Sausages Fettuccine P235

 Chicken Parmigiano P235

 Dark Chocolate Smoothie P125

Free Chocolate Chip Brownie Overload!!! (P75)

We were feeling pretty hungry when we came in the resto which is why we ordered two meals but the servings were pretty big so we didn't get to finish everything. We mopped up the chicken pretty quickly tho, down to the last morsel of rice. Both dishes were very good too! Loved the gooey mozzarella on the chicken and the sausages were amazing in the fettucine dish. The Dark Chocolate smoothie was to die for and the brownie was perfectly fudgy. It was soft and warm and not too sweet. Just perfect.

No qualms with the service too. We didn't wait too long for the food to be served and the waitress was nice enough to take our photo. Claiming the freebie wasn't a hassle.

Overall, Banapple is an awesome resto. It should be fine for 3 people to share the food we ordered. So it's pretty affordable as well. Definitely gonna bring my mom here soon. :D

Banapple
Ground Floor, Gateway Mall,
Araneta Center, Cubao,
Quezon City
02 4370204

Visited: September 10, 2016
Food Adventurers: Ana Carla Pagulayan, Andrei Lee

Cookie Mug Snack Lounge is a tiny cafe on the second floor of this modern looking building on Lilac Street. I saw the photo of the cookie with milk on a blog and I wanted to try it out myself!

This place is the main reason why I went to Lilac Street in the first place. Wahaha

Hello Betty Boop. 

We got 2 small cookie shots from the counter and paid P68 each. It's cheaper if you just want the cookie shot, but I wanted to try it out with the milk while we were there. 

Cookie Mugs and cookie shots selection.  

Coffee selection and flavored milk menu.

I really wanted to try the caramel milk or the mocha flavored one, but they were not available at the time we visited the cafe.

Compulsory selfie/twofie XD

A few minutes after paying for our order, they served the cold milk in cute tiny jars along with the cookie shots.

The cookie was nice and chewy, the chocolate was delicious, and combined with the cold milk that you drink out of the cookie makes it oh sooo wonderful!! XD

Of course we took several insta shots before eating the cookie shots.

A photo posted by Carla (@carurachan1) on Aug 19, 2016 at 11:15pm PDT

Milk shot :D #cookie #chocolate #milk #cookiecup

A photo posted by Carla (@carurachan1) on Aug 19, 2016 at 11:51pm PDT

This cookie shot is delicious!

A photo posted by Carla (@carurachan1) on Aug 20, 2016 at 8:13pm PDT

I absolutely loved the cookie shots!! XD I'd love to try the other variants of the cookie shots too. I'm definitely going back to this place!!

Cookie Mug Snack Lounge
116 Lilac Street,
SSS Village,
Concepcion Dos,
Marikina City

Visited: August 20, 2016
Adventurers: Ana Carla Pagulayan, Kat

On a crazy rainy Saturday afternoon, my friend Kat and I tried out a resto in the "Maginhawa" of Marikina, Lilac Street. We saw a lot of restaurants while walking around the place but we chose to eat at this orange colored restaurant that we saw in Bentt building.

Gao by Mandi's is on the ground floor of Bentt III. We were enticed mainly by the P99 peso deal plastered on their window. XD The place is designed with posters of race cars and the beatles posters on a background of bright orange. I don't see the connection with the name of the place, but we'll just roll with it. wahaha

Gao has a menu of meals, along with ready to eat viands that you can choose from. Price ranges from P90 and up.

 Kat and me while waiting for the crispy sisig. 

The crispy sisig takes around 7 minutes to be served because they still refry the pork before serving it.

Crispy Sisig Meal P99 

Lechon Kawali Meal P90

The Crispy sisig was very good. Waiting for the meat to be refried is worth the wait since it makes the meat and fat all crispy again. 

They also have a pretty neat drinks selection, and these are all non-alcoholic. XD

 They have 8 flavors that can be mixed to make 8 new drink flavors.

Purple Brew. 

Since I love purple, I chose the Purple Brew which is a mix of Blue Lemonade and Red Iced tea. Tasted pretty good too. A little too sweet tho, I mixed it with another glass of water to spread out the flavor.

Overall, we were very satisfied with the delish meal and awesome service. The waitress was very friendly and was telling us about the resto while waiting for our order. The owner's husband also came in and said hi. Would love to come back again! :D

Gao by Mandi's

Ground Floor, Bentt III Building, 

75 Lilac Street, 

SSS Village, Concepcion Dos, 

Marikina City

Visited: August 20, 2016
Adventurers: Ana Carla Pagulayan, Kat

For this week's Food Adventure, we tried out the different flavored chicken wings at Wing Stop in Glorietta 2, Makati.

Wing Stop has an ongoing promo called Flavor Invasion, you get to try a free chicken wing with a different flavor aside from the flavors that you will order. :D

We went to Wing Stop bearing coupons too. We used 2 different coupons from the Belle de Jour Power Planner. One for free Texas Style Fries and another for free Onion Rings.

The place was pretty empty save for 5 other people when we got there. It was spacious and well lit too. We settled in at a cool looking booth on the right side of the resto.

I ordered 5 pieces of wings in Honey Garlic flavor and a Free wing with Mild Buffalo flavor. With this order, I used the coupon for the free onion rings. Then I ordered 5 pieces of Garlic Parmesan wings with 1 free wing with Louisiana Rub flavor. Then used the coupon for the free fries.

Free Onion Rings and Texas Style Fries

Honey Garlic P195 for 5 pcs Battered Fried Wings

Garlic Parmesan P195 for 5 pcs Battered Fried Wings

Obligatory Groufie with the food. :D

Another obligatory Groufie with the food. :D

Wing Stop knows that eating wings is done better with your hands instead of with utensils. They provide plastic gloves so you won't need to wash your hands!

The food here is pretty good. The free sides, onion rings and fries, were quickly prepared and crispy and tasty. The chicken was cooked well and the flavors were pretty good. I loved the Honey Garlic flavor. But my least favorite was the Mild Buffalo one. Eughh It was too sour and neither of us liked it.

The service isn't bad but could be improved. They missed the second order by switching the flavors of the free wing and the actual order, so I had to take it back to the counter. Another thing that could be improved is their soap dispenser. When I tried to wash my hands the soap sprayed all over the place and went in my eyes. AAAAHHH

Overall, Wing Stop is a pretty good place to grab dinner and hangout. It's a sports bar mostly, since they are playing football and basketball channels on the TVs. Not really my thing but hey, if you like sports you might enjoy hanging out here. 

After eating til we're full, we still couldn't finish all the food we ordered so we still had take out for the next day. :D

Wing Stop
LG/F Glorietta 2, Palm Dr
Ayala Center, Makati
(02) 958-4656

Visited: June 25, 2016
Explorers: Ana Carla Pagulayan, Duane Carlo Pagulayan

Hey there! I'll be sharing my food trips all over Cubao in a series that I'll be calling Eats in Cubao. 

For this first installment, I went to Zark's Burgers in Shopwise to try out their burgers along with my friends, Sleepy, Kat and JR.

First Burger: The Jawbreaker.
This burger has spam, bacon and three burger patties, oozing with cheese sauce on top and some lettuce and tomato at the bottom. It also comes with fries and bottomless drink. Choice of blue lemonade or iced tea. Suggest that you get the blue lemonade, it tastes better.

Second Burger: Deep Fried Burger.
Pretty obvious right? It's a burger with the usual, burger patty, bed of lettuce and tomato, then battered and deep fried. Also comes with french fries and a drink. You can also choose what sauce to get with this burger. Jay ar chose a Rum Bbq sauce. It was pretty Rummy. wahaha

Third Burger: Zark's Ultimate Burger.
This burger has sauteed mushrooms and bacon with cheese sauce on top. mmm. Look at all the cheese!! I can't see the bacon tho. Bwahaha. This one is 150 on it's own, you have to add 35 to get the fries and drink.

There's four of us in the first pic but we got three burgers. Sleepy and I split the Jawbreaker burger coz I know I just can't finish it on my own. XD

Jay ar was very happy with his choice.

Sleepy wasn't so sleepy with the Jawbreaker. Yup, the burger was almost as tall as the glass. XD 

It was absolutely delicious too. 

Pros:

Food tastes great

Trendy resto design

Burgers price range from 150 - 500

Cons:

Service is a little slow

Overall: Good!

If you want delicious and juicy burgers at a pretty good price then drop by Zark's. Just make sure you're not famished when you go here or impatient. These burgers don't get cooked in just a minute. Another good tip is to go to the restaurant at non peak hours. Before or after lunch/dinner rush, just to make sure there are seats. Also try to bring at least Php 400 per head just to be sure. The prices on the menu change depending on the branch so I decided not to post a price here. 

Interesting story that day: there were foreigners who came in the resto and sat at a table next to us, you'll see them behind Sleepy's photo above. So the crew asked for their order in English, expecting that they will respond in English too. But they spoke in Filipino!!

Wahaha XD Just surprising to hear straight Tagalog from a Foreigner, but it's cool!

If you liked this post, watch out for other Eats in Cubao posts on the blog soon!

Shopwise Cubao
Shopwise Arcade, Gen Aguinaldo Ave
Cubao, Quezon City
+63 9054931016

Visited April 30, 2016
+Ana Carla Pagulayan