For this Weekend Food Adventure, me, my mom Lita, and my sister Elissa visit the newest mall in Makati, Century City Mall.

I acquired a voucher from Deal Grocer for a discount at Pepper Lunch at that branch. So since we haven't tried Pepper Lunch before and we haven't visited Century City Mall yet, we got to do both at the same time.

On a side note, this is also the same day that I tried Uber for the first time and I was absolutely impressed with the experience. You can read more about my experience with Uber here:
http://carurachan.blogspot.com/2014/10/uber-rider-experience-my-experience.html

Century City Mall was pretty new when we visited it, and most of the stalls don't have shops in them yet. But it was quite fancy.

The city skyline is visible from the top floor of the mall, which also has an events hall.

There was an ongoing event when we dropped by. It was a small bazaar of local crafts.
There were free mini cupcakes too!


After walking around the mall, we went straight to Pepper Lunch at the Ground floor and ordered our lunch. :D

Pepper Lunch serves raw meat on hot plates that retain their heat and allows you to cook the meat right at your table. You have to make sure you cook the meat properly before you start eating. You're better off eating somewhere else if you're gonna eat the food immediately once served. At Pepper Lunch, a little bit of patience is needed. :D

These are all the items we ordered:

Teriyaki Beef Rice P325

Chicken Steak BBQ Beef Rice P320

Salmon Chicken Rice P335

Beef Pepper Rice P198

Choco Lava Cake P145 & Goma Ice Cream P55

Tuna Kani Salad

We got a total of 7 items from the menu for just P800 instead of P1500 thanks to the discount voucher from Deal Grocer!

We were not too hungry when we visited the restaurant so the food was cooked well within the advised time period before we started tasting everything. All the rice meals tasted great. Even better when you add the sauce from the condiments table that I totally forgot to take a picture of. But for me, the best thing from all the items we tried was the cheapest rice meal: The Beef Pepper Rice. It was just simple thinly sliced beef with corn and rice and a LOT of PEPPER. It really appealed to me more than the other dishes. So yeah, I'll be getting that one every time now.

Also something to not order ever is the Tuna Kani salad thingy. It didn't make sense. It was supposed to be a Shaked Salad and we shaked it! But it didn't taste good at all. Just avoid getting a salad here if you can.

Their desserts were pretty good tho. The lava cake was super moist and chocolatey and is a perfect match with the vanilla ice cream with Goma (aka roasted sesame) syrup. You can also order other flavors of the syrup but I really liked the goma flavor.

And that's it. We didn't get to finish everything since there were only three of us but we got to take out the rest. Definitely coming back to Pepper Lunch for the Beef Pepper Rice once I get a hankering for it.

Pepper Lunch
Lower Ground Floor,
Century City Mall,
Kalayaan Avenue,
Poblacion, Makati City
02 8901462

Explorers: +Ana Carla Pagulayan +Carmelita Pagulayan +Ma.Elissa Pagulayan
Visited: May 24, 2014

For this Weekend Adventure, the Food Explorers visit Ginza Bairin for another quick culinary trip to Japan. :D We're here to eat Tonkatsu!

Ginza Bairin is located on the side of Glorietta 2 in Makati. It was first established in the Ginza prefecture of Tokyo. This is our first time to try their Tonkatsu or Japanese Pork Cutlet. I found out about it from Deal Grocer. I found a voucher for this restaurant for P1000 worth of food for only P600. :D

Let's take a look at the menu first. We have to make sure the total amount that we order is just around 1000! :D

I quite like the lights in here. ^_^

We can see the kitchen from our table, well mostly me. I don't see everything, but I can see them prep the meals before they are taken out by the waiters.

We went here on a Friday night and the place is packed!

On the table you have your usual Japanese condiments. It's similar to the ones from Yabu somehow. You have 2 dressings: Roasted Sesame Dressing and Wasabi Shoya Dressing. Then there's the soy sauce, bean paste, chili powder and pepper.

I can't believe that this restaurant was established in 1927. That's crazy!

Compulsory selfie. :D

I like the free drink that they offer. This is the Iced House tea.

This is the hot tea. Also free. And you can drink as much as you want.

My brother didn't want to drink the hot tea. It was pretty much the same anyway. The temperature is the only thing that's different.

Yey! The food is here! Time for a photo! :D

Hire Katsu P395

Thanks to the discount, we got to avail of two main dishes, Hire Katsu set and Menchi Katsu Set. We also got to try one side dish: Gyoza.

Menchi Katsu P375

Gyoza P150

The food was delicious! All the sections of the Katsu set were tasty. The Menchi Katsu I had was nice hot and crispy with oozy cheese in the middle, cabbage was nice and cold, the rice was sticky and wonderful, and they had some fresh fruit too!

The service in the restaurant was sort of okay. As our meal was an unli rice meal, you had to ask the waiter for rice each and every time you finished the rice in your bowl. Here's the thing, I was with my youngest brother Bingo, and he eats a lot. The refills that they give of the rice is only one mouthful or 2 tablespoons and we had to ask for rice several times (maybe 5) until he got to eat enough to be full.

Vanilla Ice Cream P80, Matcha Ice Cream Free!

Another awesome thing I liked at Ginza Bairin, was that they offer free ice cream as long as you post a photo of your food or anything and tagged their instagram account. I got the matcha green tea flavored ice cream as the freebie. Then my brother chose to get the Vanilla Ice Cream. We just bought the extra 2 scoops of ice cream for P80.

Happy and full!! Til next time!

Overall, the meal, the ambiance and the service is pretty good. Definitely coming back.

Ginza Bairin
Glorietta 2
G/F Glorietta 2, Palm Dr
Ayala Center, Makati
(02) 553-7350

Explorers: +Ana Carla Pagulayan +Renz Pagulayan

Visited: October 24, 2014

This is supposed to be another Wonderful Weekend Adventure post. But I'm afraid it wasn't as wonderful as I'd planned. Sad face.

Vyne is a modern bar and resto found on the 8th floor of W Global Building in BGC. If you've partied at Hyve before, Vyne is just right across it. This is the resto that people can grab a classy and expensive dinner before blowing the rest of their cash at Hyve afterwards.

Before going to the resto, we went to SM Aura first for the Blogapalooza event. I think, I'll write a blog post about that in the distant future.

This is me and my sister just posing in front of the fountain at Serendra. 

So first things first, why are we even at the resto? Well it's all thanks to Deal Grocer. I got a voucher from them worth P1000 for around P600. I bought two vouchers and got P2000 worth for just P1200. So it's a 40% discount, not bad right?  But the food was really pricey, so we only got to try four food items plus drinks.

Me and sis have to take a selfie of course. :D

We're not hipsters but yes, we like taking photos before we eat. Problem? ;D

Oh, just wanted to point out that all the Tapas (Appetizers) were served on a piece of slate instead of on a plate. It's so cool!  

First Tapas: Sisig Empanada P250

When we were done taking our photos and selfies, that's when we started eating. We ate the Sisig Empanada first. That was glorious. It was hot savory, the crust was flaky and soft. And I loved the filling so so much. That was the best thing I've eaten ever. well of course at that time, I was also quite hungry then. You can dip it in the vinegar or in you can put some of the sauce on the slate. But wether you dip it or not it's awesome all the same. Just one small complaint is that there is only 5 pcs on the plate.

Second Tapas: Beef Wellington Burger Sliders P495

The next one we ate was the Beef Wellington Burger Sliders. Those were okay. It's just three small pieces of mini burgers. I wasn't too happy with that fact. But they tasted okay. Juicy and flavorful all the same, but the bread layer is a little hard. Might be because they made it in Wellington style. So yeah, needs some improvement.

Third Tapas: Korean Fried Chicken P380

The next thing we tried was the Korean Fried Chicken. These were pretty good. On the plate were 6 pieces of wings (or 3 whole wings) that were deep fried and coated with a sweet glaze and  sprinkled with sesame seeds. They tasted okay and the dip was pretty good too, but gawd the serving size is small.

Our drinks: Lychee Martini P280 and Maitai P220

The drinks were delish too. I loved my Maitai. It was sweet and fruity and oh so alcoholic! XD My sister chose the Lychee Martini, but she wasn't too happy with her choice. haha. I'm glad the waiter knew the drinks menu well enough to recommend a decent drink to me.

Now on to the last part of our meal. the main dish. This was supposed to be the best thing from the items we ordered because it's a friggin MAIN DISH! Like a Main Event in a boxing match, every other fight is not even worth watching, you're there to see the Main Event.

But this Main dish was a serious disappointment. *Sigh*

Main Dish: Chicken Roulade P420

At first look, the chicken roulade looked pretty good. It was served on a large white plate this time and had swipes of sauces on it and mashed potatoes as base. You gotta admit it looked like a pretty darn good dish. I'd like to think that the Chef of this resto is quite proud of their presentation of each dish. And I totally agree. The presentation is amazing. But you have to have decent ingredients. And this one didn't.

Here's the thing, I know what old chicken smells like. I've stocked chicken as well and forgot to cook it until weeks later. When I actually cooked it (Well not me, my sister did) it smelled bad and this dish smelled way worse. Chicken Roulade is basically chicken breast that is rolled with cheese and then baked, not fried. And baking doesn't hide the smell of old chicken at all. I'm also thinking that the old stock of chicken used in the Korean Fried Chicken is the same stock of chicken used for the roulade. But since the KFC was DEEP FRIED, the old chicken smell and taste was totally masked. Therefore it was delicious.

Another thing to note is that the chicken looked raw. It looked raw and gross and disgusting and I didn't want to eat it at all.

Gross looking Chicken Roulade

I told the waiter that the chicken was gross and looks raw. And they said it was fine and that it's cooked properly. So I just thought "I guess, they don't accept returns?"

Raw looking Chicken Roulade

What started as a pretty good night out ended a bit awkwardly. I wasn't hoping for a refund or anything but I was hoping they'd use fresh chicken or otherwise warn people not to get Chicken Roulade. Oh well. *Shaking head*

I left them the feedback that the chicken wasn't fresh, and they were like "Thanks." That's it. :(
Aren't you going to do anything about it? You're just gonna keep using old chicken aren't you?

Overall, I think Vyne is Okay. The place looks fantastic and it can be a cool hangout for friends. The service is quick. I quite liked the drinks we ordered and the food is okay too, but if the ingredient isn't fresh, I'd rather not order it. Another complaint is that this place has a very small serving size of the food. And this is common throughout all the items we ordered. I guess you're paying for the presentation. But yeah, if you ask me if I'm going back to this place, Hell No. The food is too pricey and I'd rather just cook my own chicken roulade at home than pay almost 500 for old stock chicken roulade.

Vyne
Eight Floor, W Global Center,
9th Avenue Corner 30th Street,
Bonifacio Global City,
Taguig City

Food Explorers: +Ana Carla Pagulayan +Ma.Elissa Pagulayan

Visited: October 2014

For this Weekend Adventure, the Food Explorers visit Marmalade Kitchen in The Forum @ BGC.

This is probably the 3rd time we went to The Forum to eat at a resto. Which is awesome. Just shows how many restaurants there are in the place. I've counted at least 8 restos, well including Mcdonald's. :)

Marmalade Kitchen is on the second floor of Forum. It's cutesy cafe/resto that has a lot of quirky deco..

 There are also a lot of food items for sale on display.

While waiting for our order, we took some more selfies.

Their menu had soups, pasta, sandwiches, and best of all cakes! For drinks you can go for their healthy smoothies or you can choose from their coffees.

Grilled Eggplant and Mozzarella with Pesto Spread on Focaccia Bread

Southern Spicy Wings and rice

Freshly pressed juice

 Green Apple, Celery and Spinach Juice. (I just wanted to try their fresh pressed juice, and the waitress said it was one of their best sellers but when I tasted it...)Eeewwllllcghhgggg 

Fallen chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream topping

The spicy chicken wings were not that spicy nor were they any good. The fresh juice was just awful I absolutely hated it. But thankfully the Eggplant Parmesan sandwich and the Fallen cake was awesome. So overall in the four items we ordered, only half taste good. The other half were not that good. Well for me and my sister at least. You'll have to try the food yourself, but you reaaally have to try the eggplant parmesan sandwich! :D

I guess, the place is an okay spot to grab a nice snack. I also noticed some groups just buying coffee and pastries. So it's a pretty cool place to hangout in. The service is quick, the crew was friendly and accommodating. It's just that the food is hit or miss. Will come back for the Eggplant Parm and the Fallen cake. :)

Marmalade Kitchen
The Forum,
7th Avenue Corner Federacion Drive,  
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
02 6229196


Explorers: +Ana Carla Pagulayan +Ma.Elissa Pagulayan
Visited: February 23, 2014