How to: make s'mores using oven toaster

What did you do with the chocolates you received from Valentine's Day? If you haven't had them yet then here's a good use for them!

You'll need Graham Crackers, Marshmallows, Chocolates.
Simply cut the Graham Crackers, place a marshmallow on top and then a chocolate on top of the marshmallow.
It would help if you create a small crater inside the marshmallow so the chocolate doesn't roll over when it starts to melt.

Heat it in a regular oven toaster for a couple of minutes. Put another Graham Cracker on top of the whole of the marshmallow+chocolate and press it to create a "sandwich".

Enjoy!

Fresh, cheap strawberries

I loooove fresh strawberries! My sister bought me three packs of strawberries somewhere near UST. A pack is as pictured below. It's around Php40 per pack -- that's amazingly cheap since they sell the same stuff in the groceries for twice the price.

I had my strawberries for dessert. I dipped them in condense milk :D

Heaven n Eggs - Valentine's Day Breakfast

We were busy on Valentine's Day so we had to schedule our date in the morning - it's a breakfast Valentine's Day date! We went to our usual breakfast restaurant preference: Heaven n Eggs.

Ham and Cheese omelette

Rock U Like a Hurricane

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancake

Customer Service - we're terrible at it

I had dinner in Pepper Lunch in Rockwell late last week. The food is superb as usual - the servings and the taste make the somewhat expensive dishes worth it.

Yes, I still consider a Php250 plate expensive in the same way I think a Php400 blouse is expensive. Affordable plates are around Php150, whereas affordable, pretty tops are around Php. And yes, I do find it very difficult to buy new pairs of footwear because I need above average foot comfort. But no, jeans come very cheap with me at around Php350 per pair.

Anyway, I wanted to say something about restaurant service because of my last visit in Pepper Lunch: why do I (like most Filipinos) find it difficult to assert my right to receive quality goods and quality service?

What happened was my boyfriend ordered one chicken plate and one beef plate with extra egg. The orders appear on the cashier screen but he didn't bother to check. When the price appeared, he paid and we took our seats.

When the waiter came to deliver one order, we mentioned that mine was a chicken dish. He seemed confused and asked for our receipt. And our receipts showed two beef plates, no extra egg order. He told us to take it up on the cashier. We did and it was a smooth order update - with only a small hint of annoyance from the cashier's demeanor.

That would have been a pretty good transaction if it ended there. But then we heard the waiters talking (quite loudly) that the order was changed. "Ayaw e" (They don't want [to stick to the first order]). "Magkano nanaman yan?" (How much more will that cost us?)

When that happened, the whole thing felt unforgivable. I'm on the edge of filing an official complaint but my friends really like the food in that restaurant and I don't want any negative relationship with their staff... I always feel like I'm at the mercy of the people who prepare my food.

So now I'm thinking:
• Should I have stuck with the wrongly punched order?
• Is it the customer's responsibility to make sure the cashier does her job right?

Sure it would have saved everyone the trouble if we checked the order, but why did the cashier get two out of three items wrong? It would have saved everyone the trouble if she did her job right. She could have, at the very least asked, "Please check your order on the screen".

I'm personally concerned because I don't know how such negligence/mistakes affect the employees' salaries.

And I'm personally concerned because customer service generally sucks in the Philippines. But that incident with the employees talking like that was totally out of line. I would not have tolerated it if it were a casual incident, and I hate that paying customers have to experience it.

I'm not singling out Pepper Lunch's service. We've been there a dozen times and it's only this last visit that this happened. It really feels like a problem rooting from our culture - it's happening everywhere. We have to fix this somehow.

How to: make Kimbap (Korean sushi)

Our Korean friends invited us over for a Kimbap-making session. They taught us how to make them. I still remember how but it's a bit tiring to write it all down when it's basically "cook everything that needs cooking then roll them all in rice and nori. Slice and you're done."

So I'll just tell you the ingredients we actually used.

• Pickled radish (the fat yellow sticks) - wash and squeeze
• Burdock root - wash and squeeze
• Fried julienned Carrots - then put some salt
• Boiled spinach - then put some sesame oil and salt 
• Scrambled egg
• "Meat" - we had Korean spam, Kikiam, Tuna spread
• Rice - with sesame oil and 
• Nori for rolling it all in
• And that bamboo mat that you use for rolling sushi

You can basically do whatever you want. If you eat it with rice or you think it will taste good with any fried dish + rice, then you can stick it in.

Here's how our ingredients and final product looked:

Left side: fried julinned carrots
Right side: boiled spinach

Tuna spread - mix it all up! I'd personally prefer diced onions. 

A clean table so you'd feel like a professional chef when you roll those kimbap.

Scrambled eggs and kikiam.

Rice with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and salt.

The darker colored slices are burdock root. And the yellow ones are pickled radish. You can buy them packed and sliced like the above pic.

And now we eat!

Army Navy's "pizza" (open faced quesadilla)

This is Army navy's open faced quesadilla - plain. You can add pork or chicken toppings for an additional Php50 or something. I was good with just (a lot of) cheese.

Had 3/4 of this for snack. It's super thin - instead of pizza flour, it's just tortilla. Great, great snack!

Jamba Juice at Fort Bonifacio High Street

We visited Jamba Juice, in front of Fort Bonifacio High Street, for the first time after a morning workout. We ordered shakes: a Protein Berry Workout (strawberries, bananas, soymilk, protein boost) and a Razzmatazz (mixed berry juice, strawberries, bananas, orange sherbet). We got free "antioxidant boosts" because of some promo...

My Protein Berry Workout was only 16oz (smallest size) but it filled me up quick - so that's what I had post workout.  With 54g of Carb and 17g of protein - that's pretty good for a fruit shake. (Check out their nutrition facts: http://www.jambajuice.com/component/nutfacts)

Cibo's family servings

This is a Rigatoni All 'Alfonso family serving. That's around Php550. It comes with bread -- in their usual cute heart shapes since February is near.

This is a mushroom something pizza with extra anchovies. The boyfriend can usually finish this by himself. Goes well with chili oil!

Read more about Cibo.

Desserts make me happy

On a slow day, desserts make me happy. It also keeps me from going "all out" on my meal because I tend to leave space for the dessert carbs :)

I still have no idea where they got the strawberry cake they served  us after lunch but I'll find out soon! I want to bring  home to my mom and sister - it's their kind of cake. They like it "not too sweet". Best paired with brewed coffee with zero sweetener :D

Atchiote in Rockwell

Follow up on my first Atchiote post, here are some more mouth watering pictures.
We ended up eating there several more times in the past month. Good food, "OK" service. We're happy the food quality is consistent - hope it does well in the long run.

Their salad turns out to be my favorite dish!

Salad! Lots of guacamole and stuff... The side salad that comes with their dishes is sweeter. I think I'll ask for the same vinaigrette sauce next time.

The two stuff on the left are (1) garlic sauce, (2) hot sauce. Beware of the hot sauce!
On the upper right corner is their Cheese Quesadilla - has like five kinds of cheese in it.

Here we have their Chicken Tinga Quesadilla. It tastes like pizza!!!

Brew-Kus breakfast

Poster of good looking food on Brew-Kus walls.

I had breakfast with boyfriend and girl friend in Brew-Kus, Tuesday morning. I insisted on trying out the restaurant because I saw the ad on ClickTheCity (why don't they have their menu up on MunchPunch?) and I wanted to try their awesome looking pancakes.

I am glad to announce, that what I expected, Brew-Kus delivered. Below: (1) ClickTheCity ad, (2) what they actually served me.

ClickTheCity ad of Brew-Kus.

It's so amazing to have a handsome looking stack of pancakes for breakfast! It looks exactly like what they advertise and that made it an even better experience!

So I'll just shower you with more Brew-Kus pictures:

This is my Assam Tea Latte with Pearls. I couldn't finish it after I had my pancakes so I ended up bringing it to the office and putting in the freezer for afternoon snack. I'm not a tea/shake person but I do like Serenitea and dislike ChaTime. Brew-Kus drinks are more of a Serenitea quality.

On your left is the Medium sized hot drink: Caffe Mocha; very chocolaty. My boyfriend liked it. He said it has just enough chocolate in it. I'm more of a "batirol" kind of person so I wouldn't know what a good/bad Caffe Mocha is. I'll take his word for it.
On your right is the small sized hot drink: an Amerikano. I didn't get to experience it but my girl friend had no complaints so I assume it was good.

Monday to Friday 7:00am to 9:00pm

Saturday 7:00am to 2:00pm

Unit G-02, 139 Corporate Center

139 Valero St., Salcedo Village

Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines

This is a chicken something sandwich. We like cheese and this would have been perfect if it had the sticky mozzarella cheese that you have to pull because you can't cut it clean... Very filling. I'd give it a 7 out 10. It would get a 9 if the cheese was better.

This is their deli sandwich. It would do better with mustard but I'm also not a deli-sandwich. Boyfriend said it was good and has decreed that we'd try out more of their foods on our next visit.

My First Running Injury ever: recovery

Mid December 2012, on a regular morning run, I felt a sudden pain on my groin. It turned out to be Grade 3 Groin Pull. It was a painful couple of weeks when even sneezing and coughing was unbearable. My Orthopedic doctor told me to get an MRI just to make sure I didn't have any spine-related injuries. Thankfully, my spine is normal and it's just myofascial pain syndrome.

So six weeks later, I am now confident enough to ease back into running. I had a couple of "test runs" last week; short, slow ones. It was only yesterday that I went for 5km. I successfully completed it with only a very slight discomfort on my groin. Unfortunately, "runner's trot" kicked in - Translation: I earned a bad case of diarrhea.

Whenever I increase my distance in running, I get diarrhea. It lasts for a full day, and I usually need to take medicines or I'd also end up triggering an acid attack. Here's what I usually do:
1. Take one sachet of hydrite every after liquid poop
2. If I'm already on my third sachet of hydrite and my poop is not getting any better: take two loperamide (Imodium)
3. After #2, if I still poop water, then I take on more Imodium and one more hydrite
Things should get better really quick from this point.
But from my experience, I usually need to sleep on it and I'd feel 80% better the next day.

Doc-to-be-sister told me to take Motilium after my next [long] run, if I expect to get diarrhea. I'm going to try that next week. But until my stomach/ass returns to normal, no runs for me.