Debunking Conyo Spawned Lore and Sonja's Cupcakes

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake

the muffin is too sweet. though the chocolate flavor is just right. the peanut butter and blueberry topping taste quite well.

they have the formula down pat. the texture is ok. its not crumbly. they could have made it a bit more moist, though.we dont have any idea of  what the topping was made of other than the pbj, but it looks like mangled brain with curdled blood. :-)

we gave it a 3 out of 5.

Chocolate Muffin  with Blue sugar sprinkles

same muffin as above. the only diffence is the topping. made of chocolate with cream and lots of confectioners sugar and for contrast they added blue sprinkles. totally unremarkable .the cocoa that they use doesn't taste 'high end'. i thought they are using valrhona. it just taste like ricoa.

i'll take shopwise's chocolate cupcake.

we gave it 2.5.

Red Velvet

its the high end pan de regla. just a few notch higher than your local bakery's pudding.

i'll take donkin donut's red velvet anytime. all the time.

from what i know velvet cakes are chocolate cakes with red food color. i don't feel any trace of chocolate. zilch.

the only thing that saved this cupcake was the topping. its a bit sour, creamy and sweet at the same time. just right.

we gave it 2.

the jowa and i didnt have the kilig while eating. we were a bit puzzled why it popped. i mean, sure the exclusivity and the prohibitive price 

works like the way Mac fanboys gobbles anything Apple. but we just didnt feel happy after eating. the sugar high is not enough to make us say yes, its worth it.

it doesnt taste significantly different from my college days of making muffins. partida, i was only using palengke flour, star margarine plus palengke shortening back then.

so much for the hype of 'finest and freshest ingredient'. no it doesnt make a major difference.

methinks that the litmus taste for so called 'luxury items' is when you take it home and your delighted by it.

Sonja's cupcake was just an ordinary cupcake after taking away the Serendra appeal.

i guess the bulk of their earnings per cupcake goes to their lease. not towards their inventory of their 'freshest and finest ingredient'.

the last time that we feel like this was when we ate in Makati Shang Ri-La's Circles. it only proves that the conyo crowd and other food bloggers are not the better judge.

cupcakes are not acquired taste. its the happy feeling that you get that counts. sadface.

dream on.

right now, i am a paper millionaire. flying on paper airplanes, on a crayon blue sky. 

yellow butter sun. you can't melt. 

rain will not come. not yet.

paper boats. silly dreams.

it's not silly.

i am working on it.

belgium, venice and japan i already have you pinpointed on my little map.

(must invest in alternative energy penny stocks)

its raining books and exams on a rainy August

its been a busy month.
august started with the day 1 of my training in this stock brokerage firm. we are required to pass two licensure exams (s7 and s63). required to study 22 cahpters in 3weeks. each day on training consists of discussion of two chapters. 2 quizzes, one long topic test (120 items, on the average). weekends were alotted to studying, to the point of going to work for group study/self study with videos/ catch up with the online exams.

this training has been my karma. i've slacked off most of my life. i had it easy in school. even if we have special curriculum in high school. AB Pol Sci was a breeze. i haven't really picked up textbook as far as i can remember (oh yes, it save my mom alot of budgetary pains each school year!)

i love to read but textbooks are just is not my thing. i love answering online quizzes if its on friendster (yikes!) or  other online sources. but this s7 review is just killing me. it must have burned nerve endings inside me.

that or it made my IQ skyrocket, resulting to a positive yield curve with no signs of letting up. methinks that i have gone past my resistance level. measure my IQ pls. haha.

so i have to lost most of my me-time. my jowa time.

but since i am one hell of a multi-tasker i was able to squeeze in a photoshoot.

that's my good friend of 6 years and his bride. i took the photos, kumag did the make up.

but prior to that, kumag and i  gallivanted around makati on a rainy night with a fellow photo-hobbyist (Vince Condicion). he took our pre-nup shots.

so i guess these are the reasons why i wasn't able to blog as much as i want to.

today we just had our second pre-final exams (two more to go!), thanks to my ultra short attention span i barely made it. hanging! 70% was my rating, 70% was the minimum that you can get to pass. 

right now on my lap, i have this little booklet that summarizes the 22 chapters, as opposed to the humungous ring bound four inch thick textbook that i have to drag to office for the past three weeks.

going for the gold, is the catchphrase. i have to steadfastly fight off any idea of resignation/quitting because right now it surely is tempting to do so.

so help me Papa Jesus.

randomness

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resignations.

leaving doesn't mean that you quit. it only means salvaging everything that you can.

staying could mean deserting yourself. compromising your principles. settling for less. pacencia cookies is not for me. 

besides, the world is our apple. 

kumag, we are going to take a big bite of it!

for kumag who also resigned from work, effective today. 

-pacencia  cookies is not good for anyone. 

busy.

last week was kind of hectic for me.
so i resigned from work. haha. will be posting updates in 5 days.

kylie tonight.

someone's not coming to work tonight. i'll be sick boss!
see yah kylie!

Ghazal

Kumag picked me up from work at 8am. Then off we went to Manila for Ghazal. The place was kind of hard to locate since the address that we have was just Mabini St , cor. Ermita. After 20 minutes of walking around Mabini and asking a few people on the street we were finally able to spot the place.

It looks a bit like a money changer says kumag,  I agree.  We got there around 930am, and Ate was wiping the tables, she said that they are open at 12nn. So we decided to watch Transformers 3 dark of the Moon in Robinson’s Ermita.  The movie was good. The kind that will make you ignore the special effects.  

After that  we went to Ghazal. We decided to order the same type that we’ve had since day 1 of this Middle Eastern Food tour, just so we can rate them fairly.

Cholo Kabab kubideh with yellow rice upgrade = P210

Wait time was around 20 minutes. So while waiting I took pics.

it takes 2-3 oranges to make a tumbler of juice for p100

The place was air conditioned, no interior decoration whatsoever. But it looks clean, smells clean too.

There’s a middle eastern guy who brought 2 big bags of pita bread. Kumag and I thinks that he makes their pita bread, so therefore its  authentic :-) .

Then they served the food. We were quite surprised by the quantity, all smiles we were when it was laid on the table. Diet is suspended for the day, since it's serving is fit for a construction worker.  First bite was a delight.  It was tasty, but kumag was missing the butter and onion that comes with this dish. I missed the dip/sauce the white thingy that usually comes with it on other food joints. It was a bit dry as compared to others that we’ve tried, but flavor was enhanced by the calamansi and hot sauce. 

That being said, we both agreed that it was close to the chelo kebab that we’ve had in E. Rodriguez.   We will eat here again whenever we are in the vicinity.

rating. 3.5!

Ziggurat

June 25. 9am

I picked up Kumag from work. We decided to eat in Ziggurat, a middle eastern place tucked between Durban and Burgos streets of Makati Ave. The place looks cozy, with giant pillows on their al fresco section. Since we were the first one to arrive we decided to take this spot.

It took around 30 minutes for our order to arrive.

As usual, we had that beef kebab 190php, with extra onion and tomato 30php. Kumag ordered  rice, I forgot if its jasmine or basmati -90php. I wanted to try their hummus with pita bread 70php, theirs is made of ground garbanzo beans and olive oil.

We find the beef quite tough, since its sliced thinly, rolled, then skewered flame grilled. Taste is quite ok. the serving is quite small though, its just one kebab per serving. We will come back since we haven’t tried their specialty. And they have a very interesting menu, Indian, Persian, greek the works!

We imagine the place looks pretty at night, so maybe on one of our insomniac nights we will eat here again.

Rating: 2.5 stars

27th

Birthday. In pursuit of the perfect fit, Persian Grill and the sheep cake.

June 23 – day I was born. Since its 2011, that makes me 27 years old. I originally planned on having  a bash with PQI friends but due to the budget constraint and the week endis scheduled  for Aries’s (one of the PQI peeps) christening of his first born. I decided against it. I’ll just buy Levi’s for myself as a gift which I have long held off in buying since it was marshmallow test. Well sorta, satisfaction is doubled when you delay the gratification. And so we went to Levi’s greenbelt 5, on the way there we came across these interesting statement campaigns from Adora.

No pair of levi’s in GB5 passed the scutiny and touch. Same goes for the Levi’s in landmark and SM Makati,  resigned and feeling bad, Kumag and I decided to eat in Persian Grill (3^rd mid eastern place we’ve tried this month)

He ordered beef kebab for 195php (ground beef with spices) with extra  butter (12php).

and i ordered Grilled lambchop for 210php with extra butter (12php).

Persian Grill is tucked between Cathy Valencia clinic and Mini stop in Prince Plaza adjacent to Greenbelt 5.  The place is cozy even if its quite small. It smells nice and the lighting is good. Not to harsh, not too dark ,excellent for taking your Facebook profile photo. The restroom is also nice. It smells better than most restrooms.

The price of their sponge cakes are more expensive than the cheesecakes of Bannaple or Conti’s, so we passed. The serving time of our order  is around 15 minutes while waiting we can smell the food being prepared.  So it certainly whetted our appetite.

I was quite satisfied with what I had. I’ll give an 8. He on the other hand finds the meat quite tough (this is a week after brace adjustment) and a bit bland. I wasn’t able to ask him his rating but we both agreed that the mid-eastern  place in E.Rodriquez Q.C (a few steps from ST.Luke’s or for you gayboys, its adjacent to Fahrenheit) serves better chelo kebab.

 Actually this persian place in E.rod is our standard for chelo kebab, the first that we’ve tried. A week after that we went to Mister Kabab (kebab?) in West Ave. We ordered the same chelo type of beef kebab, its quite bland and the sauce isnt really helping.  

Now back to Persian Grill we won’t really be back. We just tried it and that’s it.

We weren’t done yet for the day. I told Kumag that I’m sad since I don’t have the cake that I’ve had for my birthday last year.

Kumag told me that we can go to that cake shop if I will not go to work later that night. Ok I said, I’ll just think of an excuse to text my TL. The first one that I came up with is i-am-at-Terminal 3- since- 2pm-and its –already-6pm-flight hasn’t arrived yet-and i-still-need-to-take sis-in laguna .  It seemed like a good idea, considering the weather. J

So we took the bus (inspite of the rain that comes with typhoon Falcon) and went to Hearts and Flour right across Robinson’s Ermita. Only to be told that they don’t have the mini-cake that’s the base of the cake that we wanted.

I honestly think that its because they are busy making that three tiered power puff cake that their sole cake decorator can’t be bothered making walk in order of two rain soaked little gay boys.

Lesson learned, cakes are made to order in advance! Unless the pastry shop is on a down time. That was certainly the case with last year’s cake.

Their bread and pastries still looks yummy. So we bought japanese pudding (35php),  bread covered in floss (45php) and  winter melon (aratilis berries) for our drinks . The pudding tastes like custard (yum yum!) and the bread covered floss tastes nice but the winter melon juice was quite a let down its diluted as compared to last year. Oh well some place tends to neglect little things. And its sad. We still love that pastry  shop though.

Its clean, the ambience is cool,  has wifi and most of its customers are korean girls who come here due to their cutesy pastries.

After that we went to Robinson’s for Levi’s tried several pairs for 45 minutes but nothing works. The staff was friendly and willing help, which made it hard for me to walk away with out buying anything.

Went home.

No it wasn’t as simple as that. We have to take a pedicab to take us to Leon Guinto to take a jeep that goes to Guadalupe. Manila is flooded. Knee deep in some places.

After  one hour and a half we finally made it home soaking wet.

What  a day. Happy Birthday!

(update: I was able to buy that pair of jeans in Edsa  Shang Ri-la Crossings, two days after and out of the 35 agents or so in our LOB only 15 people were able to make it to work)

Yaki Mix

Price- 480php weekday lunch buffet / 580php-week end dinner buffet / 65php- unlimited drinks / 680 left over charge)

Serves mostly japanese/korean/chinese fare

Last June 18, 2011 we went to yakimix in greenbelt 3 for Kumag’s mom birthday (we were a party of 10). Checked out the place earlier in Munchpunch and their fanpage in Facebook, and people gave it a 5 star.

The price looks too affordable for what they are serving and the chandelier certainly gave it a hotel feel. An extra bang for the buck. 

So kumag started cooking.

It’s a smokeless grill so definitely it was all fun without smelling like the grilling kitchen. Their meat and seafood for grill are fresh.  And since you are the cook its up to you if you want it well done  or what not. 

Its fun cooking and raiding their buffet table.  There are 10 of us on the table so it was kind of chaotic fun. Kumag and I haven’t really been able to take blog worthy pictures of the place and the food. He was busy entertaining, and I was mindlessly chowing down the food.

They are prompt when it comes to replenshing drinks.  And no dish on the buffet table stays empty for a long time.  The selection is expansive and  good. They have a lot of maki and sushi to choose from.  The meat section is brimming too. Same  goes for the seafood.

The cooked dishes are excellent. The dessert honestly wasn’t at par with the rest of the food that they are serving. But hey you came here for the main course. We weren’t exactly complaining. Though a slice of cheesecake, fruit infusion and fondue won’t hurt (but will perhaps drive the price higher) . They don’t  seem to have an  in house pastry chef. The black forest is from red ribbon and the mango cake is from goldilocks.

The ice cream selection from selecta is a nice touch and more than makes up for the dessert section.

The service crew are pleasant, and prompt to replenish drinks (for all we know, the more you drink, the less you eat! hence. :-)

 Since it’s a Saturday a lot people are celebrating their birthdays (either in advance or belatedly) and so we made a request for them to sing for Mami. 

One thing that irks me a bit is their greeting each time that a large party comes in they will holler  Gozaimasu! It feels like palengke, kumag doesn’t mind though he said it makes the place more festive. Oh well, whatever floats your boat. According to kumag, the rest room feels like it’s a break room for crews, hey we all deserve a break so its fine with me. Just let me pee in peace.

It was a fun night. Bill totalled to 7k (2 kids, and 2 senior citizens and the rest of us, adults) its worth it.

Verdict:

4 stars 

Because no place is perfect,  everything needs improvement (waves at crowd of people, smiles at the cue of flashbulbs). But seriously,  its because of the dessert :-)  we  haven’t really been able to let the idea of having a hotel-like dessert selection go and the restroom issue.

 We will definitely come back.

Yaki-mix vs dampa? I’ll go for the convenience , variety and taste of yaki mix (have had the food switching and padded bill in dampa once, but that’s for another topic) and for once I would like to chowdown seafood on a place that has hotel ambiance with-out the tag price. Kumag and I recommends Yaki-mix to couples and small groups. But if you’re a group of say 12 persons or more  (and some of you are light eaters) you might be better off eating in dampa.

Must try:

The seafood (of course!). The meat section. Crepe suzzette. Danish pastry.

Slow down on:

 maki ,sushi and fried rice (buffets are not for carbo loading, methinks)

what to avoid:

food? nothing really. Oh, there is that chocolate with rice pops (the one that looks like curly tops with spiral white chocolate)

 Be here at around 5pm-530pm have your  self listed by the guard. Door opens at 6pm. After 630pm its really queueing. Place closes at 11pm.For lunch it opens at 12pm, closes at 230pm.

 So have fun! Gorge!

Ratings: 4 stars!

Pilot Episode

Dear kumag,

Some people adopt kids. Some get dogs. In our we case, we have the to do list. If we are not doing anything, we are looking for things to do. So shortly after that we would be doing something. And its not a dvd marathon – this is interesting but in nearly three years of being together we only manage to do this a few times. We don’t stand by the sidelines vicariously experiencing other people have fun. We are part of the action.

The to do list of - taste this, buy that, have this, go to that, get out of this, be that. And so we have been running around the metro like the energizer bunnies that we are. We prided ourselves to have more mileage walking and commuting than anyone else. On a regular mall day, we go to four malls, but on a not so regular day that can go as high as eight malls. All in the pursuit of the perfect color, size and fit, not to mention the price. We explore restaurants, hole in the wall eats, hotel buffets and week end markets. Thus; the mileage.

We have always been opinionated. In our heads we are the authority. The to-go-to if other people would like to eat, buy this, buy that. With our consumeristic lifestyle we haven’t really been able to perfect spending wisely. More of check out reviews, go to the place follow the instinct. Third party sources hasn’t been always correct (per our experience), too kind or too critical. We often wish that there is that omniscient blog to sway us. To challenge us. To warn us.

After the bill and after the fact we sit down and dissect. Review. Discuss. What the eff was that expensive meal about. Why the buzz? What made it overrated? Or this place should be more popular. That place should lower their prices,make their servings bigger, and make their crews move faster. This place will be big next year or this will shutdown in a minimum of 3 months.

We have long joke that each place that we visited should get our stamp. To those few that made the cut, must get the kumag and afro red rbbon of excellence.

We have pranced across the metro and we only have pictures to show for it. Pictures speak for themselves and it needs us to weave the stories. Honestly, wallposts feels like posting it for show.

So we mark the giant corkboard with pushpins, strings, and our pictures plus the article. A blog. Its going to be comprehensive.

This is going to be our eco-friendly adventure book. No extra paper, no wasted ink. Just bytes of fun and likes.

Hope you like it.

love.

all we need is now,

kerli