Restaurant Rave: SALA Bistro

Much as I love dinners, I also adore brunches, most especially when it's with the company of ex-colleagues from my magazine life. We try out a new place every time we meet up and each time is a late morning full of great food and plenty of industry gossip.

I love the simple elegance of SALA Bistro, and the food ain't too shabby either. I wanted to have the Champagne Brunch with unlimited bubbly but everyone was in a rush that day. Next time!

My Bistro Sunday Fry Up-- essentially a Full English brekky without the beans and black pudding. I ate every last bit of this.

Kat's Bistro Minute Steak (topped with Onion Rings!)

Tippi and Andrea got the Creamy Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon

As if our mains weren't enough, we had little desserts to top off our meal as well.

I got the rum and raisin bread and butter pudding with vanilla seed ice cream. I was mad full but guess what, I still finished it!

Warm chocolate croissant with vanilla seed ice cream

Ricotta and Banana Pancakes with Maple Syrup---I'm getting this next time!

Happy Faces--and bellies!


P690 for a two course brunch and P1280 for a two course brunch plus unlimited bubbly.
Available Saturday and Sunday 11am-2pm Call 7294888 for reservations. Sala Bistro is located at the G/F Garden Side, Greenbelt 3

Restaurant Rave: Shang Palace

I love Chinese food. Something about it is always comforting to me. It's probably the familiar tastes of my childhood and memories of my late grandmother Alicia, who I was so close to, I named my daughter after her.

Shang Palace at Shangri-la Makati has been a regular place for family get-togethers on my mom's side. More often than not, we order the same food and enjoy it each time like it's our first time there.

Here are some of my favorites:


Hot Prawn Salad. Incidentally, this was also my grandmother's favorite dish. I used to hate it when I was young but now I take pleasure in each crunchy bite.I can't eat more than two in one sitting though. The prawns are huge and the oil can sometimes be overwhelming, especially for someone with a delicate tummy like mine!


Pan Fried Cod Fish in Barbecue sauce. I love Gindara in all forms, but this is a particularly good one. Be careful not to eat too much thought because Gindara is already a very oily fish. Pair it with frying and they become little fat bombs. Delicious ones though ;p


Who doesn't love Buchi? When I was younger, I used to scoop out all the filling and eat only the shell. I've since learned to enjoy eating even the bean paste but my favorite buchis are the kind with the black sesame paste filling and peanut.

Other things on the menu that night:

Minced Seafood and Crabmeat soup with Coriander. They had me at Coriander. I like anything with it.It was a simple soup that because special because of that little addition.


Deep Fried Pork Ribs with Fragrant Garlic. Only had a bite of this, not a big fan or pork unless processed or cured (Read: Bacon, Spam and Prosciutto) Meat was tender and anything with garlic is always a win.


Braised Broccoli with dried scallops and black mushroom. Because we need our veggies. I can appreciate nice, big, green broccoli though. Sometimes the ones in the supermarkets here look sad.


This was the only weird thing on the menu. It was mango pudding shaped like a fish with vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was fantastic, the pudding not so much. it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great.

Tomorrow is margarita and grill night with my mom, some relatives and friends. Can't wait!

Restaurant Rave: Zuma

After many days of Chinese food binging, I was so ready to eat at a proper restaurant with more refined food. My favorite aunt was in Hong Kong towards the end of my trip and told me she would treat me out to lunch.

I was given a choice between Zuma and Sevva, and since I can never say no to Japanese food, I picked the former. It's a nice (and pricey) place but I thought the food made it worth it.


We started off with Hamachi and Toro Sashimi-- two of my favorites (as well as salmon- sashimi is the only way I really like it) A few bites of fresh raw fish was exactly what I needed. I was hungry, I was sick of Chinese at that point and I wanted something that tasted clean.

When I was pregnant, I don't know how I survived without being able to eat raw fish. I remember going out for sushi almost immediately after I gave birth. Some things are just so good, you only really need to slice them up and put them on a plate for people to enjoy. I think I will go out for sushi tomorrow.


Next up, we had crispy salmon skin sushi. OMG so good. I remember when I was younger, sushi was really just kani, tuna, tamago, uni, salmon or california maki. Thanks to progressive and fusion cuisine, we now have all sorts of yummy things in sushi! Others on the menu were their Vegetarian Sushi and Zuma Nigiri Zushi.


I know it is very Un-Pinoy like to enjoy bloody beef, but honestly, unless Medium Rare (medium AT MOST) I would rather not eat steak. This Australian steak was cooked to perfection- seared on the outside and nice and practically raw on the inside. I was going to get the Wagyu, but the price difference was HK$700! Whoa.

I can't wait to get to Sydney in December. All the steak and lamb I want at extremely low prices!


Lastly, we had this. I was extremely full but a meal is not a meal without dessert. I can't remember exactly what this is called but it was some sort of souffle, wafer chocolate raspberry thing that was soooooooo good. I had it with a glass of dessert wine and it was heavenly.

I wish I could eat the way I ate in Hong Kong here in Manila. Sadly, i don't walk 6 hours a day here :(

Tomorrow, I will post the last of my Hong Kong food posts and it will be on street food! Yipee!

Resturant Rave: LU

I had been wanting to try LU out since it opened and finally got a chance to when I met my ex-workmates for brunch today for a little bit of catching up and Saturday pigging out.

Now I’m supposed to be on a healthy food trip, but I knew this weekend would ruin my plans. I had this brunch and a kids party today AND a wedding of one of my college buddies tomorrow. What diet? I will resume again on Monday.

So, after a few days of wheat, cottage cheese, salads and baked fish, I had a nice lamb stew at LU. It was Moroccan Style Lamb Stew with apricots and prunes and served with harissa couscous. My tummy and taste buds were definitely very happy today.


Moroccan Lamb Stew with Apricots and Prunes w/ harissa couscous

Also try:

5 cheese Truffled mac n’ cheese. OHMYGOD. I had a bite of this. Deadly. Worth it though.


FRIED Hainanese Chicken. I had a bite of this too. Crazy good!!!

but the piece de resisitance I must say is the dessert—- do NOT miss:

Peanut butter and jelly tart. Friends, this is 5000 calories. Dead serious. Get it to share. Unless you are trying to gain weight in a major way. This tart was split between 5 people. Damn, that’s still 1000 calories!

Lu is good for dining with friends, so you can order a lot of different things and taste and share! I would come back here :)

For table reservations, call (02) 403-3991. Lu is located at G/F Joya Bldg., Joya Drive, Rockwell, Makati City, Metro Manila

Restaurant Rave: L'Opera Rsitorante Italiano

Warning: This post has no photos. I was too busy eating.

Very few things make me happier than a well-cooked steak. After so many “misses” in the last few months, I finally encountered a “hit”- and not even in a new place. L’Opera has been around for awhile, but I had not eaten there in awhile. I was initially reluctant to order steak because of the many below par ones I have been eating in restaurants lately. I usually save the steak for home consumption, where I can cook it exactly the way I like it-medium rare (medium at most) For some reason, so many people do not understand that by medium rare, I mean almost red, and bloody when cut. When I ask for medium rare, I get a barely pink steak, and when I ask for medium, I get well-done.

Anyway- I arrived at the restaurant starving so I decided to start with some soup to tide me over. I ordered the Zuppa de Cipolle-onion soup (P220), which, unlike French onion soup that is overloaded with cheese (w/c mind you, I like also) was encased in a pastry shell. This version was light, with tender pieces of onion and did not leave me too full to eat my main.

I ordered the Tagliata di Manzo con Fegato D’oca in Salsa Tartufata con Spinaci e Asparagus or Baked Prime U.S. beef tenderloin in L’Opera’s truffle sauce embedded with pan-fried Foie Gras and served with fresh spinach and asparagus (P1,100) I cut a slice of beef and was ecstatic to see nice red meat inside. The foie gras added another dimension to the beef, and if it wasn’t rich enough, the truffle sauce made it to die for. I ate every last bite of this meal. Why have I not been to L’Opera in a long time again?!

You would think that one would be stuffed after eating all of that, but I wanted something sweet. The panna cotta con frutti de bosco (P240) called out to me, so I ordered that despite knowing that it would probably be heavy. Screw it, It was a Sunday! Another thing I love is a well-made panna cotta. It is such a simple, clean tasting dessert and can be topped with almost anything. I had asked for raspberry topping on mine and when my order came, I was taken by surprise at how big the serving was. But no complaints, I ate (almost) the entire thing.

Although this restaurant is not new, it is definitely something you shouldn’t sleep on. Food has always been good for as long as I have been eating here. it may be a little pricey, so save it for special occasions if you must but definitely worth eating here at least once!

L’Opera is located at The Fort Entertainment Complex, 26th St. cor., 5th Ave. Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City. Call 889-3963 for reservations