Traveling Tummy: Hill Station, Baguio

My ex co-worker and friend Andrea got married to her boyfriend of FOREVER in Baguio last Thursday. She asked Ananda to be one of her flower girls months ago so we drove up the mountains last Wednesday with 7 other friends to hang out, enjoy the cold air, have Christmas dinner and to go to the wedding (some of us, at least)

Since we were all there together, we decided to have Christmas dinner and do our Secret Santa gift exchange there. Our usual Baguio haunt is Cafe by the Ruins but this time, we decided to try Hill Station at Casa Vallejo instead.

What we ate:


Complementary bread with olive oil and dukkah


Chorizo with bread...mmmmmmmm....super yum.


Tuna Tataki


Spinach Artichoke Dip (Good but I've had better!)

Our Mains:

Sarah and I had the Cocido Mexicana, a hearty beef stew with cinnamon and fried bananas on the side. It hits the spot when paired with mashed potatoes!


Abdul had the Short Rib Ragu with Fettucine---with shaved bittersweet chocolate on top.


Margaux had the baked salmon

Sorry, we started eating after and I didn't get to take any more photos! haha! The food was generally good, although service was a bit slow, considering the place wasn't even packed. I liked the whole look of the place- it fit December in Baguio perfectly.

The rest of the time, we:


Exchanged Secret Santa Presents!


Went to a pre-Wedding Barbeque


Went Ukay-ing!


Went to Andrea and Darwin's wedding


Group photo!

Baguio again in January, but first, Sydney for the Holidays!

Out and About: Kicks x Cupcakes x Hiphop

Birthday Cafe at NkeTlk's 11th anniversary.

The Raffle:
Buy a cupcake by ME and a cookie (by my girl Margaux at sueeats.tumblr.com)for P100 and you get raffle ticket for a chance to win one of 35 pairs of kicks from Converse, Adidas, New Balance etc, and GC's for Nike SB's, Creative Recs, Urban Athletics and more.



Everyone made a beeline for our table, and it was funny to see all these sneaker heads eating cupcakes and snickerdoodles while drinking beer and nodding their heads to Marquiss' performance.


I made Barnaby, Banana Bombs, Red Light Special, Good Morning and Salted Caramel was the clear winner, hands down!


Snickerdoodles by Sue.Eats sueeats.tumblr.com


84 cupcakes and cookies---> Gone. The Pushers.

Visit stores like We Legendary, Secret Service, Terminal, Progress and Unschld at The Deck of Ronac Art Center. Ortigas Avenue, San Juan. While your at it, go down street level and have a Charlie's Burger. One of my favorite burgers in the city.

Shamless Plug: Birthday Cafe

Hi, so, um, aside from pigging out in different restaurants, and making a mess experimenting in my kitchen for fun, I also bake and sell cupcakes under the name BIRTHDAY CAFE :)


Salted Caramel Mudcakes-- Chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter bomb, topped with thick caramel frosting sprinkled with sea salt.


Red Light Special-- Red velvet Cupcakes topped with White chocolate cream cheese frosting. (Shown here w/ sprinkles for a party)


Banana Split-- Strawberry and Chocolate swirl cupcake filled with strawberry jam, peanut butter cream cheese frosting and topped with a caramelized banana.


Barnaby-- Dark Chocolate Cupcake stuffed with Peanut Butter and jelly and topped with a toasted marshmallow :)

View my menu at birthdaycafe.blogspot.com (Salted Caramel and Banana Split are not on menu yet but already available!)

That's it. Thank Yooooooou! :D

Restaurant Review: Borough

The Name: Borough--After New York's Five Boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and The Bronx
The Claim: 247 x New York Comfort Food

Y'all know how much I love New york so any restaurant that advertises itself as new York Comfort Food will be subjected to high expectations and standards. Thing about New York is, they can have good food with or with out the ambiance. In a city where you either thrive or don't survive, people need to rely on their actual food more than anything else, and with so much competition, only the strong and consistent survive.

This was actually my second time eating here. The first was during their soft opening- like I think it was actually their very first day open. I had the Cheese Injected Portobello pita and I remember liking the taste, but being disappointed that I had cold tomatoes in a supposedly hot sandwich.

Still, The menu, which includes a lot of the things I love (Grilled cheese and tomato soup, Mac n' Cheese, Cubano Corn (Inspired by the one at Cafe Habana--with their own twist)Fried Chicken and Waffles and an all-day breakfast menu) sounded too good for me to write the place off over a few unheated tomatoes. I knew I would come back and give it another chance.

This time, I went a few months after they opened-accidentally as I was on my way home but ended up having dinner with my parents and their friends.
What I had:

Pumpkin Soup topped with a dollop of cream and fried onion rings. I liked the thickness of this soup. All too many times I have had too-thin pumpkin soup whose consistency made it go from comfort food- to flavored water. I also add a lot of onions to my pumpkin soup so I thought the fried rings were a nice touch. I would have wanted it a tad saltier though-something I get from adding pancetta to the mix when I make this soup at home. It was good though and I would get it again.


NY Strip Steak. Before I say anything else, I will say this- I am a steak snob. If it is not cooked perfectly, I will always say the one I make at home is better. Manila has disappointed me time and time again-mostly because nobody seems to know how to cook a really good medium-rare steak. It always arrives at my table medium, which for me is already overcooked.
This one was actually cooked pretty well, although I would have preferred it slightly bloodier-it was pinky-red but no blood when cut. I think this was due more to the actually piece of meat then the way it was cooked. I wasn't too happy with the quality of the steak, but I liked the taste of it, and the mashed potatoes on the side were bomb!I'm a sucker for steak though so maybe I'll try this again another time.


For dessert I had the molten chocolate cake, which was like a runny (in a good way) souffle with caramel, cream and candied peanut bits. I think this was my favorite thing that I ate that night. I was stuffed but managed to eat most of it, which my dad shared with me. I wanna try the milk and cookies next time and the Bread and Butter Pudding.

What my mom had:

French Onion Soup. She liked it but thought the serving should be a little bit bigger.
She also had the pulled pork sandwich but I forgot to take a photo!

What my dad had:

Seared Tuna Salad- a meal in itself because its HUGE! If you don't plan to share, don't order anything else because my dad couldn't even finish it!


Nice touch with the NY Subway inspired logo hehe!

Borough is located at GF, Unit 107A, The Podium Mall,12 ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong. Telephone: 570-8906

Restaurant Rave: The Balcony

This was actually my THIRD visit to The Balcony, the new Gastro-pub along C.Palanca in Legazpi Village in Makati, but my first time to actually go there to eat. The first two times were to meet and catch up over (more than) a few drinks with friend and fellow blogger Dane (trustme-itsparadise.blogspot.com) so this third visit's mission was purely to FINALLY try out all this yummy food I have been seeing photos of on Facebook.

Met up for dinner with my cousin (and amazing young woman) Vicky Herrera who was up for a "pig out" session with me. She was starving and had already ordered when I arrived but I managed to get her to share an order of Sisig with me. I'm not really one to immediately order sisig. In fact, it took years for me to finally even try it and I am still VERY picky when it comes to Sisig and through the years have only eaten the one at Aysee's near Ultra and Ken Afford along Katipunan.

And then this came into my life. See, the thing is with sisig is it needs to be crunchy- no excuses and no other way to eat it. This is the same reason why I can't get into chicken or fish sisig- they completely miss the entire point of the whole dish. They can't get the crunch, or even the exact flavor of real sisig. This one at The Balcony is pre-marinated, super crunchy and gets ten million extra points for its addition of AIOLI that is mixed into the dish. Say what you want about fat content and heart attacks, but I say if you are gonna eat sisig, you might as well go all the way.

I have also heard a lot about their Twin Mac n' Cheese. Being a sucker for anything with carbs and O.D.-worthy amounts of cheese I had to order this. Pretending it was for my daughter, I knew I would be able to eat some because there was no way she would be able to finish the two bowls by herself.

The Balcony's Twin Mac n' Cheese consists of a bowl of macaroni with cream cheese, truffle oil and bacon bits, and another of macaroni with cheddar and fontina. It's good for sharing as it is VERY rich and the price is pretty nice also at only over P300 for both bowls. Vicky and I ate some of this when Ananda was done eating- and I STILL brought home left overs. Not because it wasn't THAT good, but mostly because I ordered this too...


Sheperd's Pie. I was so famished, and when I'm hungry, I just want uncomplicated things I can shove in my mouth (don't even go there- I know what you're thinking) This particular uncomplicated thing consists of beef, mashed potatoes and cheese. I mean seriously, how can you go wrong with that...ever? This dish has a strong oregano taste from the beef and I managed half of it before I threw down the towel (or fork) I was so full from this, the sisig AND the mac n' cheese. They made awesome next day left overs, by the way.


This is what Vicky had. I didn't get to try it but she seemed to finish it in all of 30 seconds so I'm guessing it was good. To quote her: " I love chicken. Any kind of chicken. I'll eat any chicken."


Visit The Balcony at 110 C.Palanca street, Legaspi Village, Makati

Restaurant Review: Angel's Pizza Pasta Combo

First of all, I see the looks on your faces. Why would I blog about a fast food-esque pizza joint, you may ask?

Well, to be honest, it's because they sent me a whole lotta food to try, and I thought, well, I'm not a food snob and will eat anything from a ten peso stick of fish balls and 15 peso dirty ice cream to a multi-thousand peso slab of premium beef, so who am I to stick my nose up on a place just because it's a franchise?

Pizza is one of my favorite go-to foods, whether to order if I'm too lazy to think or make when I'm too lazy to cook but need something fast, easy and still good. The beauty of pizza is that unless you are a purist and a snob, you can actually top it with whateverthehell you like. Pinoys have contributed to the pizza world by making crazy concoctions like Laing Pizza, Sisig Pizza, and now even Lechon Pizza!

Anyway, with only 3 people at my house at the moment, we were overwhelmed by the amount of food we were sent, but first order of the day was to try everything out. We would decide what to do with leftovers later on. There were 4 pizza boxes sitting in front of us, 4 rice meals (chicken and pork) 2 calzones and 2 desserts. Where does one even begin?



I have my preferences when it comes to pizza toppings, but I am generally open to new ones as well. One thing I really don't like on my pizza though, or any cooked, hot, savory dish actually, is pineapple. One of the pizzas had pineapple so I completely skipped that one, but my parents enjoyed it.

This is their Fancy Aloha Pizza. Aside from just ham and cheese, it also has green peppers. I'm sure this is good for people who love pineapple and peppers on their pizza but those are the two toppings I like least, so I went for the next one immediately. I know at least 3 people who would thoroughly enjoy this though. Needless to say, we don't have the same taste in pizza hehe!


I honestly was not sure what flavor this was. On the list there is one called Angels Style, so I'm guessing this was it. This one had shredded barbecue chicken, onions and mushrooms topped with cheese. It was a bit on the sweet side from the barbecue sauce, but I honestly liked it. I like chicken, I like onions, I like mushrooms and I like cheese. What complaints could I possibly have? My mom found it a tad too sweet, but for a barbecue chicken pizza, I thought it was just right.


I think this was my favorite one- The Cheesy Melt Double Decker. It's like a pizza sandwich with a cheese pizza on top of a pepperoni one. It had a slight buttery taste to it. I think we collectively agreed this was the best one for all of us.


Lastly I tried the Cheesy Burger Pizza which is pretty much like an all-meat pizza with beef and bacon and lots of cheese. This will hit the spot for more traditional pizza lovers.


In all honesty, the chicken and breaded pork meals were good. They had really crispy skin and had lots of flavor. Unanimous opinion though: too salty. Very good flavor but please tone down the salt if possible.


Dessert: Brownie with chocolate sauce. Heat before you eat. :)

To Order: Call 922-2222. Or Follow them on Face Book Angel's Pizza Pasta Combo.

History 101: Tastes of my Childhood

We've been having Sunday lunch with my mom's side for as long as I can remember. It started in my grandparents' home, and when they passed away, we moved it to my Uncle's house.

Food on Sundays are never extravagant and we've been eating the same food here since I was a little kid. The usual food on rotation includes home-made pancit palabok, roast chicken, fried chicken, lasagna, baked fetuccine alfredo, eggplant parmegiana, hamburgers and mashed potatoes, spaghetti bolognese, fried catfish, kare-kare, molo soup, fried fish fillets, dinuguan and puto, spare ribs, arroz caldo and a variety of desserts (but always turon! every week!) I can't remember the other food now but you get the idea.

Last Sunday:


Fetuccine Alfredo with spinach noodles.


Catfish


Kare-kare


Fried Chicken Wings


And of course, Turon!

To be completely honest, quality of food declined when my lola passed away, but it's not horrible or anything, just not as super duper good as before. But at the end of the day, my Sunday food has familiar tastes that will always give me comfort and bring me back to being a little girl.