Pastry Overload at Wildflour Café + Bakery

Fourth of July brunch with my two girlfriends, Mitch and Amy, in Podium branch of Wildflour. Eh may na-late kaya wala sa pic na 'to.

 Is this considered a selfie even if my intention was to take photo of the wines lang? hee.

Okay medyo nakakabaliw lang ang choices sa Wildflour, there's so many to choose from! But in the end, the three of us settled for a pastry board. For 420 pesos you get to choose 4 pastries of your choice. The future lawyer suggested we get the more expensive ones haha. 

Our pastry board choices were Vanilla Cronut, Brownie Turtle, Chocolate Souffle and Banana Nutella Danish.

 Amy ordered this humongous Croissant Bread Butter Pudding and Tomato Soup (not in photo).

Mitch ordered Croque Madame (brioche, ham, gruyere, egg).

While I ordered the Wildflour Breakfast (coddled eggs, croissant, Greek yogurt with homemade mango compote & brewed coffee). I gave the coffee to Amy.

Would you believe we had to brown-bagged almost all our personal orders? The pastry board was the culprit! We didn't realize that you could get really full just by eating pastries! We were all surprised at the serving size of Croque Madame. My favorite in the pastry board would have to be the Chocolate Souffle as it has the right sweetness to it, not too little and not too much, just the kind I like. The Vanilla Cronut? It was okay lang haha. There's so much pastries to choose from, and the tarte flambé, we must come back for those, that it ultimately requires a second visit. I shall come back for the tarte flambé!

Manila Improv Festival 2013 Among Others

After lunch at Saboten, I lingered inside Fully Booked while waiting for a friend to arrive. Again, I went bonkers like I always do whenever I'm inside huge bookstores. I found this book I've been looking for a long time. Most probably I'll end uo buying it (and the two others by the same author although I've read Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life years ago) out of my own pocket. Meh.

When my friend finally arrived, we headed for PETA Theater to watch a 6pm show of Manila Improv Festival. We saw this mini coop on our way. Look closely, you can see a bride and groom inside. Too cute.

Too bad we weren't able to catch up any of SPIT's show, work schedule conflict boo. Anyway, we met my friend and another friend when we got to PETA Theater. That night's performers were Zmack, Plus One and Pirates of Tokyo Bay.

Everyone was great and hilarious I was afraid my jaw would lock from too much laughing. Everyone in the audience, including those fished out to get up to stage, were such a sport, laughing their hearts out too. I wish there would be more of these here! I wish I could watch SPIT live.

Inside PETA Theater

Zmack

Plus One

Plus One

Pirates of Tokyo Bay

Pirates of Tokyo Bay

I was starving by the time the show ended a little before 9pm. We left, got lost a for a while before finally getting our geographic bearings. By the time we got anywhere near a familiar place, the sky has let out a gracious amount of water (read: malakas ang ulan). I saw Greens Vegetable Restaurant and knew have found our place, perfect for the vegetarian friend.

We ordered potato patties (which I really liked!), crunchy bean curd wrapper (kakaiba but actually good), veggie beef and brocolli, green vegetarian barbecue and eggplant parmigiana. I didn't even finished half of my parmigiana because I was too stuffed already from eating 2 potato patties.

And nightcap at Moomba. This was a long but fun day.

Payday Lunch Series: Saboten

Aaaand we're back after a short hiatus. To kick off our reunion, we chose Japanese food - Saboten. I have to admit I discovered the Saboten hype from Chuvaness. She tweets and blogs often about it, never fails to eat in countries where there is one. It was so funny when I went to Hong Kong in 2011 I was kinda fixed into testing what Saboten is all about as there is one in HKIA departure lounge but I chickened out at the last minute, fazed by all the $$$ I was seeing hahaha.

When the news circulated that there'll be a Manila branch I was ecstatic! Would you believe it wasn't as fancy as I thought it would be? Probably because Yabu rate has already prepped me for it lol. Saboten has more expensive choice of set meals but all in all, the price range aren't too far off. Okay tama na baka magalit ang Saboten sabihin kinukumpara ko sila sa Yabu. 

More than the zen and interior design, I especially loved the fact that they hand out complimentary teas once customers have settled in on their seats. No need to beg for it. Plus points na agad!

So we ordered the following:

Mixed Set (1 Deep-Fried Shrimp, 1 30g enderloin Cutlet and 1 Crab Cream Croquette).

Grated Radish Tenderloin Set

Tenderloin and Loin Set (1 Tenderloin Cutlet 50g. and 1 Loin Cutlet 65g.)

Ten and Romy.

Gotta love the unlimited serving of cabbage in one huge bowl. So even if you didn't order a set meal (which automatically included the unlimited cabbage), you can be sure to have a go at it still. If there's one thing though that was a bit off about Saboten, it's that their meat cuts are too big (for our mouths haha). I think that could do an improving. Unless they don't want to. Okay.

For dessert we ordered the Vanilla with Black Honey and Green Tea Ice Cream Combination (75 pesos only!). Unfortunately, their green tea was not the green tea I had in mind. It was rather milky than tea-y. Buti na lang vanilla saved the day :)

All in all our Saboten experience was really good. The waiters were prompt and really attentive. They announce your food and how best to enjoy it by suggesting ways on what seasoning to use. But I gotta say, aside from that, there really isn't anything special about it. It's hard not to compare Saboten to Yabu when the latter has been here for a while now. Our taste buds has gotten accustomed to Yabu that Saboten is just like one of those katsu house. Maybe we should try the other specials just to be fair...

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Saboten
G/F Serendra, McKinley Parkway
Fort Bonifacio, Taguig
(02) 625-2000

The Pancake Experiments

Basically, these pancake experiments started after eating at Maple (on my next-to-do list) and generally our (JC and I) lack of interest in eating overpriced food that you know you can make yourself. It's just the hype, kids and I can live without it. So we were dead set to create various version of pancakes to our own liking without spending too much.

Here are some examples of what we've had so far.

Banana bacon pancake

Banana and mango pancake with whipped cream

Cookie butter pancake with bacon & hotdog bits on the side

Monster pancake!

The combination may not be culinary apt but it's our pancake and we'll make 'em as how we want 'em.

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka

 Recently met up with a couple of girlfriends both of whom just recently came home from an out-of-the-country sojourn (but for different reasons). We decided (more like I did) to eat at Hokkaido Ramen Santouka so I can finally try for myself what all the fuzz about this ramen joint is all about.

Instead of ordering set meals we decided to just order a la carte and share it among us. We ordered Shoyu Ramen (Medium size for sharing), Char Siu Gohan, Tori Karaage and Pork Gyoza. Shoyu Ramen's broth was good but the noodles were quite disappointing. It tastes like our regular local instant noodles. Honey, who has lived and worked in Japan for a year, stressed her disappointment more than any of us. I, on the other hand, can't seem to find anything come close to the ramen I had in Singapore last January. So far, best ramen I've ever had in my life.

Char Siu Gohan. Best eaten while still hot otherwise texture becomes sort of err, wiry? chewy? You know those rice that has been left on the open for quite some time. Shet wala talaga kong pag-asa sa food reviews!

Tori Karaage was okay.

So was their Pork Gyoza.

Honey, Me, and Che

This was Honey's pasalubong to us from Taiwan, peanut mochi which is soooobrang masarap!!

Grabe I wan't more of this peanut mochi hello friends going to Taiwan!!!