FOOD BEING SERVED: Wide array / SERVICE: Efficient and festive ambiance  It was a Sunday night and the rain was pouring hard in Pasay City near SM Mall of Asia in the reclaimed land of Macapagal Avenue. Inside YakiMix, however, people were pouring in throngs, instead. YakiMix is a buffet restaurant that specializes in Korean-Japanese smokeless grilled food Teppanyaki-style. The customer himself cooks his own food at the site. The niche market alone is not highly specialized at all. It covers two cultures and two cuisines in an eat-all-you-can rendition. Manila-based Japanese and Koreans won't hesitate to be at home, although Filipino-Chinese and Filipinos make up most of the human traffic in the dining area. What you get is a fiesta of food and foodies. The late dinner was a birthday celebration for one of my friends who is set to vacation in the U.S. next week which explains why an eat-all-you-can buffet was put into order. Everyone sampled on the wide array of beef, pork, and seafood in what I prefer to call the buffet battle.  The Battle for Buffet Check out an image I took of the buffet line. The last thing one needs to see are poles of bamboos sticking out haphazardly, but they're there 24/7 waiting for the next batch of foodies to snatch the raw treats for grilling on the smokeless grill. Interestingly, YakiMix also offers its clients cooked food which they strategically placed behind the buffet facade. There's also lots of sushi to choose from, but I dislike it, so I avoided the area with a ten foot pole. T H E B U F F E T B A T T L E C H R O N I C L E S Before the explotation -- a serene looking grill  Seafood goodies waiting to be grilled  The stove is switched to begin the process.  Grill all you can eat  Smokeless grilled shrimp at last FOOD ORDERED: Succulent; loved the onions / SERVICE: Speedy and on-spot  Everyone who knows me personally also knows that I can't share a room with a sushi. Raw is raw for me. The closest I can get jiggy with anything that's edible from Japan is with teriyaki and its related dishes. This is why Teriyaki Boy, a Japanese-oriented fast-casual dining restaurant that offers such treats, appeals so much to me.  YELLOW STRIPS OF FUN Teriyaki Boy used to have a darker interior. The bare color of wood could be found to make the site somber, but early this year the owner had it changed to bright yellow, if there is even such a term. The charm of the bright color lights up the whole place. I particularly liked the yellow picket fence that boldly sweeps the narrow end of the dining area. It's a great use of the small space. The effect seems to make eating Japanese food fun. Even the restaurant's menu design underwent redesign which is remarkable and important for branding. I even saw online a pre-finalized optional design of their menu. As for my meal, I worked on a bowl of Pork Shogayaki Don which is a set of thin-sliced pork strips, stir-fried with onions, bell peppers, and the restaurant's signature ginger-based Shogayaki Don sauce. I am crazy for onions which is why I went for this meal. The meal comes with a heavy and sticky serving of Japanese rice which is different from your usual Filipino rice. The former is good for chopsticks, but I refuse to learn (for now) how to use it and opted for the spoon and fork, instead. The meal set me back for Php180 sans the iced tea drink and it's for a good purpose. Ordering one via Teriyaki Boy, you see, lets you help kids who need financial support (see inset image above). It's a good way of dining out on a weekend -- discovering new interiors and drinking for a good cause.  PORK SHOGAYAKI DON Dine Out: Filipino Cuisine With A Twist 07/24/2009
FOOD ORDERED: Sublime; remarkable food preparation / SERVICE: Uninteresting interiors
 Tortang Talong (Eggplant) With Bean Sprouts and Dilis (Long-jawed Anchovy) When they didn't know what restaurant to choose, I immediately picked a Filipino cuisine-oriented one so as to set the mood for catching up with each others' lives. C2 Restaurant seemed perfect for the day. Also known as Classic Cuisine, the restaurant serves authentic Filipino and Asian dishes. We ordered Tortang Talong or fried eggplant with dilis or long-jawed anchovy and a garnish of bean sprouts. The jolt of calamansi or calamondin and the mint-flavored fresh bean sprouts effectively balanced off the taste of scrambled eggs, eggplant, and fish. The combined taste of all such food elements was remarkable in that each ingredient managed to retain its distinction in the dish. It was much like us three. Our destined convergence made us realize how far we've come with our lives and how near we were each other that exact moment. The distinctions were sublime. THE C2 RESTAURANT BRANCH I DINED IN IS LOCATED AT SHANGRI-LA MALL, MANDALUYONG CITY.  I find it endearing that some of my blog readers from various countries find my site effective for having wonderful images of the food I eat and places I dine in. Thank you, all of you. You know who you are. I especially find this a hardcore compliment because I am not even using a high-end digital camera. I don't own a DSLR or its vintage version anyway. What I have are a Nokia 2600 and a pair of eyes (good ones, I reckon, based on my readers' reviews). That's the one you see on the left. Its VGA (640 x 480 pixels) is considerably average according to mobile phone users. Most Nokia 2600 users just bought their unit as back-up for a primary phone. The others even didn't buy brand new ones, just as second-hand units, so you see, I still have to edit my images via the Photoshop. It's alright. One must deal with one's situation. And I am doing so joyfully. After all, I need to go through all these exciting experiences ON A BUDGET. I was able to buy my phone (not in the black market or online) in the mall last year for Php3,800 after haggling with the attendant. The original rate was Php4,200. I even managed to have her throw in a new sim card and an extra casing for free. CHECK OUT THIS USER DEMO FOR A GLIMPSE OF LOW-END MOBILE LOVE: Dine Out: East Met West One Saturday Night 07/19/2009
FOOD ORDERED: Delightful / SERVICE: creative food preparations; crisp design interiors  My Cafe Bola iced tea blend I've been watching nothing but movies from abroad lately. Last month, Transformers II opened me up to more of what Megan Fox has to offer. This month, it's that inevitable Harry Potter installment. Both entertainment spectacles are so out-of-this world that I figured I needed to be grounded the same night I sat through the almost three-hour Rowling book adaption. I found my food destination in Cafe Bola where I got ready to psyche myself crazy with Asian cuisine. I was glad to discover that the restaurant serves native Filipino dishes, so I wasted no time taking a peek through the site's bare kitchen window and scanning through the menu. The orders for the night included Adobo Flakes with Kesong Puti or White Cheese (Php180), Parma-Ham Scented Mongo (Php150), and Crispy Baby Dilis on Rice (Php150).  Adobo Flakes with Kesong Puti I'm not really a big fan of attractive food preparations, but seeing native Filipino cuisine presented the way they do it at Cafe Bola made me take a second look at the dishes I ordered before tearing into them. The Adobo Flakes, for instance, looked like a refreshing garden. The cheese-smothered tomato was just endearing. And, let's not forget the normally dull-looking dilis which, in Cafe Bola's version, was nothing but.  As for the sauteed mongo with ham bits number, the sight and aroma of ampalaya leaves and mongo beans instantly brought me back to my childhood Fridays when my mother would find it appropriate to serve it as part of our household's weekly diet. It was all about family tradition with such dish. What made eating it that Saturday night unforgettable was the extra-crunchy taste that the dilis contributed in the meal combo. Other versions of the mongo dish have either tinapa or chicharon bits.  With Harry Potter preceding my fine meal, the junction I was in proved to be temporary. My Saturday evening was just pure heaven after I've tasted both East and West in one night. THE CAFE BOLA BRANCH I DINED IN IS LOCATED AT THE ARANETA CENTER, CUBAO, QUEZON CITY.     A wet Manila morning Not all the time is the effort to be different an effort that yields positive results. Case in point: not having soup when it's raining hard in Manila. Most of the people I know just had to have any kind of hot soup when there is a storm surge. They reckon that it's the best time to have one. One early weekday morning after work, a typhoon forced me to make a sudden stop at Red Ribbon, a pastry shop that also serves various types of meals. Indulging in non-conformity, I went against the grain by ordering a typical breakfast -- pork tocino with scrambled egg and garlic rice. While getting my fill, I realized that I made the wrong decision. The plate was uncharacteristically moist, the scrambled egg was not puffy enough, the pork tocino seemed to have been cooked in burnt grease and the garlic rice was just as moist as the plate. Everything seemed to be as wet as the streets outside.  See the food glisten unnecessarily...  When it rains, it doesn't have to pour inside the restaurant. When it rains, order hot soup. These are two of the golden rules I learned on that fateful day. You already know what I wrote on Red Ribbon's feedback form prior to this post, don't cha? Recap Card: Done With June 07/14/2009
I'm finally over and done with June. Here's to a splendid July!  C A S U A L D I N I N G R E S T A U R A N T S I W E N T T O: Bigby's + Recipes By Cafe Metro + Pancake House + Persia Grill Savory + Secret Recipe + Superbowl of China This is is just a re-post from my other blog site. I find it timely to share with you since the update is that my dad already has a job. Woot-woot!  It's remarkable how one learns something from a long time ago and still be able to apply it in the present. Such is the case of my mom. I woke up recuperating from my sinusitis to see her cooking something in the kitchen. It smelled good but looking at what she was mixing, I didn't recognize what the concoction was. "What's that?" I inquired with much interest since I was awfully hungry already. "Just marmalade. For toppings on biscuits, " she replied rather surprised that I asked because smelling something was the last thing I could do that late a night. "Just where did you learn how to cook one?" "Oh, it was long a time ago in school. You see, we were taught how to do so in a cooking class, " she replied in between motions of mixing. "As a young girl I used wooden pans of sorts, " she added. "I told your dad that it's better to make our own marmalade than buy that medicine-tasting grocery concoction." I grinned. I knew better. Dad was jobless for two months and it was only after days ago when his schedule for his new job started (thank God). Now they just need to come up with biscuits. Here's a recipe for orange marmalade: Ingredients: * 1 tumbler orange marmalade * 1/4 cup cold water * 1 tablespoon lemon juice * 3/4 cup boiling water * 1/4 package of gelatine Instructions: 1. Soften the gelatine in the cold water and dissolve in the hot water; add the marmalade and lemon juice. 2. Stir occasionally until the mixture begins to thicken, then turn into mold. 3. Serve with cream. Home-cooked: Mussels For Lunch By Mom 07/13/2009
 Mussels Sunday massacre I normally dislike seafood or any kind of food from the sea that needs to be taken apart before I can even taste that which is edible inside. The painstaking effort weakens me and robs me of my appetite.  How the mussels got served  Emerald Avenue branch Emerald Avenue has a new fast food -- Chowking. For more than six months all that the office area's food patrons could count on for a quick chow are McDonald's, Jollibee, Greenwich, KFC, Reyes Barbecue and Kitaro. That list corresponds to a 6-day speedy munch fest. This means that an office worker can only repeat a fastfood once every week, but the experience still leaves the average working patron bored. We needed a Chinese fast food in the area. Check this out: Try casual dining Chinese-style... |  F I N E L I F E F O L K
For someone who spends as much as he earns, life is always on the edge. He's always on the look out for a convenient lifestyle. As financial maturity kicks in, the Fine Life Folk decides to live on a budget and sticks to it as long as he can.  
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