Review: Feeling Cheated at IHOP

I'd been wanting to try IHOP since I first saw it since I love breakfast food. So one day when we were feeling a bit flush we decided to try it out. I wanted to maximize my P500 budget and since I'm no big eater I decided to get a kid's meal of "Crispy Chicken Strips" consisting of two all white meat crispy chicken strips served with seasonal mixed fruit for P225 and the "Specialty Sampler" with one egg, one strip of crispy bacon, one pork sausage link, one piece of ham, hash browns and one buttermilk pancake (perfect for "I want to taste a little of everything" me) for 275.00.

I was pretty happy at all I got to try for P500. Unfortunately, I did not much like any of the food I ate. The chicken was probably the best but for the price, I could've had three pieces of Chickenjoy. At least the mixed fruit wasn't canned fruit cocktail. The bacon was NOT crisp, the sausage was meh (I've made better myself), the hash brown wasn't that crisp either and the pancake was dense. Turns out I like 'em light and fluffy. You had to drench it in butter and syrup to like it.

My friend got the "Classic Cheeseburger" and it was pretty ordinary for P395. Eight cuts has a much better burger. Fries were not crisp again. Coffee was ok.

Overall the experience left us wanting more particularly for the price and this is one resto I'm not going back to ever again. I guess we prefer the "Filipinized" Pancake House.

Review: J.Co Donuts

I finally get to see what the fuss is all about. Feeding only myself and being on a tight budget, I couldn't stomach paying P42 for a donut so I determined I would only buy JCO when I found others to split a 2 dozen set with.

JCO dough is light, light, light. And unglazed (except probably for the Glazzy which doesn't look too inviting)---good thing if you don't want something too sweet.

I ate some of them before I took the photo, sorry.

Liked:
Why Nut - small amount of peanut butter cream inside. Like this.
Alcapone - almond slivers!
Coco Loco - sweetest of them all but fudge filling is too liquid so oozes out, frosting also too liquid and messy. this one I might prefer after it's been refrigerated for a bit
Heaven Berry - lots and lots of slightly strawberry flavored whipped cream inside
Choco Caviar Chocolate - like the crunchy "caviar" chocolate balls on top. Choco Caviar Strawberry might be even better
Oreology - ok

So-so
Tiramisu - too subtle. must be in the mood to like this
Cheese Me Up - my first ever savory donut! Good when you're in the mood but I prefer Cello's cheese donut with parmesan
Avocado Dicaprio - hmmm, s'okay I guess but I won't be in a hurry. cream-filled. I like the chocolate at the edge
Mr. Green Tea - almond slivers!

Meh:
Miss Green T - I don't care for the green tea frosting
Green Tease - again, not so hot for green tea flavored donuts. Kitkat nalang.
Meisisipi - I don't get the inspiration for this name. Chocolate candy sprinkles not my thing.

I still want to try:
Donna Italiano
Berry Spears
Forest Glam
Hazel Dazzle
Choconuttzy
Crunchy Crunchy
Funilla Glaze
Black Jack - tho I suspect this is just Coco Loco without the filling

The verdict? I prefer sweeter donuts. And JCO deteriorates much more in taste when it's not fresh compared to a re-warmed Krispy Kreme, particularly the cream filled ones (understandably so but being pressured to consume all those donuts in a day, ugh).

Sun Soya Milk Tea

Sun Soya is a Malaysian brand. They have several types of instant milk tea and I've tried the classic and chocolate ones. I like them equally.

They're pretty good if you don't mind lots of processed ingredients or don't have the time to make the real thing. I've also seen "coffee milk tea" but that's such a strange concept to me, I won't try it unless it's free.

FLAVORS Araneta Center

I've been looking for posts regarding this new outdoor/night food market found right beside Araneta Center across Gateway.Since I couldn't find any, I thought some people might try to look for reviews of a sort and decided to write this post and put up some of the pics I took at the grand opening on May 31, 2013.

Compared to the late Mezzanorte at Technohub in Commonwealth, there are far fewer food establishments at Flavors. I hope this changes. I also got the impression that most of the food offered was deep fried. It seems the only stall offering healthy food was Cibo and it was also one of the stores I saw that did not have any customers so they might bow out of the market soon.

The seats are much nicer than the monoblocks at Mezzanorte but there are again fewer of them. I would prefer more efficient seating at the expense of being crowded...





 


I was still full so I got shawarma at this place:



It was only P55 (same price for shawarma rice) but there was very little beef. Look at all the dough at the end of it!



I did have one fresh oyster (P10) and one baked oyster (P15) flown in from Capiz so that made me happy!!



This was the only dessert stall in the market. I think this one will have competitors soon:



There was one milk tea place, one fruit shake place, a beer/alcoholic drinks store and some interesting beverages not commonly seen. Here's a sample:



I caught a couple of beauty queens trying hard to be hosts (still not very good at it I'm afraid) but sorry, I wasn't interested enough to take a photo. There was one singer from X-Factor before the beauty queens but the main act was a rock group called Urbandub I think. One of the guitarists is female!



Very loud.

That's it! In conclusion, I will not go to Flavors if I have no other errand in Cubao since it's not all that convenient. I do miss Mezzanorte at Technohub....

"Fried" Danggit

Some time ago, my housemate fried danggit and it stank up the house for three days. I couldn't stay in the common area for long because the smell would choke me. I ate dinner in the bedroom, brushed my teeth in the bedroom; if I could I'd have washed the dishes in my bedroom, too.

Then I got some danggit of my own and in my attempt to not stink up the house in turn, I tried cooking it without oil, basically trying to toast it in a pan. Not successful at all. It didn't turn crispy, just hard. But I ate it anyway. And I didn't stink up the house.

Review: Conti's Almond Choco Sansrival

Almond Choco Sansrival (Php 95.00)

Described in Conti's website as:

Layers of thin wafer coated with chocolate butter icing topped with roasted almond sticks. 

It's actually thick layers of meringue coated with a very thin chocolate buttercream icing with almond slivers on top.

The meringue layers are much too sweet for my taste and the choco buttercream much too skimpy. I won't have this again if I want my sansrival fix. My Lil Oscar of Figaro still rules. Too bad Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's pistachio sansrival has been phased out. I've been wanting to try that.

Review - Gelato at Cafe Publico

What do you look for in gelato? Me, I expect more intense flavors.

A couple of days ago I went to Cafe Publico to try their gelato. I was hankering after strawberry (after being disappointed with Starbucks' jammy strawberries and cream frappucino) so when I saw that the "Sophia Loren" is a mix of strawberry and pistachio and there were no other strawberry flavors, I didn't even bother tasting it but ordered one cup immediately.

Verdict? Bleagh. Bland and could barely taste the pistachio, much less the strawberry. Huge disappointment.

I wanted another cup to make up for it. I'd already tasted the "Banana Nutella" -- too much banana, not enough hazelnut and very sweet; "Toblerone" - so-so, not very chocolatey; PBJ - could not taste the PBness nor the jellyness of it; and a few other flavors but none made an impression on me except for "Salted Butter Taffy" which was incredibly flavorful but also very salty and I knew I couldn't eat a whole cup of it, small though it may be.

Fortunately, as I was grumpily eating the "Sophia Loren", I noticed the sign that said I could combine 2 to 3 flavors in a cup! Isn't that marvellous?! I also noticed the "Dark and Bumpy" (with three kinds of nuts!) which I hadn't seen before.

I immediately asked for a cup of 2/3 "Dark and Bumpy" with 1/3 "Salted Butter Taffy" (which I called saltwater taffy, being more familiar with this term). Perfect combination and proportion! This is something I'm having again!

Too bad I didn't get to taste all the gelato flavors. Bashfulness got the better of me. Next time I won't mind looking like a pig.