Here’s a picture of the Lotus Garden spin on California Maki.

This is made with avocado instead of crabsticks, with sesame seeds instead of fish eggs.

YUMMY.

I remember a professor said in a conference I attended lately, that the geeks are taking/will take over the world.

Can us nerds/dorks rule with them?

Yes I am a self-proclaimed nerd.

But perhaps I’m more of a dork. I possess the coordination of one (or lack thereof).

And how cool am I, bringing a box to Central while the others were knocking back beers and smoking.

There I was sipping on my coke and tapping out Nerds.

I saw the billboard, I saw the TV ads. Kim Chiu wearing this purple shirt stating simply: “A coke a day keeps the badtrip away”.

I want one.

And I went to Bench Trinoma yesterday in the hopes of getting one. Turns out, you can’t buy the shirt, you gotta redeem one bottlecap saying you won a shirt to get it.

So if you’ve met me, you know, I drink the stuff by the liter, you figure, easy peasy Japanesy right?

Wrong.

You see, at home I drink it by 1.5 liter bottles, and at the office, in cans. This is a challenge. Do i walk everytime to the grocery to buy those 500ml bottles? (I’d be hard pressed to find someone to go there everytime I wanted one, it’s hard enough getting someone to go to the 6th floor with me ya know).

So I’m asking for help.

If you really don’t care, and own a store selling coke by the bottle/liter, can I have the caps? Those that say I win a shirt?

I really want the shirt.

They go with these new purple flats I just bought. Haha.

Plus, COKE.

So Tony’s been at Mayer’s for a week and i called and asked when I could get him. They told me Monday after lunch, and I thought, perfect. Rest day. No plans. I can drag Mom and Joannaman along. We always like going around Binondo checking out the jewelry and they’ve missed Dong Bei so I knew it was easy asking them to go with me.

So we went around Binondo, at Joannaman’s insistence. I’m not much of a jewelry person myself, I only wear what people give me.

Dong bei was delish. I stuffed myself with dumplings, I think i ate 3/4 of the order. I was hungry so sue me. We even got takeout dumplings and chicken for dinner for two nights. Frozen so it’ll last.

Then went to Mayer’s to pick up Tony. When i asked what went wrong, they told me that they just replaced the unit. So rest in peace Tony.

It’s Rrrramon now.

Jello shots Monday. Purrfect.

So we haven’t seen our cousins from my mother’s side in a really long time. Since we’re all now basically in Manila and we can go to the mall again (long story, just that we were told by the mom’s side of the family to not go to the mall for a while) we decided to meet and eat and catch up.

Where did we go? Robinson’s Place Ermita of course. Why of course? Well, it’s where we’ve always gone when we do see each other here in Manila. Even if it is a hecka long way from home, it’s a food haven that hasn’t changed since my mom worked in Pagcor when I was a kid. And for food, I’ll always travel.

First stop: Bon Vivant. It’s a rice in a box stall that’s been there for as long as i can remember. They have the most unique and just comforting flavors (Like my favorite: Ooh La La, a shrimp pesto, bacon mix) that have made people come back for years. And since it’s the only branch (believe me, people have tried to ask the Chinese owner for franchise rights, they’ve all been denied) it’s an inexpensive treat that I always make sure I get when I go to Ermita.

Then off to Wham. Don’t tell Ate Kaye (she doesn’t know we already ate, since she was late [hey that rhymes!]) but we ate fries, chicken littles (their chicken nuggets that are oh so good) and onion rings with our rice. Photo-opped, laughed at absurd rumors (that we found out later in the day was true) and ate our way through our first sit down meal.

Ajisen was third on our list. After walking in circles for 15 minutes and not knowing what to make Ate Kaye eat, we sat down at Ajisen, this Japanese place at the corner of the 3rd(?) floor at Midtown. Ordered sushi (to be fair we already ate) and ice cream. Gulped down the food then looked for more dessert.

And dessert we did find. Art’s cream gallery at the ground floor of Midtown was a place I’ve already read about online. Fiorgelato providing it’s ice cream (ok, gelato) we had the One for All which consisted of 12 scoops of ice cream in a single huge martini glass. The flavors all melted together, which was sometimes fun(mint and chocolate chip), sometimes strange (lychee and hazelnut). It was gone in 10 minutes.

Don’t think the day’s over. After Tita Tess picked us up, we went to S&R for apparently a sale and saw the longest line ever. We were tired so we just decided to eat dinner there. For people who have been eating every hour and a half, we managed to eat half a dozen burgers, a pizza, more cups of clam chowder than i could count, a salad (with bacon and cheese, i suspect it’s not as healthy as it’s parading to be), churros, and those chicken bread things that were so good.

It’s a wonder our clothes still fit.

Next time we’re going North!

So after mass on Sunday, we just had to head to Chocolate Kiss to try out the new menu and to really check if that Sunday was a fluke. Of course we had to go, I love the place too much to write it off. So with excitement and a bit of trepidation we ordered. I had the ribs (again), Joannaman had the new Shrimp Aligue Pasta, Mom had the Margerita, Esther had the salisbury steak.

We were all pretty happy with our orders, the ribs i got were back to the nice flavorful easy to eat ribs I remember, Joannaman liked the new aligue pasta, albeit she felt the effect of the rich aligue afterwards. Esther could eat anything, and even ate everything since we couldn’t finish our orders. Mom raved about her pasta, it was simple and tangy and she loved that. I’m happy to report that THAT Sunday was a fluke and i am back to being a Chockiss regular. I wanna try all the new things on the menu.

Last night I was in bliss. Dad came home from Batangas bearing stinky gifts from Davao. Apparently Tito Monching, one of his best friends brought home durian from Davao. I know how people react to durian, it’s either they hate it with a passion or they love it. I happen to be one of the latter. The stinkier the better I say. And since the package stank to high heaven I was excited at the promise of the rich goodness of the fruit I hardly get to eat. One, it’s quite pricey. Two, you can’t exactly find it just anywhere, and three, if you do find it, all the people on the public transportation you’re gonna ride home in will resent the fact that you did. So the only time I get to eat it is at home, when one of the parental units bring home some.

The first bite brought almost a choir of hallelujah to my ears, I missed it so. Its rich, sweet, sinful and oh so smelly flesh is an experience to say the least. The fact that only Mom and I could stand it was sweet sweet victory (More for me yay!) and i savored every bite.

So if you haven’t tried the stinky prickle covered fruit from down under, i suggest you do. You might find you like it. And if you don’t I’ll give you my address. Send me the rest.

So last week was a slow task week at User Experience. Me being the masochist I am, I browsed my favorite local food blog all those days, which is my own special brand of self-torture. And even if it was Dessert Comes First I found myself craving for a slice of steak. Although I could not afford the place that she went to, (Elbert’s, looks blissful but way above my price range) I went searching for a different place to indulge my craving for a slice of red meat.

After a day of research and finding out our salary just came in, we (RC, Kiko, Ren and me) went straight to Alfredo’s in Tomas Morato after work. I was thinking, simple, in my price range, and mom recommended ever since I can remember. True I may not agree with my mom on some food recommendations (turns out I am not a fan of churros), this we agreed on. Got the Mediterranean spiced one, Ren got the same, Kiko got the Chateaubriand and RC went meateater on us and got the 300 gram tenderloin. Loved that each order of the steak came with bread, soup and a salad. I also had to get an iced tea to wash all the meat down, and funnily enough, their iced tea blend tasted like Cyma’s iced tea, which I love. We were all pretty happy with our orders. On the waiter’s suggestion we all had it medium rare so it was still a little pink in the middle, and true enough it was the perfect texture, just done enough so I don’t feel like a lion gnawing on raw meat, but tender so i don’t need to chew for a couple of minutes just to gulp it down.

So after that I realize I am a major meat eater. And I’m craving steak all the time now. More than sweets now really. With the voice inside my head telling me to cut down on the sugar, how can you crave it 24/7 still?

But since Kozui, the green tea place people were telling me to try, was like a brief walk from Alfredo’s and Kiko was saying it was good, we still went for dessert. Ordered the Anmitsu at the recommendation of the waiter, we sat down and enjoyed our Japanese version of halo halo. It was good good good. Not too sweet. And did i say yet that I love green tea ice cream? (Green tea frap too, but that’s besides the point) It was so good I was telling the guys that we should go back the next day.

That was the 14th.

On the 16th, we didn’t feel like going home yet, so Kiko RC and I went to Tomas Morato again. This time we went to Jozu, this Japanese place in front of Guilly’s island. The sushi menu looked good so we (Kiko and me) tried that. RC tried their yakisoba. Kiko and I were happy. RC wasn’t. Haha. So we went to Wheatberry, this bakery cafe he was telling me about for ages to soothe his annoyed highness. RC got the silvannas, Kiko got apple pudding, I got cheesecake. Can i just say I wasn’t surprised that my order was the sweetest of the bunch? But i was really surprised I couldn’t finish it. It took a long time, and a lot of bites from RC before the slice was gone.

Then went over to Ren’s to annoy the heck out of him. He was out of the office for two days coz he got sick coz of something he ate. After that, went back to Kozui. Split an ice cream.

Now this is the kind of hangout I missed. And also the reason why I need to go back to the gym.

Sunday morning. I had like 2 hours of sleep under my belt. I had to go to mass. With two words, Joannaman perked me up instantly. “Cyma tayo“. I dragged my tired body and even if I wanted to crawl under a rock and wake up the next day, went to mass earlier than I planned (I was planning to just go by myself later in the day) coz of the promise of the lunch after it. See I loved Cyma the first time we went. Clearly evidenced by my blog post found here. And nothing can soothe my tired soul like a good meal. Ordered basically the same things, and since we had mom along, ordered a couple more. Tonnos salad is feta cheese, olive oil, tomatoes, and a whole lotta other stuff with seared tuna. Got the solo coz we knew from experience that the solo was enough for two people. Also ordered the tzatziki, which is cucumber dip, with pita bread. This was my favorite. Joannaman’s too. We both said we wanted to come back to Cyma and just eat that. Ordered the flaming sausages just so we could order an OPA! thing on the menu. (When it’s marked with an OPA! on the menu it means the dish is flaming and all the servers shout OPA! when they serve it) And since mom couldn’t get the chicken gyro she originally wanted, she ordered the Roka pasta instead.

Everything was gooooooood. The clean flavor of the tzatziki was the perfect contrast to the greek sausages we ordered which I can only describe as hearty. The pasta with arugula and pine nuts and olive oil, way oily but good oily. The salad, bliss. And in true form, we tasted each dish but couldn’t finish a single one. We ended up taking home a little bit of everything. All in all a hazy meal but a good one, which I washed down with their iced tea, which is one of my favorite blends of iced teas out there.

All in all a perfect ending to a whirlwind weekend.

The Chocolate Kiss Cafe in UP Diliman is one of my favorite haunts. This is clearly evidenced by my former blogposts here and here. It’s quiet. It’s like a hop skip and a jump away from our house. It has simple, unassuming food that’s not too expensive. It has my favorite blueberry cheesecake.

But my last visit two Sundays ago with the family had me sorely disappointed at the quality of the food there now. I haven’t gone in a while (like a couple months) and the triumphant return I envisioned was a bitter defeat. I don’t know if they changed the chef, or they’re just using lesser quality ingredients, but gawd. Everything was different from what we knew. Ordered the usual Hungarian sausage and penne pasta, baby back ribs, and chix in a basket. All our usual favorite orders. The sausage in the pasta was different, the ribs were lesser quality and smaller, only the chix in a basket was almost the same quality. And that’s only coz we almost never order it.

Thank God the cake was the same. But we left feeling gypped. What happened to Chockiss?