Mel and the New Normal

Joining the growing ramen community in Alabang is Bangaichi Restaurant, located right behind Festival Supermall (at it's Riverside Area). If you need a landmark for it, it's located in the strip of restaurants behind Save More Supermarket side. You can park right outside it, which is super convenient. Two stories tall, this restaurant is pretty hard to miss when you're in the right area. Upon entering, I noticed that Bangaichi had an industrial feel that's pretty popular now (unpainted walls, bare bulbs lighting fixtures). It had a very modern feel to it. They were still on their soft opening when we tried it, so possibly the restaurant may look different inside by now. As you can see, the restaurant has lovely views of the "Riverside" creation of Festival Supermall, and it has wonderful natural lighting. With regards to the Ramen, we really enjoyed it. I was happy to have butter corn ramen here in the South (since I also get to have in the ra...

Was in Greenhills area a couple of weeks back, and forced Justin to check out Ronac Art Center with me to look at rubber shoes. We actually have done events in Ronac for kiddie parties but I've never seen it personally, so I also wanted to check it out for work. After checking out Titan and drooling at the shoes (for Justin, not for me), I asked if we could have lunch on the ground floor. We (okay, I) chose Lunchbox, just because it looked pretty from the outside, hehe. SUCKER! The interiors were refreshingly cool to the eyes, with clean neat lines and lovely lighting. Even the floor had lighting! I love lighting! Seriously though, I liked the design of the place, and the aircon was nice and cool (it was blisteringly hot outside that day.) I had the Rueben (P295), which was a corned beef sandwich with the works. Goodness gracious it was YUMMY! Was that dill I tasted? I would order this again in a heartbeat. I actually told Justin that the style reminded me of Breakfast...

My high school barkada remains my closest friends to this day, and we meet up regularly in the South area to catch up (since we're all based there.) Usually we meet in our favorite Cafe Breton, but for a change they suggested we meet up in BF. They suggested Ramen Kuroda, a place I've never heard of. Now, I am a HUGE, GIMONGOUS FAN of ramen. I kid you not. *Oink oink* Justin is a super duper fan of ramen as well. Well, we're fans of most food, but still. We are ramen snobs, haha! Yushoken still rates #1 on our last, closely followed by Ukkokei (did I even spell that right?). I always love trying new ramen places out, so I was definitely game for this! I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ramen Kuroda was a large restaurant near other familiar restaurants in BF. Most restaurants in BF are teeny hole-in-the-wall places (still with yummy food, of course), but Ramen Kuroda was quite large and could easily seat 50 people. The restaurant had no-nonsense interiors wi...

Justin and I, we love us some thai food. Long time. So we were very happy to see a cheap place in BF, near Gourmet's Palate, that sold super cheap thai foo. Dusadee Thai! The interiors are very simple, and small, but professionally done. You could say that they started their branding really well. I can drink thai milk tea all day, everyday! And the way they prepared theirs is very authentic and true to the taste of thai milk tea. This is their Bagoong Rice with Pork meal (which, if I'm not mistaken, is P120). Yes it is very good! My favorite, mango with sticky coconut rice. Really good too! I was wondering why, for a start up business, Dusadee came off very franchise-prepared, with printed cups and well-prepared menu boards. For one, the minimum to print logos on cups is around 10,000 - an investment that few start-ups are willing to make. Also, the photos on their menus are professionally done, and the vision for the small restaurant is very clear in term...

*I ate here a long time ago, but forgot to write the words for the draft, so forgive the lack of details. After a few weeks of seeing my friends post about this place, Justin and I had the opportunity to drop by after renewing our Alabang Hills sticker. Their juicy burger photos with matching #organic hashtags made me curious, and I was glad I had the chance to check it out. Their entrance is right beside Alabang 400s - if you are familiar with Southridge, it's near that area. It's on the 1st floor of a building, and you may have to park a little far since there a lot of cars in front during the weekdays. The ambiance is very straightforward - wooden tables, dark colored but well-lit interiors.  Their menu board lists all the organic steak and burger offerings. They have a lot of choices for a place that sells organic food.  They also have desserts for those who can't end a meal without one. Though not the ultimate in terms of presentation, they were ac...

My friends and I, we're avid bazaar shoppers. Living in Alabang, every weekend of November and December is filled with awesome shopping choices in the Cuenca bazaars. I personally used to buy most of my clothes in bazaars! In the last few years, my friends and I anticipated the presence of H Cuisine in the Cuenca Bazaar, for their one, delicious specialty -- Beef Belly. I never knew they had a restaurant. So imagine my surprise when I took J to eat in RUB in Timog, and H Cuisine was suddenly right beside it! Since I wanted J to try RUB (I had gone there by myself and ever since I've always wanted to bring J), we pushed through with RUB. Last week, we ended up in Timog after a purchase meeting in QC. And we knew we would eat here this time!

I just wanted to blog very quickly about our visit to Wildflour. I'm not starving right now anyways (I cheated today, my kids make it so hard to stay on this diet!) so might as well blog about it. Wildflour is one of the top restaurants in Manila now. Well, this is based on newspaper articles and several photo uploads of foodie friends. Their food always looks delicious on instagram! Hahaha! So on one of my meeting days in Fort, we decided to check it out. We've been very good in our spending anyways, so we thought we would treat ourselves. It was EXCELLENT! Damn.