AngelBQ

Moving along to downtown Manila and Makati (check out Alabang in the entry below). Of course we had to stop by Greenbelt that rents out to a dizzy number of resto’s and it’s even in the process of expanding. There is also the relatively new Mall of Asia who houses a lot of resto’s with view over the bay. Unfortunately we weren’t able to eat there.

:::Cafe Breton in Greenbelt:::

Cafe Breton is a cozy place with cozy french food in the form of crepes. I remember the college days where we would frequent their lone branch in Nakpil and it was such a hit with its doll house like interior. As per size and appearance. We were delighted when it spread its branches and hit Alabang Town Center. Now both those branches are gone, but many others has popped after that. This trip to Philippines we went to this branch in Greenbelt and later on in Alabang Westgate.

The tall palm trees in the Greenbelt plaza reflecting on the shiny sign.

Some Greenbelt lovin’ lol.

This was mine it was Crepe G…. replaced with veal sausage with onions. Asparagus and mushroom topped with a cheese sauce and eggs.

This is a typical crepe with savory filling. They have crepes for dessert and then for main meals too.

My banana nutella dessert crepe with almond flakes and ice cream. Yum. Chocolate and banana is such a great match.

Comfort food needs comfort drink. Just love it when they serve tea in a pot and you can refill yourself.

I just can’t help to think about how big eaters my companions were and how I was one too. I would order lots of appetizers, have a main course and still have space for dessert. Just the appetizer along was filling as main course combined and then some.

Just like this meal in Cafe Breton. Sis in law had 2 savory crepes. I had a crepe with toppings and a dessert crepe, while both hubby and bro in law had one mozzarella burger and one order smoked salmon sandwiches each. My uncle who always drives around always gets shocked each time we would order. He himself, an adult man could barely finish his meals.

Nevertheless, we didn’t blow up that much, although I developed a tiny bulge in my tummy, and I wasn’t 2 month pregnant, lol.

:::Pasha in Greenbelt:::

This was the 3rd consecutive year to visit Pasha. 2 years ago, the food was much better than it is today, in my opinion. But still when we go to Greenbelt we have to go there so that my middle eastern family can sample the middle east cuisine available in Philippines. We could have gone to Ziggurat, but parking is hard and the location here is more relaxing.

They now got cushions outside in middle east style and colors. Comfy change. I don’t have a picture of the starters, but it’s the best part of Pasha. Never mind the not so interesting main courses, the sampler is a winner. Tabbouleh tastes authentic, which is not much I can say for the Hossein’s Tabbouleh. The borek filled with cheese, yum. The mashed grilled eggplant dip (I don’t remember the name, but it’s mashed grill eggplant with tahini/sesame paste, lemon and olive oil) and the hummus makes for excellent dips to the pita and the falafel (fried mashed chick peas) was also ok. I also love their banana yogurt shake. I love yogurt drinks and ice creams. They did fail in my hubby’s drink which was Iran (hubby pronounce it hayran). It’s a salty lassi or yoghurt drink. It lacked salt. We asked that they add salt. When it came back, it was too salty to drink. We asked them to fix it again, and it came back almost as salty as before it went.

This was the dolma or filled vegetables with rice, meat and herbs. I like it best when it is filled in vine leaves (my love for vine leaves can be compared to my love for nori or seaweed) or boiled chinese cabbage. It taste a little bland compared to what mother in law and kurds make (and now I can even do it). I like the kurds version which is tastier, sour and just enough hotness.

I had the osso bucco. The meat was so tender that it almost melted in my mouth. Other than that, it wasn’t that exciting. A bit oily too. Hubby and bro in law had iskender kebab which is a typical turkish treat.

As we were about to leave, I looked for my uncle who happened to talk with the turkish owner (who we always see there every single visits). I read about the owner before in an article years ago and knew had some Scandinavian background and lived in Sweden before. We approached the two.

At first, we thought, uncle had approached him to tell about my hubby and his family being middle eastern. Turns out, he asked about us to my uncle. Probably, he heard us talking in Norwegian which is close to Swedish. He talked in Swedish with us and he also pointed us to one of his chefs who was sitting in a table, waving and smiling back at us, which turns out to be a kurdish too from Turkey. So that was our Pasha adventure.

:::Myron’s at Powerplant:::

First time we went to Powerplant, we dined in Mati’s. I wanted to dine at Myron’s since I already been to Mati’s, but since our bill for lunch at Hossein’s was already high, I was afraid that they would feel that they are using so much money on food in one day.

So I thought I’d never go back to Powerplant and never get the chance to see what the buzz was with Myron’s. It so happened that on the last part of the trip, they wanted an Elisse bag that was out of stock in Alabang Town Center. They wanted two, but only one was available in ATC, and what do you know, the Power Plant branch had more and so we reserved it.

Again, my obsession for roof, lol.

Red grape shake. Taste authentic grape. Love the small burst of seeds. Unfortunately out of the 5-6 shakes on their list, just 2 was available. Strawberry and red grape. I had the strawberry and it was delicious too.

Hubby and sis in law had a craving for soup and both ordered the cappuccino of mushroom soup which was frothy and oh so mushroomy.

The hit of the show is I guess the Oyster Granita. After their last oyster eat in Omakase which was baked (they much rather have it raw), I recommended them the Granita. In the raw section, there is Granita and Bloody Mary or combination of the two and then there are also some baked ones, among them the Rockefeller. They also have different varieties of mussel. I prefer mussel in lemon, olive oil, herbs and white wine. I was drooling for something like that, but oyster is more difficult to get in Norway and it costs so lot that we had to take advantage of it while we were here.

My first encounter with Oyster. It was ok, but I stood over the second round. I think I need to get used to it. But this was a great way to start. I did like the ice shaving and the other tastes that played in the mouth before the sea flavor stepped in. They ordered one more round after the all the meals were over.

I had the salad with foie gras, poached pear and caramelized walnuts. To my surprise, neither the poached pear and caramelized walnut was present. I had already digged my way in 1/3rd of the salad when I decided to ask them about the disappearance of my ingredients. The rest of the evening another attendant handled us and he was really nice and accommodating. He came shortly in from the restaurant with the rest of the stuff.

Hubby had the salad with chicken. They have one basic mesclun salad and the extra ingredients is the variety. Not sure if corn/mais should be there, but oh well. No biggie.

All 3 of my companions chose the paolo steak which is the thinnest. I learned that the oz. represent how thin or thick the meat is and not how big or broad. I am no connoisseur so there you go, something new to be added to my culinary knowledge bank.

The steaks is in 3 sizes. You have choice between 3 sauces. One was mushroom sauce, another was red wine sauce (Shiraz cabernet I think) with shallots and I don’t remember the 3rd. You also have a choice of sidings. We haven’t seen so many places that serve baked potato, and since hubby loves baked potato, he went for that. Unfortunately, I learned that there was bacon bits on top of it and he can’t eat pork. The attendant was nice enough to come with a new one with all the toppings on the side minus the bacon. That way we are also assured that it was not just scooped of. Plus points.

That grilled whole garlic to the left, although intimidating, looked intriguingly good.

And this was mine. I love prawns. Especially the big ones. I really liked this, that much I remember, but don’t ask me how it was marinated or what else came with it. I don’t remember. I liked that salsa on top of it.

:::Hossein’s at the Fort Strip:::

I didn’t get pics of the food. There was something about the mood that day. Mine and the rest of my companions and I was not enthusiastic in taking pictures.

The choices are plenty. Lots of dishes, although they had some items not available. Those who don’t care much for menus, and those who feel pressured by the waiting waiter, well then this menu would annoy you a bit. Especially if you are not familiar with middle east food, it would be hard to make a choice, unless you are an adventurer who want to try something new and just randomly want to point on one. Another solution is perhaps to ask for recommendation.

After throughly reading the menu, I found my dish. The description made me hungry (I don’t remember which one but I remember the ingredients appealing to me). I was disappointed to learn that it was not available. Oh no, I have to scour the menu again. I ended up with a bami dish (okra) with curry flavors. My companions loved my choice and scooped from my order. They weren’t so happy with theirs. For kebab, there should be some dressing to accompany it so it wouldn’t be too dry. For an iranian owned place, it was weird that there were no garlic yoghurt sauce or anything like that. When we adressed the matter, they recommended something. It turns out by the flavor, that it was tzatziki. The garlic, yogurt and cucumber revealed it. We got two portions where the difference between each bowl was how the cucumber was chopped. It did help a bit, but still tzatziki has a consistency more of a dip than a sauce. The tabbouleh was not so good. Something completely off with the flavor.

But the ender of the meal, which was the persian tea was a hit. We had a big pot and we drank a lot of it. Just like how we would make it at home. Fresh ceylon tea dried leaves infused in boiling water.

It was disappointing and so was the bill. But ofcourse maybe the rest of the dishes are good. There is after all a mountain of other dishes to choose from. And we didn’t even get to taste the pricey raan masala, which is a whole leg of lamb.

:::Mati’s in Powerplant:::

Sorry no pics beyond here.

Our first visit in Powerplant landed on Mati’s. We have been there before (twice on our last visit) and hubby likes the lamb gyro. I ordered the Mati salata that I remember l liked. I also liked their cheese specialty, saganaki. It was after the recommendation of the waitress. It was a salty and tasty cheese that had been deepfried. I also had some crispy eggplants, which was so so. I could savor the oil as I chewed the deepfried pieces. Hubby had 3 lamb gyro’s plus one order of lamb chops. Can you tell we are big eater? Lol. Sis in law had soup because of her teeth. It was ok all in all.

::::Friday’s Glorietta:::

All I can say is that the table was so full that it was almost embarrassing. The non smoking area had a great panoramic view of Shangri La and you can even spot the Ayala Museum.

Buffalo wings times 2, calamaris times 2, mozzarella sticks times 2, fish and chips, a chicken salad of some sort, cajun chicken, 2 pastas and 1 more main dish I can’t seem to remember. And we were only 5 folks. The description of the cake was so mouthwatering, but the price was such a turn off for just a piece of cake. My favorite of all dishes, the honey mustard dip for the cajun chicken. What can I say, Friday’s will always be Friday’s. Nothing grand and revolutionary.

:::Tanabe Japanese Restaurant in Remedios Circle:::

This day we went for a short trip to Mall Of Asia. Actually it was too late for us to go here. I postponed it too much and we landed here two days before departure and with our bags already full of stuff. We didn’t have more space for shopping.

I forfeited the Highland’s Steakhouse since we just had steak at Myron’s not too long ago, and wanted to go to french resto, Blue Frog in Nakpil, Malate instead to taste some frogs. I promised my hubby two years now that he can taste frog, but unfortunately we never manage to go there.

After several wrong turns (seems uncle was a bit confused and haven’t been in Manila for a while), we got to Nakpil. To my dismay, there was no more Blue Frog there although it still says so in clickthecity.com. We went to Adriatico to check out the food scenes. Looks like Portico is out of business or maybe just undergoing renovation. At Remedios Circle we saw this Japanese place, and decided to stop walking. We were already very hungry at this point.

We sat near the chefs on the bar. The place was full. The main chef was Japanese so I had a feeling this would be a good food trip. We were given complimentary potato balls. It was so yummy. I asked what it was and the chef asked if I wanted more. Unfortunately they were empty, but i got some potato salad which was good as well. The choices are not that vast as in Omakase, but we got miso soup, California maki, a mixed plate, tempura maki (a regular order of hubby) and more and my main was chirashi sushi which is a bowl of sushi rice with the ingredients spread around. My ingredients were mixed raw seafood. Again I had to scoop of the uni. The assistant chef who was very entertaining to us, asked if we were sure of the large order. We all said yes and that’s how we normally order. He just had good intentions in case we were the type who was new to sushi and wasn’t aware of what we were ordering. He said inaalalayan lang niya kami/assisting us.

After hearing the many different feedbacks from the entire trips of choclate shakes and blends which was a fixed order for brother in law, I was delighted that he gave a big thumbs up and smile of the cookies and cream shake he was zipping on. In fact, before the dining experience was over, he ordered one more.

It was fun to hear the jap chef talk filipino to the waitresses and philippine waitresses talk japanese back. And each time they would ring a bell to signify a finished tray of meal or sushi, you would hear several screams around the resto, “hai”, which I assume means that they will take it, or acknowledge that they are aware it’s finished and their on the way to fetch it.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a camera that day. I really wanted to take a picture of this tall ship made of bamboo which they served sushi on top of the ship. What a lovely presentation. I think I have seen something similar in Alex sushi here in Norway, but not as big.

Anyway, that takes us to the end of Makati/Manila area, and stay tuned for the last of the food fest series in Bora, Tagaytay and Singapore. Till then!