The 9th – Hole in the Wall

May 31, 2017August 7, 20201 Comment

For dinner on our second day, we decided to try out Century City Mall’s “food hall“. This is Hole in the Wall on the fourth floor. It consists of various food establishments inside a common dining area.

One of the dining areas during our visit.

Where we sat during dinner time.

For dinner, we decided to eat at the most popular store there which was Bad Bird. They specialize in chicken. Apparently they won numerous awards in the Philippines.

My Dirty Rice Plate (390 php). Dirty rice (fried rice, chicken liver, bacon, tamago, and bonito), kimchi coleslaw, and 2 pcs fried chicken.

Inggo’s Waffle Plate (360 php). Sweet potato waffles, miso butter, maple syrup, and 2 pcs friend chicken. The 2pcs small balls are hush puppies (+ php)

BB Corn (190 php). Corn on a stick with kewpie, bonito, cheese, and toragashi.

Verdict? We understood why this restaurant is popular with the crowd. But for us, personally, we didn’t like it. We thought it was too expensive for the food. But maybe this is the “normal” price for the Makati crowd. I dunno.

This is just one out of 9 establishments inside Hole in the Wall. I hope we could try the other restaurants when we’re near the area next time.

The 9th – Le Petit Soufflé

May 30, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

On the first day of our 9th anniversary staycation, we discovered that Century City Mall is only a 5-minute walk away from our hotel. On the second day, we decided to try out the interesting restaurants there. ♥ Based on online reviews, Le Petit Soufflé is the #1 restaurant in Century City Mall.

Pretty interiors.♥

If I were to describe the interiors, it would be french chic. I love their furniture. ♥

Our drinks: Iced Matcha Latte (130 php) & Hot Matcha tea (100 php). No strong matcha flavor, huhu.

Kinoko Frites (235 php). These are fried enoki and another mushroom. I loved these! But so expensive.

Hambagu with truffled cream & mushrooms. (595 php). This is Inggo’s dish. He craved for Jolibee’s burger steak after eating this.

My dish: Squid Ink Riz (395 php). This took a while. Its a small, but filling dish. I love the fluffy egg & squid ink rice.

Matcha souffle with vanilla syrup (350 php). Expensive! But worth a try. We loved the crispy edges instead of the fluffy insides.

Facade design. So cute huhu.

Verdict? Its worth a try. Not sure if we’ll come back though.

Le Petit Soufflé is located on the Third floor of Century City Mall.

The 9th – Little Tokyo

May 24, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

For our first dinner during our 9th anniversary staycation at Makati, we wanted to try the Wagyu cube buffet at Little Tokyo. This place features a group of restaurants which specializes in Japanese cuisine. We’ve been here a lot of times before (check out our old food blog!). But we didn’t get to try the wagyu buffet at Urameshi-ya before since they only offer this during Monday to Wednesday. But this time, we did!

We walked from our hotel to Little Tokyo instead of taking an uber. The surge was insanely high for the distance. Well, at least walking was healthier (but tiring).

The “buffet” at Urameshi-ya is worth 500php + 10% service charge. We got wagyu cubes, wagyu spam, marinated pork belly, and some scallops. You have 45 mins to cook everything you ordered. But you can still stay after the 45min. mark to eat your food. The buffet comes with miso soup, salad, and rice.

The server gave us a plate of wagyu cubes. ♥

HUGE scallops! ♥

Sadly, there wasn’t any crabs/oyster/shrimp during our stay compared to the other review blogs. But since we went here for the wagyu cubes, we didn’t mind. The wagyu cubes were delicious! Service was great as well. Our server helped us cook the scallops. (Tip: you don’t have to remove the shell!)

Satisfied with Urameshi-ya, we went to their neighbor restaurant Hana for dessert: We always order the Matcha Kakigori + additional icecream here!

After our Little Tokyo adventure, we got an uber and went back to our hotel. ♥

The 9th – City Garden Grand Hotel

May 22, 2017August 7, 20201 Comment

We celebrated our 9th year anniversary this May! ♥ Instead of going far away this year, we opted for a staycation instead in Metro Manila. I’ve decided to divide the posts into smaller parts. For the first entry is our hotel! We checked in at City Garden Grand hotel for 3 days and nights. I would like to note that this is the City Garden Grand Hotel. They have a sister hotel which is just nearby.

Reception area.

Check-in was a breeze. You need to present your ID and pay a security deposit at the reception. Then you’ll receive your room card. We got the Superior King Bed room on the 29th floor.

Lobby.

Ceiling details. Love the 3 huge capiz chandelier!

I love our room! ♥ The bed and pillows were so comfy. Both side tables have equal numbers of power outlets, switches, and telephones compared to others. Wifi was also free (up to 3 devices I think). It has a sophisticated feel to the interiors through the use of dark & neutral tones, accentuated by the use of lights.

Our king size bed with the comfiest pillows. ♥

Bathroom.

Bath tub : the #1 reason that we chose this hotel.

Left: View from our room ♥ | Right: Trump tower! (I did some of the interior plans in my previous job)

For our last day, we had breakfast at Spice Cafe on the 7th floor. You could go ala carte or do the breakfast buffet worth ~800php.

Sadly, the only photos that I took were below. I was too shy to take photos of the others because there were a lot of foreigners that morning HAHA. The breakfast buffet consists of the following: Bread station, fruit station, cheese, chocolate fountain, cereals and yogurt, salad bar, noodle station, egg station, maki station, viands from the Philippines and different countries.

I was satisfied of the buffet because of the bread station with blueberry jam. ♥ He was satisfied because of the unlimited olives & bacon. Service was very nice.

Overall, our staycation was great! No complaints on the room except for the aircon (which took a while to cool, but apparently they replied at our review on Agoda & said aircon was repaired). The hotel was nearby Century City Mall and other food establishments which was a plus for us. If we had a bigger budget, I’d like to try the Presidential Suite next time. ♥

City Garden Grand hotel website.

Aside from sunflowers

May 16, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

I’ve been trying to diversify my knowledge of floral watercolor aside from sunflowers. Though its not my favorite flower, I always paint this due to the reason that I think its the easiest HAHA. I noticed that some of the more popular flowers are peonies, roses, and other flowers with complicated petals. I did attempt to paint those like these examples:

Found in a previous post.

But impatience got the better of me. Sigh! And I think asides from that, I need to really take time to sketch instead of making squiggly lines. One of my former office mates just suggested that I’d let my IG friends guess the flower, and so I did with this artwork:

This is a peony. ♥

Recently, I’ve asked people from Instagram for suggestions on what I should paint. Here are some of those that I finished:

The CBTL Table. ♥

Poppies as requested by Frances.

Bar area. ♥

Stargazer Lily as requested by Claircolors.

Asphodelus as requested by Sydney (my cousin).

Couldn’t help painting bouquets!

Carnation is my favorite flower ♥.

Last week’s #MondaysMadeBetter (finally went on a Monday HAHA) art tambay was composed of my cousin & I, plus a random Hannah appeared. During our art session, there was this little girl who was looking at us painting. So I invited her to paint with us! I taught her how to paint my favorite sunflowers. After that, I asked her “What flower do you want to draw next?”. She replied with “Roses”. Eeep.

That’s one of the reasons why I want to learn more flowers. So I could teach people the simplest way to draw realistic flowers (instead of combined rose macaronis). They were challenging, but they taught me a valuable lesson: being patient!

Here’s to more floral diversity. HAHA. ♥

Tuesdays made better

May 2, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

Sydney and I went to the newly opened CBTL branch at Banawe last week. I was supposed to blog about this on Monday to mimic the current hashtag of CBTL Philippines. But we went there last Tuesday so might as well make a parody of it lol. I love the place! It gave ample sunlight that brightened the interior, which in turn made our watercolor session easy.

My Hydrangea postcard that I gave to the baristas. ♥

I painted sunflowers that day. ♥

Sunflower cone & sunflower stems. ♥

I’ve been thinking of organizing an Art Tambay session for the North peeps. Any suggestions on coffee shops / cafes? 🙂

Suffrie

Month: May 2017