Category: Food & Drinks

Agueda 2020

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I’ve been a loyal follower of Agueda Manila since the beginning (proof here HAHA), a local business in Metro Manila that sells brigadeiros and pinta cookies. Dandi has experimented with different ways of providing “paints” to her Pinta cookies. The one below is made from a food printer!

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It was a bit light and not as vibrant as the usual food coloring, but you could still paint with this! I also got her pinta cookie set Christmas edition last year. This one had a different painting set, and was what I was more used to.

Still too pretty to eat! My tip when painting is to use a mixing palette. I used one of our ramekins for this.

The first ECQ and painting my cravings

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Browsing through my photos made me realize that even though I’ve been working from home since last year, I’ve done a lot of things that are still worthy to blog about. Or maybe I’m just in the mood to write? I’m currently sorting and editing through 2020, hopefully I could get a lot done before 2021 ends. (And then 2021 posts on 2022? HAHA) ♥

First thing that I should write about is the first ECQ. (What number are we in right now anyway!?) Everyone was required to stay home except for our front liners. Most restaurants closed down at that time. Delivery was the booming back then. I painted my cravings away during those days:

Chirashi don!

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There was a time that coffee shops were closed! I had to survive on instant coffee for a while. I used my Canson XL watercolor paper for these. I love the effects it made on very wet on wet style. Look at the iced americano!

Some coffee that I miss: latte, americano, caramel macchiato (starbucks style)

When coffee shops were closed. People were desperate and made dalgona coffee using instant coffee

And then I just painted more drinks because I discovered that I love the effects on my watercolor paper. Some matcha latte art!

Berry tea and Blue butterfly pea tea. Have you tried the blue butterfly pea tea? My friends said it was good!

April was my birth month, so I had an excuse to order food:

Salmon sashimi bilao from Alexsea Delicatessen

Pasta and Pizza from Friuli Trattoria

Yes, I ordered two bilaos HAHAHA.

We ordered these on another day because it was a good deal for the amount of food! This is from Kimchi Kingdom.

Writing this post made me crave for sashimi again. Ugh! Until next time! ♥

Agueda Pinta Cookie Workshop

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A few weeks after Daluyong, my friend Dandi announced that she was going to have her first Pinta Cookie workshop at Papemelroti! I’ve blogged about her brand Agueda Manila a lot of times here in my blog. You could say that I’m a pinta cookie veteran lol.

The workshop kit consists of 1 square cookie, 2 round cookies, a hexagon cookie, and a paint brush. The “paints” were also included, and we were given the freedom to choose our own colors in our palette.

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Hi Dandi! ♥

 

Some of the paints that we could choose from. ♥

I was grouped together with my blockmate Tin. The first cookie we painted was the rectangle cookie and we were to paint wood grains. It reminded me so much of our first year in UST doing our “plates”. 

With the rest of the class. ♥

After painting wood grains, Dandi and her team collected our cookies for drying. Next up is the Hexagon cookie and marble painting! ID na ID ang peg HAHA. 

My white marble paint. ♥ How do you paint like this? Just like watercolor. Add a generous amount of water or vodka, and then add the paint on the dry parts of the cookie for detail or on the wet parts so the paint would spread.

 

Beautiful marble tiles with gold leaf! ♥

The next tasks were floral wreaths by Sav and my own flower painting demo. I did a quick peony painting on my square cookie. Insisting everyone to use liquids on the cookie and letting the paint do its magic. After my demo, everyone had free time to create their own subjects on the square cookie.

My floral wreath that consisted of poinsettias and berries; my peony painting demo; a rose painting for Tin (referenced from a rose given to her by her boyfriend).

Tin gave me her extra cookies YAY so I did more flower paintings: a blue hydrangea and an anemone.

 

After we finished painting, everyone got all of their cookies for coating with corn starch.

Coating your cookies with corn starch will give your cookies a matte finish. And its quicker to pack since waiting for the paint to dry will take a while!

I also saved my IG Stories of this event in my Highlights.

Overall, it was a fun and successful workshop. Congrats again, Dandi! I hope there will be a part 2 workshop soon. I’ll volunteer! ♥ 

Please follow Agueda Manila on their Instagram or Facebook page. Thank you!

Birthday Art Tambay

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A few months ago, we celebrated Ivy and Hannah’s birthday. We had dinner at one of my recommended restaurants near our area. Before that though, we had an art tambay first with Aira. (and a special guest!)

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I was the first to arrive at our usual meetup place. After ordering my drink, I noticed that another group was holding a watercolor session as well! It looked like one was teaching the basics to the other girl.

It turns out that Aira knew the one teaching LOL and after their watercolor lesson, Aira invited her to our table. Her name’s Paola (@paola_koala), a teacher from a school nearby.

Around this time, I was doing the #ComeFloralwithUs prompt.

After our art tambay session, Hannah and I met up with Ivy at Fishermall before going to Zaan, a sort of hidden Japanese restaurant at Mother Ignacia. I don’t have photos of the restaurant or the food, but Inggo did a review of our visit a few months back. We chose this place solely for the reason to joke about “Zaan tayo kakain?” or “Kung zaan zaan na tayo pumunta today!”. HAHA.

Dessert at Artsy cafe.

While walking back to Pantranco, the rain poured hard so we had to take shelter somewhere. We were nearby Mandarin Sky and Artsy Cafe at Panay Ave., so we decided to have dessert and coffee at Artsy Cafe before going home. These two restaurants are linked together via the Function room. Ivy was happy with the interiors of both restaurants, haha.

My coffee.

Cutie cat. But how do you pour with this thing?!

Ivy went home after this. For Hannah and I though, we were supposed to just buy milktea from Macao and go home. But we lost track of time and chitchatted the whole night HAHA. Overall, it was a fun day with my best friends. We even took a photo with Ruth (by using a cellphone). ♥

Let’s Eat Kanin

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Another long overdue post! A few months ago, the owners of Huggle Hub Food and Drinks contacted me again to consult with an interior renovation of their restaurant. They did a re-branding of their restaurant and I happily obliged.

The final design.

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The existing space looked like a dental clinic due to the pure white interiors. It was supposed to have varnished wood accents, but the contractor just painted those over SIGH. Since my proposed interior design was only less than 50% accurate, this was the chance to remedy the interior design of the restaurant. However, they had a limited budget for the renovation. I proposed a bunch of options for them to choose from.

Different wood accents and a reuse of the grass tiles.

Adding grass tiles on the ceiling and wood accents for the wall.

One of the ceiling design concepts.

Proposing a new concept doesn’t need to be expensive. A re-paint or additional accents would do the trick to make the interior design pop. This time also, I asked a reliable contractor (from Manila) to do the renovation for this project.

During the occasional Zambales visits, I also got a chance to take promotional food photos for them. ♥ This is also my role in our food blog.

Taco fries. ♥

Shawarma rice. One of their best sellers.

For their Unlimited chicken wings promo.

So, how does their restaurant look like now? BETTER! ♥

My camera phone couldn’t do justice to the way it looks now huhu. It looks SO GOOD.

Repainted the pendant lights. The L.E.K. lights were bought by the client.

Let’s Eat Kanin – Iba, Zambales.

% Arabica

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Last month, Rico’s Lechon finally opened a branch in Manila. We’ve tasted the original Rico’s Lechon in Cebu way back in 2013 (when I wasn’t blogging yet and the food blog was on hiatus at the time). So when we heard the news, we immediately scheduled a trip to BGC.

But before going to the said restaurant, I asked that we stop by first at a coffee shop that’s recommended by people I follow on IG lol. We attempted to try this cafe the last time we went to BGC, but we learned that they close WAYYYY TOO EARLY on weekends.

I present to you, % Arabica!

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This Japanese coffee shop specializes in Arabica beans. They offer their drinks with either a Blend (two different varieties of arabica beans) or a Single Origin which comes from one source. You can learn more about them on their website.

You can buy your own beans here!

We ordered a tall Single origin Spanish Latte (190php) and an Americano (150php). I asked what’s the difference with a Spanish latte with a normal one and the barista said a spanish latte is sweeter.  How’s the taste for us coffee lovers? Hmmm. The interiors look nice though!

The Japanese Minimalist aesthetic. ♥

Wood. White. Soft lighting. ♥

The second floor offers benches only and an exhibit of their beans from around the world.

Will we come back? Unfortunately, no.

Just Add Water 3 / Agueda

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After a long hiatus, one of my favorite events was held again last month! This is Just Add Water 3 at SM Aura. It was organized by the members of WatercoloristsPH.

I usually attend this event with Hannah and the rest of the January Makers PH girls. But due to their work schedule, they couldn’t make it this time. Thankfully, Aira and Inggo accompanied me! ♥

Daniel Smith paint swatch from Craft Carrot ♥

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I allowed myself to splurge on watercolor materials for this event. Since Craft Carrot was on sale that day, I finally bought a Daniel Smith Sap Green! It was around 450 even with the discount, but I know that this will last me for a long time. ♥ I tried to find a brush holder from the other sellers, unfortunately they don’t have it huhu.

One of the reasons that we went here is because of Agueda. I ordered a custom 4″x4″ cookie and some Paint-your-Own cookie set from her to give as gifts. Of course, I painted my own set right away.

The first attempts at a peony.

Done!

A close up view. ♥

I didn’t use my cookie “palette” and requested if I could use her paints. Thanks, Dandi!

I won !

Painting my round set. ♥

Hydrangeaaaaaas. ♥ Loved how this one turned out!

Aira’s creations + mine. ♥

Behind the scenes photoshoot.

Dandi offered that we have our creations “dusted” so it would dry quickly. Back in the first Agueda PYO cookie, we had to let it dry for a while before we could pack it.

Still so pretty. ♥

Even though we stayed there for just a few hours, we still had fun. ♥ Thank you Agueda for accommodating my orders! Until next time.

Huggle Hub Food & Drinks

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A blog post that is long overdue is about my interior design freelance project last year. My classmates from High school contacted me late July 2017 to do an interior design proposal for their restaurant project in Zambales.

The first proposal

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As with any interior design project, this didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted. A lot of problems were found on site and with the travel time of 4-5 hours, it was difficult to monitor the construction progress.

The expected final outcome.

Nevertheless, we did the best of the situation The restaurant had their soft opening on September 2017 and grand opening around November 2017. Their food is about comfort/happy food. And not being biased here, their food is delicious!

HS classmates effort.

I was also requested to do the mural outside of the resto. They asked our classmate Kat (leftykatletters on Instagram) to do the lettering. She was also my seatmate back in 4th year! This was actually our first time to do a mural. For first timers, I think we did great! ♥

Please follow Huggle Hub Food & Drinks on Facebook & Instagram !

Huggle – Valentine day decor

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One of my pending blog posts! This is wayyyyy overdue. I was requested to design the Valentine’s Day decor for my restaurant interior design project that I haven’t blogged about yet – Huggle Hub Food & Drinks. This was a labor of love – as everything was DIY!

Hello. ♥

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As to why I haven’t blogged about this restaurant project yet – I’ll tell you soon HAHAHA. The clients asked me to do the visual merchandising for their restaurant & milk tea franchise with a budget of 1k pesos. I suggested that we DIY it all way to save on costs. It took a day to make 2 medium-sized roses. I made 6 pieces! I even asked help from my mom to do the leaves & pompoms.

A mock-up at home. HAHA.

This was also the time that my high school best friend came back to the Philippines to visit. Since all of us were classmates wayyy back, we brought him to Zambales too to relax.

I think we stayed there for about 3-4 days. When we were installing the flowers at the restaurant side, we estimated that I didn’t made enough for the milk tea side. So we bought more cartolina (and a glue gun). The client wanted a bigger rose, so a bigger rose it is! I used up 4 cartolina for the giant rose on the right.

They left me all alone making this rose while they were talking business. HAHA.

Milk tea side. ♥

Making the roses was super challenging! I didn’t have any experience with making paper roses that time. But I took the challenge and watched youtube videos HAHAHA. I loved the results! I want to do this again in the future. But next time, I hope I can do it faster!

Coffee Project revisit

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A few weeks ago, I revisited a cafe that I used to go to when I was still working near the area. I was surprised that they’ve expanded their interiors! And it’s still so pretty huhuhu. This is Coffee Project at Wil Tower.

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They are known for their garden-inspired interiors. With faux flowers everywhere, wood furniture, bicycles, and metal accents. I’ve said before that this is a good place for an art tambay, and I still agree with that statement! The weird thing is that I haven’t done that YET with my friends, why?! Just look at the photos:

Their tables. ♥

Full of garden-style decor!

Decor beside me. ♥

Hi Zinah. ♥ HAHAHA.

I had a funny story that day. While I was talking those interior shots, there were 2 ladies who kept looking at me. Thinking that maybe they thought I was a weirdo for taking pictures, I paid them no heed. After a while, the girl in blue (pictured above) approached me and asked:

“Hi ikaw ba si Paulina?”

It was my batch mate from college. HAHA. So I moved my things to her table to catch up on each other’s lives. Apparently she was one of the designers for Coffee Project!

Those are my stuff. Sorry for the mess HAHA.

And after 2 months, I finally bought my own hue&ai #NoPaintNoGain watercolor pad! My friends recommended this pad to me thinking that it would suit my painting style. I got this at Common Room Katipunan for 170php.

Pretty decor! ♥

Of course I tested mine when I got home. I always turn to sunflowers or peonies when testing paper. The reason for this is that I’m so used to painting sunflowers that it became my painting style: a mixture of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. For the peonies, I could test my very wet-on-wet painting style so I could see the bloom effects.  I’m liking it so far!

My paints of course are seamountainco. ♥

Messy peony bloom. ♥

Now the reason that I revisited this place is because I asked Hannah to meet up with me here. I met up with Dandi of Agueda Manila at Gateway because I ordered two boxes of her brigadeiros – one for me & one for a client. I got the mini box of 15pcs briggies in custom flavors (matcha, barako, and cacao) for me, while the other box contains their best sellers. I offered Hannah and Zinah to taste my personal box haha. They loved the matcha one!

Whenever there’s a Just Add Water event, we always buy from her lol. (JAW2 / JAWInk).

What’s left of my box LOL.

We went home a few hours later after talking all night. We really should plan an art tambay for this place. Anyone up for that?!