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 – 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.

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? 🙂

ID | Resources

April 3, 2017April 3, 2017Leave a comment

Here is a compilation of websites that I usually go to for my interior design work. I’ll probably put a quick link somewhere in my blog for this post. Will continue adding stuff to it in the future!

Inspiration:

Pinterest . My favorite site. It has everything that interests me: interior design, art, watercolors, photographs.
Houzz. This is another useful site for inspiration. This one caters to architects & interior designers.
Office Snapshots. Compilation of office interiors around the world.

For SketchUp:

SketchUp 3D Warehouse. Free models, can directly access from SketchUp, can share own works.
SketchUp Texture Club. You need to sign in to be able to download their items. Hi-res seamless textures, 3D models, vismat, and visopt.
Flying Architecture. Tutorials, 3D models, V-ray materials.

For V-ray:

Free vismats.

Re-learning SketchUp & V-ray

March 28, 2017August 7, 20202 Comments

In interior design, there are numerous ways to present your design to the client. It can either be free hand, 3D renders, or a combination of both. That would require knowledge in numerous programs not taught in college. (I’m not sure if its taught now, but back then we didn’t have this). One of the programs is SketchUp. It is a 3D modeling computer program that is useful for interior design. It has a free version called – SketchUp MAKE, and a paid version called – SketchUp Pro.

SketchUp is my favorite program in 3D modelling. Here are the reasons why:

It’s free to use. For beginners, the SketchUp MAKE will suffice. The 3D Warehouse 3d models are also free.
I could import my plans from Autocad (in .dwg file) to SketchUp, scale it, and then build up the walls from there. (This is for Pro version)
Getting models is easy. It has its own 3D Warehouse accessible from the program itself. There are also numerous websites that provides free/paid models in .3ds & .skp files.
Customizable. I could use any photo I want and use it as a material in SketchUp. For example, if I don’t want to use the default wood textures in SketchUp, I could import a wood texture that I got online and use that.

With SketchUp, I feel like I’m just playing a game of Sims on my laptop. Here is a sample 3D model that I did:

To make it look realistic with all the lights, shadows, etc. You need to use a Rendering plug-in for that. I use V-ray for SketchUp for this. This is not free, but there’s a trial version so you could try it out & decide if this works for you. There are other rendering plug-ins for SketchUp, but I’m used to V-ray. Here is the sample 3D render in V-ray:

Post-processing in Photoshop.

It’s been a while since I’ve last used SketchUp. The time where I used it extensively was way back in 2012, I started relearning again last December 2016. Added that I’ve bought a new laptop the same time, I finally got the chance to render in V-ray since my laptop can finally render quickly. Back then, a simple render would take 8 hours, now it would take around 1-2 hours.

To learn more about SketchUp, here are some useful links:

SketchUp website skill builder.
Google SketchUp 8 for Dummies by Aidan Chopbra. This is where I learned SketchUp in a week. Informative videos teaching the basics of SketchUp that can still be applied to the latest SketchUp. (Currently 2017)

To learn more about V-ray for SketchUp, here are some useful links:

I hope I’d improve my SketchUp & Vray skills this year! So I could make tutorials and teach others as well. ♥

IKEA Kitchen planner

March 14, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

~~Currently busy working on a freelance project. I’m doing the kitchen right now.~~ (This post is already delayed by 2 months that I’ve already done this part of the house lol.)The client wanted it all to be IKEA. It’s a good thing that I checked their website for more info. They have an app for planning & 3d modeling with their products!

IKEA kitchen planner.

The IKEA kitchen planner is a nifty tool that helps you plan & visualize your kitchen. You can input the exact measurements of your kitchen & just select the items that you want to put in the plan. It’s user friendly! Here is a sample plan that I did:

Sample plan.

The middle part is open because I can’t find a counter in their selection. They have their own standard size for the cabinets, but everything else is customizable. From the handles, cabinet door color & style, to the accessories. Here are the 2 different views in 3D:

3D view. Reminds me of sketchup.

3D view #2 with the finishes.

It’s not perfect, but it will suffice. It gave me enough info on the measurements of their cabinets for planning. Another cool thing about this is that you could see the total cost & list of products you chose. You could register to save your work, and then log-in at their physical store so that their Kitchen Specialists can help you plan & design before buying.

That last sentence made me a bit sad though. We don’t have it here in the Philippines. This project is located in Singapore. Anyway, I can’t wait for IKEA to open in the Philippines. I wonder when will that be though.

I hope this app is useful for you! Cheers. ♥

Digital Walker x Recession Coffee

January 17, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

One random Saturday, Inggo & I met with a friend for a food trip at Eastwood. After eating at 2 restaurants (Ramen Kuroda & Beef Barn), we wanted coffee. I suggested we try this place because of its unique selling point. This is Recession Coffee, which is located inside the Digital Walker store in Eastwood mall.

VSCOcam goodness, lol.

The unique way of ordering. You pay what you want! I paid 150php for mine. Inggo paid 100php in coins.

Cute.

It was okay. But it didn’t satisfy our caffeine cravings. So we went to another coffee shop after this HAHA.

Facebook page | Menu from Zomato

Restaurant Roundups

January 2, 2017August 7, 2020Leave a comment

If I did a Cafe Crawls post last time, what would this be called? Restaurant roundups? Yeah, that would do HAHAHA.

I’m not sure if I already mentioned it on this blog, but I used to do a food blog with Inggo back then. I would take photos of the food & he would write the reviews. Sadly, we don’t do that anymore due to time constraint. But we still go out for food adventures every week. Asides from taking photos of the food, I also take photos of the interiors. So here’s a compilation of restaurant & cafe photos for the year 2016.

Caffe Dolce Buffet, Banawe street.

Coco Ichibanya, Eastwood.

Happon, Maginhawa street.

Kitchen of Cakes & Coffee, SM North Sky Garden.

Vanilla Cupcake Bakery, Mother Ignacia street.

Not a restaurant or cafe. Just thought that it looked good after the Kitchen of Cakes & Coffee photo. Life After Breakfast‘s booth during Manila Fame.

Makansutra, SM Megamall.

Mongkok Bistro, NAIA 3 Terminal.

Starbucks, Eugenio Lopez street.

Same Starbucks branch during their Teavana drink promo.

St. Marc Cafe. Forgot which branch. Love the dramatic lighting.

Thaipan, Sct. Dr. Lazcano.

Most of the photos are edited in VSCO, tweaked a bit & watermarked in Photoshop.

Conrad Hotel

November 18, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

One of the things we did during the long weekend (Oct 29-Nov1) was celebrate my cousin’s birthday at the Conrad Hotel. It’s located behind the SMX Convention center. Well, we entered the hotel through a secret door from S Maison mall and ended up below:

Ground floor Main Lobby

This wasn’t the main lobby where you check-in. This is the receiving lobby I think. The main lobby is on the 3rd floor. But first lets admire the pretty sculptural focal point:

2016-11-conrad-lobby

Ballroom / Function room area. Pretty carpet!

That ceiling design.

Master bedroom T&B.

Cove light details.

One detail that I liked about this hotel is the curves of the interiors. The cove ceilings, walls, furniture all have curved edges which is rarely seen in interiors here in the Philippines. It’s also amazing to finally see the motorized curtain track in action. HAHA. This hotel has a good view of the sea. Perfect on weekends due to the fireworks display at MOA.

Westwood

September 9, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

Edit May 2017: Menu drastically changed. No more sushiritto & other offerings shown in zomato. I don’t know if its still worth it.

A lot of restaurants have been popping up at Maginhawa recently. We were shocked to see that there are a lot of buildings now that seemed to have sprouted like mushrooms. We tried out Westwood, at the building in front of Friuli & Crazy Katsu.

2016 09 westwood interior

We decided to eat here due to these reasons : curiosity, interior, and the food photos from their outside menu board.

Hungry for adventure

Iced tea which comes with our order of the whole sushiritto.

This is the sushiritto. Obviously a sushi as big as a buritto. lol

Icecream with Rice crispies cone.

Ombre icecream.

What about the taste? I liked their sushiritto together with the wasabi or sesame mayo. Inggo likes their icecream. We’ll come back to try their other offerings.