Let’s Eat Kanin

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.

Huggle Hub Food & Drinks

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 !

Heat

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Inggo’s birthday at Heat, Shangrila. ♥ We were looking for a buffet around Ortigas area this time. After a lot of research, we discovered that they still offer their Wagyu Buffet every Saturday for 2,600 php. Please click the link above to book a table.

Shrimp! ♥

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For those who don’t have a vehicle, the entrance that you need to go to is beside Shangri-la Mall instead of the one at St. Francis street. It was a good thing that we had an errand at the mall! We arrived 15 mins before dinner service. The staff ushered us to our seats & we waited inside admiring the interiors first.

Sashimi ♥

Shrimp! ♥ You can eat it as is or you can ask the cooks to re-cook it however you want. (We asked for garlic butter shrimps!)

Mussels & Snails.

Crab! ♥

Plate after the sashimi. Asparagus Salad, Antipasti, Cheese.

Inggo’s plate. The redder meat is US Angus Beef. At the back is the famed Wagyu meat.

My plate.

My favorite at their dessert station. Maple pecan ice cream with pistachio toppings.

Was it worth it? Well, it depends on your preferences. We realized that day that we preferred a different way of preparing the meat. The seafood had to be re-cooked so its not as tender as we would want.

Will we try another expensive buffet again? Maybe. But we’ll try the best next time.

The 9th – Hole in the Wall

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.

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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

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.♥

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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.

Genki Sushi

We had another art tambay last Sunday. But before I get to that post, a few weeks ago we had another food trip with our friend. This time we tried Genki Sushi at UP Town Center.

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They had a different way of ordering here. There are touch screens on every table with their complete menu. You can browse & order through the touch screen. It can even compute your total bill. Orders are then delivered via train:

4 orders per delivery.

Ohhhh my chirashi don. ♥

Sushiiii. ♥ Different colored plates mean different prices.

Our bill amounted to 3k php+! Their sashimi were certainly fresh. But I don’t think we’ll go back here again. Its too pricey.

Coffee was at Negative Space Cafe. Speaking of this cafe: this is currently one of our favorite cafes. I haven’t done a proper review yet of this place. Sooo many pending blog posts!

 

Restaurant Roundups

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.

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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.

Westwood

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

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

2016 09 westwood sign

Hungry for adventure

2016 09 westwood iced tea

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

2016 09 westwood sushiritto

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

2016 09 westwood icecream

Icecream with Rice crispies cone.

2016 09 westwood icecream 2

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.

Happy Birthday!

2 days ago was my Inggo’s birthday. We celebrated it by taking advantage of a certain buffet’s birthday promo. The birthday celebrant can eat for free as long as they’re accompanied with one paying adult.

2016 08 niu vikings

Niu by Vikings at SM Aura.

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2016 08 niu beef medallion

Special order of Beef Medallion with wine cubes.

2016 08 niu dessert

Their dessert station has macarons!

2016 08 niu birthday cake

This was supposed to be the end of this entry. But for his birthday dinner, he convinced me to eat at Four Seasons Buffet at Araneta center instead of a restaurant since it will be cheaper due to the birthday promo. He also said that we could eat at Burger King instead if there are no tables left at said buffet, but they had one last table left for two. So by fate, we ate at another buffet that day.  Please don’t ask anymore about the aftermath.

2016 08 four seasons buffet

Four Seasons Buffet with its Shabby Chic interiors.

2016 08 four seasons buffet wall

Pretty details.

Belated Happy birthday to my Overwatch partner, restaurant & cafe date, travel buddy, best friend, and the love of my life! I love you soooo much! ♥

Papa Diddi’s

Around summer of 2015, we discovered a new dessert place at Maginhawa Street during our usual walks. We thought 3 scoops of unique flavored ice cream for  99php is steal, so we tried it out. And that’s how we became semi-regulars to this place ♥.

2016 07 papa diddis display

Cute display.

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2016 07 papa diddis display 2

Law books turned into lighting fixtures.

Papa Diddi’s is a tribute to the owner’s father. He was a lawyer, hence the law books turned into lighting fixtures. He also loved making ice cream for his family in the province back then. Sigh. I really, really love their story. You should read it when you’re there since I feel I can’t do justice to their story.

2016 07 papa diddis icecream 1

You can either choose the ceramic cup…

2016 07 papa diddis icecream 2

…or choose this Bird’s Nest for your base! This is Inggo’s.

As of July 2016, we could proudly say that we’ve already tried all of their flavors HAHA. My favorites would be: Davao meets Bicol (Chocolate with a spicy kick), Tres Leches (so creamy!), and Roasted Forbidden Rice. You can have a free taste of every available ice cream for the day if you can’t decide.

Recently, they’ve expanded with another Maginhawa branch called Papa Diddi’s et al. This place now has cafe food and a bigger seating capacity.

2016 07 papa diddis et al

2016 07 placemat doodle

Place mat art.

 Papa Diddi’s Facebook page.