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 !

Huggle – Valentine day decor

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!

Crystal Beach

Our group went to Crystal Beach Resort over the weekend. Reasons for this trip were instagram shots, photoshoots, surfing, and s’mores. Picture heavy post ahead!

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And of course a much needed trip for all of us since its been a while since we last got together. ♥ This place was one of the most recommended trips from the DIY Travel Philippines Facebook group. I discovered that a weekend trip is doable and cheap. Thankfully most of us were available. I reserved the following for our group:

  • Malachi2,550php for Inggo. This is an airconditioned room for 2pax. It has its own bathroom with toiletries, tv, and bed. It comes with free breakfast buffet stub for two.
  • Shem (They got transferred to Micah) 1,700php for Ruth & Joy. This is a bahay kubo type accommodation. Comes with a bed, electric fan, electric sockets for charging. It also comes with free breakfast buffet stub for the next day. Its at Kampsite 1 and near the public shower area.
  • Tent (Mariel) – 750php/pax. If own tent its 550php/pax. 250php of those are consumable within the resort. You could instead add 35php at the dining hall for the breakfast buffet. Tent comes with mat & pillows. Its at Kampsite 2.

After confirming the availability of these rooms via phone call, I reserved the same day via online banking. We paid 50% of the total rooms. We just printed the email confirmation & deposit slip and presented it at check-in. We also paid the remaining 50% on site. There’s a 1k deposit per room (in case of damage) and a 500php deposit for the tent. This is refundable at check out. The deposit for the rooms we knew, but we didn’t knew about the tent deposit. It was a good thing that Inggo had extra cash.

Waiting at the reception. It was hectic that day. They were at full capacity! But the receptionists were friendly & helpful.

So pretty. ♥

Hugot wall. HAHA.

Esther. This is near the Micah bahay kubo.

LOOK AT THE TREES.

My signature travel pose. HAHA.

This is where Mariel (our tent) is located.

Our view with the Agoho trees. ♥ #ItsMorePineInThePhilippines

I found Mariel. HAHAHA.

To the beach! ♥

For your (Cigarette) butts.

One of the most Instagrammable shots in the resort. One point perspective guyssss.

The beach ♥. The other side of that mountain is Anawangin cove I think. One of the islands in the background is Capones island.

Pretty ♥

The beach has two areas: the surfing area & the swimming area. Check the signages! You could only swim between the colored flags. The waves were huge during our stay. It was fun screaming & jumping at the waves. Para kang nasa Splash island HAHA. I urged Ivy and Inggo to try surfing. It’s 400php per hour with an instructor. It was soooooooo much fun! ♥ Those two had aching muscles after though. HAHA.

S’mores night. ♥

It was only for a while but we had some s’mores at the bonfire after dinner. We didn’t get to eat as much s’mores as we want since the staff added more logs to make a bigger bonfire, huhu. There’s also an acoustic night during weekends, so it was a nice night eating s’mores and listening to music. ♥ If only we brought a large mat so we could sit here. Oh well, lesson learned! We stayed at Micah for some girl bonding before sleeping. ♥

The next day, we ate breakfast at the dining hall. I didn’t get to take photos because I was hungry or something. HAHA. After that, we explored the resort and took more photos. These are our italic shots:

Ivy.

Hannah. Her italic shot I think is too embarrassing to post here. HAHA.

Ruth. ♥

Me. ♥ Can you see my jacket? It has wings on it HAHAHA.

Check out was at 12 noon. We packed our bags and off we go back to Manila. ♥ We managed to ride a bus at the town bound for Caloocan. Lucky! And that’s our #WeekendWarrior trip. After all these years, one outing finally went out of the drawing board. lol.

Itinerary:

  • Ride the Cubao Victory Liner bound for Iba, Zambales. Tell the teller that you will alight at San Narciso, ticket price will be cheaper. (310php compared to 380php). Terminal guide here.
  • We were supposed to ride the 7am bus. Unfortunately, we were too late & the tickets for the 7am ride were sold out. We took the 9am bus ride instead.
  • Travel time is 4 hours with stops in between.
  • Alight at San Narciso. You will know its San Narciso if you will see the San Sebastian Church to your right.
  • Ride a tricycle to Crystal Beach. Fare is 15php per person.
  • Going home depends on which bus you will ride. The Caloocan bound bus fare is around 272php.

General idea of expenses:

  • Bus roundtrip (310php) = 620php.
  • Tricycle roundtrip = 30php.
  • Own tent = 550php.
  • Total = 1,200php for these. You could do a weekend trip for less than 3k/2k. This will depend on your food budget

Other expenses:

  • Surfing with instructor = 400php. Board rental = 200php.
  • Additional for breakfast buffet = 35php.
  • Rentable sports equipment also has a price per hour. Ask the staff for this.
  • You could also do an island hopping to Capones island. Ask the staff for this too!

Crystal Beach Website | Facebook

Hope this helps!