New Shape of Pop

New shape of popped corn chips alright.. flat! What happened to pop corners? There were a lot of flat, plain nacho chips inside my bag =/. 

Nowadays you can't seem to depend on anything.. at all.. not even your favorite chips. It's not actually my favorite, but it's in the top 5. Well, it used to be..

Roses are Red

My husband went to Cagayan de Oro on Feb 12 and was coming back to Davao on Feb 14.

On Feb 13, Monday, one of the managers in the office came into my room and said, "Ma'am there's flowers!" and raised his arm to show the long box. I stared at the box for almost 2 seconds before taking it from him. No gasp nor giggle from me. He probably thought I was one of the most emotionless persons in the whole of Davao!

 I'm not one to go all kilig in front of others, because I prefer to be kilig by myself.  That night, I had
a photoshoot with the dozen roses.
                                               
 Next year though, I'll probably remind my husband that a single long stemmed rose (or tulips!) is enough. Need to be practical since there's other more important things to spend on.

The White House Davao Review 2017

I remember last 2015, my husband and I had difficulty looking for a place to have our Valentine's Day dinner. It was full everywhere! We ended up in a Japanese restaurant (Nonki), which was really fine with me.. the only weird and awkward thing was, we were seated on the table beside my sister-in-law and brother-in-law! 

Valentine's Day 2016, it fell on a Sunday, which meant the whole family had dinner together.

This year, husband planned ahead and booked us at The White House, located at Bajada.

On our way to The White House, we were joking that we'll eat at Nonki again. I was okay with it,  knowing White House will only be serving set meals. Half of my brain, the practical one, was against the idea of shelling out Php 2500 per head, but the other half of me, the extravagant one was insisting that we go ahead with the plan since I wanted to try their degustation meal.

I'm on a perpetual diet, for health reasons, and so I only allow myself cheat days on special occasions (that is, I will allow myself to eat meat.) and so I was looking forward to a grand cheat night on Valentine's Days so..the extravagant side of the brain won.

Here's the set menu. We both chose set A.

They brought out the bread, followed by the appetizers. Bread was dry as a board.

Quite a spread and looks appetizing.. but we all know looks can be deceiving..and I was deceived, really.

The croquette tasted fishy, it's like something bought from the grocery and fried in old oil.

The unagi was so fishy and I couldn't taste the foie gras.

The other roll was stiff. While it's not yucky, it's definitely mediocre. I couldn't even remember the taste.

This is my favorite dish..to bash! The chawan mushi. Honestly, how can you mess up this dish!? It's overly steamed to the point where it's already stiff. The bottom part was moist, but the top part was almost like  tamagoyaki.. but..it's not tamagoyaki! The texture was just so wrong.

The centerpiece. Simple yet elegant. See, I'm a fair person, if it's nice, I will say so.

Next came the salad.  Mixed greens, half a quail, a rolled up ham, a wedge of mandarin orange and raspberry sauce. It was okay. They could've given the whole quail egg.. anyway, other than that, nothing else to complain..
                                           
The white wine. Honestly, we don't drink, so the wine was wasted on us. Well perhaps not wasted, since I'm not sure if they served us a good wine.. By this time, you could probably feel the anger from my post.. you'll understand why later..

Oh! this wine was given to us while we were already having salad.. I believe it should've been given while we were having those fishy appetizer. Anyway...

Pumpkin soup with nori. This was good. I should've asked if I can swap my white wine for more soup.

Next, they served us our main dish. We were asked our preferred doneness for the steak and we said medium well.. it was well done.. but oh well, I could let this go since it didn't destroy the beef. The beef was good, the roasted garlic albeit a bit burnt on some cloves, was also good. Salmon was just that, salmon. The seafood kakiage became vegetable kakiage.. what I liked was, they portion controlled it for us! So in effect, it wasn't really a cheat day dish since I only ate the recommended matchbox-sized beef! hooray for that!

After the main course, I told our server that we haven't been served with the peach sorbet yet. This was supposed to be served before the main course.. Probably to cleanse the palate - after all those fishy appetizer. The waiter looked at me with an 'oh! not yet served?' look. He came back a few minutes later with 2 soup spoons with peach juice.

I remember seeing the other table (who started their set meal a bit earlier that us so their pacing was different) being served with orange colored ice balls.. but then my mistake was I didn't confront the waiter.. So I drank my juice and felt weird. It's pureed peaches straight from the can.. Husband saw the spoon after returning form the toilet and didn't even touch it. Well, he did poke it with his chopsticks and tasted the droplet. Clever him.

A few minutes later, the couple beside us were served with their orange colored ice balls and that did it for me. I still didn't confront the waiter but I knew I was going to make this into a big deal.

Anyway, we got our apple pie ala mode. Really pathetic, this dessert. The crust tasted under baked. Apple slices inside weren't flavorful. Ice cream tasted store bought, nothing wrong with that.. just that it didn't taste special.

To end the night, they asked us if we wanted coffee or tea. I got tea and my husband got the coffee. I asked if I can choose green tea (since I cannot drink other types of tea). The waiter confidently said they only serve green tea..

The tea came and I took a sip. I told my husband that it tasted like temple tea - the one I usually drank at Sieng-hwan-si at Narra Street, Tondo Manila.  Temple tea= watered down tea. Probably 1 tea bag or 1 scoop tea leaves steeped in 2 liters of water. Wow! What a way to end the meal.

To summarize, I was happy because I was with my husband and we were able to take a nice photograph together. That's it.. but I don't think we needed to pay Php5000 for that right? Anyway....
I enjoyed the soup and the matchbox-sized beef. That's about it. The other food tasted mediocre, some were even below fast food standards.. Lastly, I got pissed with the melted sorbet. Truly insulting what the trying-hard waiter did. Why trying hard? Because he was trying to move with flair, to pronounce the dish with exaggerated accent.. he was trying to appear high end.. trying to do so many things except treat his guests with respect.


Will I go back to The White House? A big fat No!

Note: I've tried White House before, a regular family dinner. I wasn't impressed then.. I'm turned off now.

Two-Year Writer's Block

What's blocking me from blogging is not the lack of topic nor pictures.. but the lack of a decent laptop where I can do my blogs. Red, my red Sony Vaio (8 yrs old), has difficulty connecting to the net.. What I'm using now is the office laptop. Since it's not my laptop, I don't feel like saving photos here just so that I can upload them into the blog and then delete them from the laptop afterwards.  Whew, just typing that tired me out..

Anyway, I'm eyeing the Macbook air that will be launched this December as a replacement to the Sony Vaio.. Till then, I'll just have to take a lot of pictures and make mental notes so that I can still blog about them come December/January.

Yogo from Coffeecat

 

With blueberry and cheesecake topping

With blueberry topping. I cannot not order the blueberry topping. The yogurt and blueberry just goes so well together! Recently, I've started ordering blueberry and strawberry. Double yum! (oh, that phrase belongs  to a burger).. Double yumz then!

Yogo has one of the nicest flavors and texture in a yogurt that I've ever tasted.  It actually has that 'crave-able' taste.  My husband and I would usually order a small cup (which is quite big) and then share.. We've recently upgraded to sharing a medium cup with 2 toppings (blueberry and strawberry of course. but if one of them is out of stock, my husband would choose almond flakes *grumbles - because I don't like nuts that much*)

 

Nissin Cup Noodles from Osaka - Milk Seafood Flavor

 Yummmmmmmy! Bought this at the Cup Noodle Museum at Ikeda, Osaka.
This was the last cup from my trip... till my next Osaka visit..

This one is really yummy and creamy. Fluffy egg, cuttle fish.. but no shrimp (got disappointed a bit).
Not sure if this is being sold outside of Osaka... but the only think I can say is, there's a lot of unique flavors at the Cup Noodle Museum.. So next time I go there, I'll allocate one duffel bag for all the yummy (and unhealthy) cup noodles.

Balik Bukid at Quimpo Blvd

 Their creative menu using a game box.. quite an array of interesting dishes too..

 Nice interior. Very nature-y
What I didn't like: We were seated near the window,  and they used empty bottles to frame the window area. Unfortunately, the bottles were already very dusty so it was a bit gross. My husband didn't want to change seats anymore, so I just refrained from looking at it.

 Forgot which salad this was. Its got quail eggs, kesong puti, nicely flavored croutons and pesto dressing.

 My order! adobo with yellow rice.

Tadah! I liked the turmeric flavored rice but felt the chicken was a bit dry.. Should have concentrated while reading the menu.. It was only afterwards that I noticed they had biiksteak.. I should've tried that one. Buuut no biggie, the meal was still okay.

My husband ordered fish (malasugue, I think) with blue rice (blue color from a flower). The fish was nice and fresh tasting, the blue rice tasted like white rice though, but it definitely looks good in photos (photo which is not posted here).

It's reasonably priced and offers good healthy-tasting food. For a salad, two mains and a mason jar of cucumber juice*, the bill was 480. I left a 20 peso tip so that closes it at 500.

I'll definitely go back to try all the other dishes.

*I'm usually careless in checking the bill. I just scanned and checked the total amount. Amount didn't alarm me, so I didn't really read the details anymore. When I got in the car, that's when I realised that there's only 3 items listed in their invoice..which only meant they forgot to charge the juice.

Even with the tip, they would still be short. I'm think the juice might be about 40-60 bucks. Oh well, I'll just leave a tip again next time.