First Birthday Party

Last December 27th, we attended the 1st birthday party of Ariel, Ate Ida's son, an officemate of mine. It was held at Mc Donalds - Makati Cinema Square (MCS) branch. Sinama namin si Ria tutal bday party for kids naman yun. Masaya naman. Nag enjoy ako pag nood sa mga bata sa mga games. Ang kulit ni Ria, sobra. Naiyak ako kakatawa. Sumasali sya sa mga games. Kunbaga sa school, saling pusa sya. Dun sa game na group yourselves into... si Jillian, anak ni Jenny na kaoffice mate ko din lagi nyang akap kahit di na into 2 yung groupings. Tapos talon sya ng talon at pinag yayakap yung mga lalaki. Tapos kung kani-kanino sya sumasama. Kaso lang nung naawat sya kasi nangugulo na, parang nagtampo kaya hangang sa umuwi kami, tahimik na sya. Buti kumain pa din. Dun sya pumuwesto kay Ate Grace, officemate ko din. Si Marianna, tulog lang most of the time. Nun lang din sya nakita ni Ninong Rainier nya, asawa ni Ninang Elsa. As usual, kamukha nga daw ni Mark. Nung dumating yung mascot, si Hamburglar, gising si Marianna. Nakatingin lang tska di natatakot. Nagtataka siguro sya kasi iba itsura tapos isa lang ngipin . Ayan buhat sya dyan ng Ninang Margel nya habang nakatingin sa mascot. Sana lang pag sya na may birthday, di pa din sya takot sa mascot. Yung ibang bata kasi makita pa lang kahit malayo pa, nag iiyak na agad.

Si Ninang Elsa, may gift kay Marianna, mga scrapbook accessories. Tuwa ako kasi may dagdag nanaman akong gamit para sa scrapbook nya . Thanks Ninang Elsa . Nakakapagod kasi super init nung araw na yun pero ok lang. Gusto din namin kasi maipasyal si Marianna .

Lin Heung Tea House, Hong Kong

This is my last post on Hong Kong.

Yes, yes, I hear lots of relieved sighs? :p

Lin Heung, one of the oldest restaurant in Central, was a must visit for it's one of a kind dim sum experience and of course, a very old style chinese dinner at night.

We went for dimsum and SF did remind us to check out the 'scene'; it's like no other.

We reached mid morning, the place was already packed with customers. I noticed there were mainly 2 types of customers, the tourists and the elderly. The locals definitely were more than the tourists; there were actually just a handful of tourist.

Managed to get a table, we shared table with an elderly couple..and we waited..and waited. There were no carts coming our way and no food :(. Next thing we know, everyone was rushing to the cart with their order cards. We learnt a new trick at Lin Heung; dont sit and wait for the dimsum, just run to the cart to get what you want, else you'll never get to eat!

So, after much scuffling for dimsum, we got these..
The siew mai.

The meat was very fresh, but a tad salty for my liking. Luk Yu's fared better.
I wanted my steamed spareribs as usual...

Average tasting though.

The beancurd fishmaw roll

This was really good. The fishmaw was springy, the meat filling sweet and the beancurd, tasty, as it absorbed all the delicious sauce.

The beef balls looked so tempting..

So we took a portion of it. The texture was lovely, the meat was bouncy, very juicy and the bits of orange peel added some zest to this dish.

Amy took the steamed radish cake

Super huge. The radish cake was very smooth and light, but after eating quite a big portion of it, I do get a tad sick of it :p

Total bill for our dimsum was HKD88.

We came back another night for dinner..

Again, this is a place to go if you want to really feel the atmosphere of local restaurant. In the evening, the crowd shifts from tourists and elderly to local families. Everyone was busy tucking in to piping hot chinese dishes.

We started off the dinner with Pork rib with buddha's palm soup

The soup was velvety smooth, so flavourful and all of us enjoyed it tremendously.

SF preordered 1 day in advance for their specialty Stuffed duck

Looks like pat poh ngap (eight treasure duck), but it's slightly different. The filling was so much that we could hardly see the duck meat..

Filled with soft lotus seeds, lots of chopped mushrooms and heaps of salted egg. So much so that we had a hard time finishing this bird. The sauce was thick and scrumptious, would have been better if they gave more of it. :p

Some deer ligamen with mushrooms..

The mushrooms were thick and yummy to bite into. The deer ligamen was slightly soft, gelatinous to sink my teeth into. I prefer the ligamen to have a mild crunch and spring to it

All of us find the stir fried lotus root

Lin Heung's version was full of wok hei, the lotus root and celery was sweet and crunchy, the water chestnut added a fibrous texture to the dish. The caramelised walnuts was so very lip smacking too! Love it.

Total bill was HKD360.

We ended our heavy dinner and popped over to Peel Fresco Music Lounge..

As Mr BS insisted that we had to try the best Sangria (HKD380 a pitcher) in the universe.

The Sangria was indeed very yummy and divine; but I'm not sure if it's the best in the whole universe.

And as we get all comfortable and the drink slowly warming our bodies, the jazz started... and what else could we do but to sit back and relax? :)

Lin Heung Tea House is located at 160-164 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong. Near to Aberdeen street. Can take Sheung Wan MTR exit.

Peel Fresco Music Lounge is located at 49 Peel Street, SoHo, in between Hollywood Road and Staunton Street, right across the street from Joyce is not Here!

And so ends my posts on Hong Kong. Hope it's useful for those who plans to go in near future? Last but not least, many many thanks to SF. Thanks dear for being such a gracious host, we really had a blast!!

Pierced Ear

My baby got her ear pierced kasabay ng immunization nya na prevenar. As usual, iyakan blues nanaman. Matapang nga ang baby ko kasi nun lang sya mismo umiyak nung pagkabutas ng tenga nya, and pagkatapos mabakunahan, tapos ok na sya. Di din sya nilagnat because of the immunization. Before kasi kami pumunta sa pedia nya, binigyan na namin sya ng calpol, anticipating na baka nga sya lagnatin.

Naalala ko tuloy, nung una nyang check up sa pedia, sabi ni tita dolores " Pogi sana ng baby mo, kaso lang sobrang likot". Sabi ko, " Girl sya tita e, he he" Nag offer tuloy sya na butasan na namin agad tenga ni Marianna.

Ayan, may hikaw na ang anak ko. Di na sya mapapagkamalan na lalaki .

Busy Weekend

Last 20th of December, our company Christmas party was held at the Intercontinental Hotel at
Ayala Makati. The food was not so great. Hindi masarap in short. The place was ok. But the highlight for us is when the Accounting Department won the first prize in the BSM dance contest for the very first time. The theme for the dance contest this year was "tagalized english songs". Together with this blog is the video of the accts presentation. You can even hear me laughing in the background, he he. I think nagpanalo sa accts is madami kasing staff na sumayaw compared sa other departments. As usual, di nanaman ako sumayaw. Ewan ko ba. Wala kasi akong kahilig hilig sumayaw. Pareho kasing kaliwa paa ko and i have no sense of coordination whatsoever.

Masaya naman yung christmas party namin sa kabuoan, pero nung nabunot na ko sa raffle, as usual, lagi akong nauunang mabunot, umuwi na kami ng sweetie ko. Nakasama kasi ako sa batch na unang nabunot na 13 persons na nakakuha ng one thousand pesos. Hindi ko na nga inintay yung exchange gift, binigay ko na agad yung pang exchange gift ko dun sa nabunot ko. Tinext na nga lang ako ng mga kasama ko na nanalo acctg sa dance contest kaya ko nalaman na first prize pala department namin....

Then the next day, on the 21st, kasal naman ng Ate Pia ko. The wedding was held at the Paco church and the reception at its garden hall. Abay si Michelle and Gia, mga pinsan ko din. Dapat nga daw abay din ako kung di ako nag asawa, he he. Yan Picture namin kasama si Ria. Happy kami para kay Ate Pia and Kuya Jason kasi they deserve each other. Palagay ang loob namin na di pababayaan ni Kuya Jason si Ate Pia. We didn't finish the ceremony and wasn't able to join the cocktail and dinner party kasi umuwi na din kami agad dahil may pasok ako kinabukasan. Sayang, sabi ng ate Pia ko, may fireworks display daw, 10 mins, nung first dance nila. Kakatuwa naman . We wish them happiness and bliss in their married life. Congratulations Ate Pia and Kuya Jason !!!

Mill Wheel, Puchong

Wanted to post a simple one today; hence a dessert place that Gary brought us just recently.

We had dinner nearby (shall write about that another day); but not too satisfied and the night was young, so we ended over here at Mill Wheel. Candy said this place serves snow ice, something that I do rather fancy, for the 'lightness' in the texture of the shaved ice :)

As it was still very early in the evening, we were the only customers. Not bothered by that, I rather liked the happy colours and cheerful decor.

Bollywood Queen royally declared that she's not a fan of dessert, so we ordered 3 desserts to share...

My choice...obviously mango base.. so I ordered Mango Cheese(RM5.90)..

The snow ice, extremely finely shaved, was packed with mango flavour. The base was cream cheese, giving a slightly salty twist to this sweet dessert. The combination was delicious and yes, even Bollywood Queen was ecstatic. So much for not being a fan of desserts :p

Candy chose Milk Tea cheese (RM5.90)Looking equally scrumptious, the fine ice was filled with milk tea flavour; it's like eating milk tea ice cream. Quite nice actually. The same cream cheese base blends nicely with the milk tea too.

Gary chose a big momma; the Frost Special (or something like that), RM9.90

There are 2 flavours in this combo, Gary chose the Mango and Watermelon dessert. And it was really huge when the dessert was placed on the table. The watermelon ice was really refreshing and tasted exactly like watermelon. The mango, well, not a new flavour to us anymore, was of course yummy. Topped with lots of crushed wafers, chocolate chips, mango syrup, coloured sugar etc, we managed to finish this in record time.

As the snow ice are fine and light, we do not feel full, just a nice cool sensation down our throats and tummies :).

Oh, and take a guess who ate the biggest portion of these desserts?

Mill Wheel is located at 5, Jalan Kenari 22, Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong, Selangor.

Ming Sate Hut and Bee Bee Pineapple Tarts, Melaka

After our Jonker's trail, we decided to pop over to Bee Bee's for some pineapple tarts.

It's not at Jonker's, Bee Bee operates from an old wooden house about 10 minutes away from Jonker's, where they bake trays and trays of delicious pineapple tarts.

We managed to find our way to Bee Bee and while walking towards it's entrance, we were already welcomed with lovely buttery fragrance wafting from inside.

The workers were busy molding, filling the tarts, while the owner was busy manning the oven.

We wanted to order quite a number of boxes, but to our disappointment, although there were trays of baked tarts, those were pre ordered and we could not have a single tart! :(

We're open until 10pm, even 11 pm, you can come then to get the tarts then, she replied curtly before getting her full concentration on her tarts again..

And we left empty handed :(

We decided to go for tea as it was way too early for dinner..

So we went to Ming Sate Hut for some porky goodness..

Francis recommended this place as it serves lip smacking pork sate, so good that his colleague can have 100 sticks at one go.

And here's the pork sate..

Small in size, costing RM0.55 per stick, the pork sate was by far the best I've tried (comparing t those I had in PG and Ipoh). It's extremely juicy and the pork belly piece in the middle added some QQ-ness (springiness) to each stick of pork sate.

Of course, what's pork sate without it's famous sidekick, pineapple sate sauce?

Ming's version was subtle yet delicious. At first dip, I was thinking, hmmm, where's the pineapple? There were loads of peanut, I could not feel much of other ingredients. But after really dunking in my sate and the nasi impit into the sauce, you'll learn to enjoy this sauce. Yes, there's actually lots of finely shredded pineapple in the sauce.

One serve was not enough eventually, so we ordered more pork and some liver ( I wanted intestine but it was sold out)

The liver sate was a first for me, and as I always liked pork liver, this was very nice too. Pork's better though. The liver sate was a tad chewy at the exterior and very strong in flavour. Only for those who like liver.

After our 'tea break', it was still a tad early for dinner, so we decided to pop over to Bee Bee again. The owner must have pitied us or admired our preserverence, she finally decided to let us have a few boxes of the tarts..

Ahhh, our hard-to-get pineapple tarts. Worth the wait?

Yes; the filling was generous, sweet and sour at the same time; crust was thin but crisp at the same time. Marvellous.

Bee Bee (Lian Choo's) Tart House is located at 307-A, Jalan Parameswara, Bandar Hilir, 75000 Melaka. To avoid disappointment, do call in advance for booking 06-2869735.

Ming Sate Hut is located at G-33, Jalan PM4, Plaza Mahkota, 75000 Melaka.

SPOILED BRAT

During lunch break, nanonood ako ng Spoiled Brat skit ng Bubble Gang sa You Tube. Di kasi ako nakakanood ng bubble gang kasi sobrang gabi na and madalas tulog na ko by that time. Sa lahat ng napanood ko, eto pinakanatawa talaga ko.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuioFlo-n2U

La Piazzetta, Hong Kong

We met SF and Anthony for dinner at La Piazzetta, a place Anthony recommended for best italian food at Central area. That coming from a half italian, I guess La Piazzetta's food should be delicious. La Piazetta is a cozy little restaurant tucked away at a quite lane off the Mid Level Escalator at Soho. Lovely place for quite dinners, catching up with friends or having some romantic time with a special someone. Oh, and obviously, with such cosy ambiance comes bad lighting(you know, candles and dim lights), hence my bad pictures (excuses SC, excuses! tsk tsk tsk!) :p

Amy and I were late, SF and Anthony already had their share of bruschetta and were sipping wine.

After getting myself all comfortable, I took the remaining bruschetta. As the bruschetta has been served a while ago, I was worried of soft, soggy bruschetta. But La Piazetta did a great job, after toasting the bread and topping it with ingredients, it was baked again. The result? Moist chopped tomatoes, basil and anchovies with crisp, still crunchy base of bread. Tasty indeed.

Just after I've finished munching on the bruschetta, we got the Napolitana served..

Smells wonderful, this was smashing piece of pizza. Thin crust, the ingredients were so fresh and so very basic, you can actually taste the flavours of each ingredients (of cheese, tomatoes, anchovies and basil). Really reminds me of the pizzas I had in Italy, back to basics, just stressing on the freshness of each ingredients and how it complements the rest.

After the carbs, came the meat...

The Scaloppine al chianti

Well, the name was longer, but I cant recall.. sorry! Anyways, it's melt-in-mouth beef, cooked to perfection with pinkish center, topped with red wine sauce, porcini, bacon and tomatoes. Absolutely mouth watering!

The the pollo something something..

Oh well. I know my italian sucks. It's actually very tender grilled chicken breast with white wine cream sauce and velvety mash. Another gorgeous dish, La Piazzetta did right by serving the rich sauce with chicken breast; it mops up the sauce nicely. Delectable.

Before I could even rest my fork and knife, the highlight of the night was serve...

The Super Marinara..

Super alright. Super, freaking huge. It's a serving for 2 people, but man oh man, it seems more than that after all that other food we have eaten. Anthony, being the only man at the table, aherm, got that tiny bit of 'stuff' in the super huge clam shell (that shell was so huge, could almost cover amy's face). We tucked into the over abundance serving of seafood, and had to dig for the pasta. Same as the pizza, the pasta sauce was very basic, again stressing on the freshness of the tomatoes and herbs. Lip smacking pasta indeed.

I knew we had to stop, but how to without at least a bit of Tiramisu?

The waitress came over with a plate of Tiramisu and a bottle of alcohol.

All of it? she ask Anthony. And hence the base of our Tiramisu was soaked with Marsala. Though slightly intoxicating, it a velvety smooth tiramisu nonetheless.

We had a fantastic dinner and entertainment by a tiny uncle tucked in a corner of the restaurant added more fun to our merry night too :). Bill was HKD270 per person.

5, Tsun Wing Lane, Central, Hong Kong (at a tiny lane between the Mid-levels Escalator and Graham Street in the heart of Soho)

Exchange Gifts

Dito sa office may exchange gifts kami. May mga something something for this week worth 20 pesos/ day hangang the actual monito monita exchange of gifts sa Christmas party worth 500 naman. May wish list din kami para di na mahirapan yung nakabunot sa min sa pag pili ng gifts namin sa saturday. Nilagay ko pera na lang. He he. E kasi naman ilang taon na na di ko nagagamit yung mga binibigay sa kin, kaya pera na lang. Ako na lang bibili ng gusto ko, o kaya, dagdag na lang namin pambili ng gatas ni Marianna.

For Monday: SOMETHING LONG - binili ko yung gummy sour candy na snake tska gecko. 3 piraso kasi php 7 lang isa.

For Tuesday: SOMETHING HARD - coffee candy yung binili ko . Isang balot, worth php 23.

For Wednesday: SOMETHING WET - jelly cups binili ko. yung assorted na may nata de coco sa loob, worth php 19.50 (may utang pa ko na php .50, ha ha)

For Thursday: SOMETHING NAUGHTY - gummy candy na teeth and lips, worth php 21.

**** pansin nyo puro candy? sa isang isle lang ng supermarket ko yan binili e.

For Friday: SOMETHING THAT BEST DESCRIBE YOUR BABY - 5 green tea envelops. La lang. wala na ko maisip e. Tsaka nakalimutan ko yung pang friday kaya kumuha na lang ako ng supply sa bahay.

Yung pang Christmas party ko na gift di ko pa nga alam kung ano gusto nung Monito ko e, kasi naman wala syang nilagay sa wish list. Malamang pera na lang din bigay ko para no sweat di ba?

Teka lang, Thursday na wala pa kong natatanggap na gift a. Sino kaya nakabunot sa kin?

Ang mahal kong si Marianna

Kami yan ng mahal kong si Marianna . Hay ... sarap talaga ng feeling maging mommy. Excited na ko lumaki sya para maipasyal. Ang dami dami naming plans para sa kanya ng daddy nya. Ako I want to enroll her in an exclusive school. Malamang sa St. Scho kasi medyo malapit sa office, kung sakali madali ko syang mapupuntahan. Ang tanong, by that time sa same office pa din kaya ko nag wowork? he he. Ang daddy nya, sa co-ed na lang daw para may makilala naman si Marianna na boys. Ano kaya yun?

Ako gusto ko sya enroll ng singing tska piano lessons. Daddy nya gusto naman swimming tska taekwondo daw. Kawawang bata, di pa ng nakaka pag salita o nakaka lakad, dami ng naka sched na extra curricular activities.

Sa ngayon, enjoy muna namin yung mga ngiti nya and cooing habang kinakausap namin sya. Ang cute cute ng anak ko !!! Kamukha talaga sya ng daddy nya. Kasi naman nung buntis ako, lagi akong galit kay Mark. Pag di nakakatawag o nakakatext, hinahanap ko. Pag naman tumawag o nagtetext, inaaway ko sya kasi inis na inis ako sa kanya. Ayan tuloy, kamukha nya si Marianna.

Pero syempre, it will all depend kung ano gusto nya. Support lang namin sya ng daddy nya. Mahal na mahal ka namin anak. Excited na kami ng daddy mo na lumaki ka at maging mabuting anak at huwarang halimbawa sa lipunan.