Pili nuts

New nutty favorite at casa Ybañez: crunchy pili nuts in honey and the pili nuts in puff pastry. Absolutely perfect with coffee. Makes me wish I bought more than a handful at Naga airport.

Vegetable curry w/ extra garlic & paratha

The paratha we found at Robinsons. Was feeling hypotensive today though not after this.

There are ways around a Snickers ban

New at the Club: Bistro88 restaurant and bar

Club: Bistro88 operating hours

Regular operating hours will be 10 AM to 1 AM. Bar chow and drinks after 9:30 PM.

Crunch chicken with Gravox

Pork roast sandwich with gravy

Veggies!

Contact: Grillah

Roast beef reminiscent of the old Talk of the Town is reportedly at Grillah. Will need to check it out, one of these days.

Roast pork sandwich

Excited for breakfast!

Sabaw

When hypertension strikes, we fall back to basics.

When craving KFC

We're actively weaning ourselves off of fast food. One way of killing the craving for store-bought crunchy fried chicken is to cook your own (and make them extra spicy like we like 'em).

Dickson's halo-halo w/ a side of corn

He doesn't like corn in halo-halo 'cuz it reminds him of the corn maja he detests, so Ice Castle served the corn in a dish. (Chowking ran out of halo-halo.)

Wood chips for grill!

Found at True Value, Ayala

Primer: Visual Guide to Common Cuts of Beef

Found at primermagazine.com

Best saved to your phone's picture gallery for every time you buy your meat.

dinners: Sardine Fettucine

I had me some olives!

Philippine Coffee: Rocky Mountain Cafe

Classic blend

Ground the beans to medium-fine (Krups) at about 75-degrees with the Kambrook (cappuccino maker, manual).

The flavor is light but promising and makes a decent brew. I unfortunately prefer a deep caramel finish especially for my waking cup. We will try the entire line of Rocky Mountain. Maybe one of them will hit the spot, then we wouldn't have to keep carting in our beans from Oz.

I'm eyeing the Cordillera blend for our next experiment.

red wines at barkeep

For those little soirees at Hamabar :)

After 6 cold coffee

Our favorite post-dinner beverage for this summer.

Brekky

A ton of grilled hot cakes and strong cappuccino followed by fresh pineapple. Perfect.

Broiled Trotters

Testing the new turbo broiler tonight. AC turned off. 175°C for 25 minutes to start. These are pigs' trotters so it may take awhile to cook through even with a
broiler.

Garlic, white onions, brown sugar, dash of soy, salt, and calamansi juice.

Caramelization on the 6th minute. Nice.

Chicharon: Oishi Baked Porky Popps

The only downside to these chips is the second double "P" in the spelling of popps. It's totally misleading for
young minds. Hopefully they have the dictionary apps activated on their tablets. Otherwise it's an A+ for consistent crunch, flavor, and all-around yumminess.

Preferred summer beverage

Lately I've taken to ordering a green tea frapp over my usual caramel macchiato. The heat must be addling my brain.

The Coke Can

New design:

Mum's birthday dinner

Birthday girl thought the balsamic vinaigrette was especially fascinating while I thoroughly enjoyed the grilled chicken. The names were lost on me, pictures to the rescue. We bagged the phyllo-pastry wrapped apples and got a surprise the next day when it got even better! (I thought for sure it'd be a mess because the pastry would be soggy by then!) But no! I'm going to order dessert-to-go for next time.