Yabu: House of Katsu, Mega Atrium

My sister horribly failing to strike a pose.

I've been long over the fried Japanese dishes such as tempura, tonkatsu, katsudon, and the like.

They're usually overcooked and heaps oily. Sometimes even fatty.

And that was until we ate at Yabu.

Essentially, there's hardly anything on the menu that's not katsu, duh. 

This is the special sauce that every table has.

It's the sweet sweet soy thing.

Beside it, there are 2 sauce bottles that contain different dressings for your cabbage.

Yes, cabbage. 

They serve you unlimited cabbage.

100g Hire Set.
Hire= pork tenderloin.

This is what the meal looks like.

Epic portions of everything- except the pork.

Berting's Grill, The Ultimate Pulutan Place

I like fried food. It's so crunchy, greasy, and satisfying. Which brings me to Pulutan, which is also known as pub grub in the Philippines. Initially, these fried treats are heavenly, but after one drink too many, I wouldn't be too cheery about it.

You know the Philippines, where bars/pubs are everywhere and the drinks are cheap as chips.* And of course, with the drinks come pulutan. There are some phenomenal hole in the wall places for these, case and point, Berting's Grill.

My mom claims that she's found a fantastic restaurant at the Ortigas Home Depot Complex.** They have really good homy food at dirt cheap prices. Little did I know it was one of those restaurant come bar places.  But of course, I didn't mind the slightest bit cause that just means that there's going to be damn good fried food.

Just so you know
CHIKININIS= HICKIES.
I told you they have quirky names.

On the menu they have the most quirky kitsch names, but hey, that doesn't really matter when the food is promising.

So What Would You Consider As A Pig Out?

Chicken Charlie. Ristras. Serenitea. Yes, it's the J. Abad Santos Trio.

I love having foodie friends who are much like me- they aren't afraid to indulge and try new things.


And this is where my friend Cheska comes in.


It's been forever since our last food trip, and Thank GOD we actually had time to catch up and everything!


Oh and this is the day that I totally said BYE BYE to my diet!

This is me being impatient.

WEDGES.

First restaurant on our agenda, Chicken Charlie which is constantly being raved about these days especially with this fried chicken frenzy! We started with a side of wedges which had a crisp brown skin, the sauce was much like ketchup with a certain plus pluses. Would it have possibly come from a freezer bag? YES, a definite YES. 

The breakfast of my dreams

Guess what I had the other day, after 1 2/3 days of pure cranberry+apple juice hell.

Drumroll....







A fried egg, garlic rice, and corned beef with tons of onions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shall I describe it to you? Food porn time. The egg was perfectly and shamelessly FRIIIIIIIIIIIIED to perfection! Crispy, crunchy, egg-y, and ever-so-slighly salty. The rice was tasty, extremely garlic-y, with a hint of olive oil. And the corned beef was juicy and succulent, perfect with the caramelized onions...



And here's how this beautiful breakfast of mine looked:

Uncle Cheffy, Eastwood City, Libis

However cheesy it may sound, I absolutely love having lunch with my grandparents. When I was a kid, I loved it cause they pay for everything and they spoil me to bits. These days, I pay for the meals but it's such a small price to pay in exchange for quality time with people that I love.

I asked my grandparents where they would want to eat, they told me it's my choice. But it's like I already knew that they wanted to head to Eastwood. They love the new mall so much because its very clean and not crowded. They hit the mall once a week at the very least. Despite wanting to head who knows where to grab some grub, I reluctantly agreed on Eastwood.

Uncle Cheffy :) zoom in to see me! jokes :)

There are a fair bit or restaurants there and it took time for us to decide. As I've said, my grandparents head over that area pretty often so they've already tried almost all of the restaurants! One of their favorites is Uncle Cheffy. If I'm not mistaken, it's related in a way to (or even by) Chef's Quarter. 

The ambiance I've found quite relevant to the food. I wouldn't be able to pinpoint a particular cuisine that it is focused on but what I can say is it's influenced by Filipino and Western cuisines. Sometimes restaurants that are diverse tend to be all over the place and messy. In this case, it was presented professionally and very appealing. There were all sorts of interesting dishes on the menu and it took us some time to actually decide on what we were having. Today, I was feeling extra hungry after the gym so we ordered a feast.

See grandfather and the Cheese, Cheese, Cheese Panizza?

For starters, we had a panizza which they're fairly popular for. We opted for the Cheese, Cheese, Cheese. A panizza with mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar, gruyere, blue cheese, herbs, and extra virgin olive oil. It was a tad bit overstated on the menu, from what I could pick up, there was mozzarella, cheddar, and blue cheese. I was disappointed because I'm such a cheese freak and there just wasn't enough of it! I was expecting it was gonna be cheese overload! It had 3 condiments- tomato salsa, lettuce, and alfalfa sprouts. Even though there wasn't heaps of cheese, I really enjoyed it and liked the idea!

Pumpkin Flower (???) Soup

Because of my absurd appetite, I ordered a soup as well! The menu said it's a pumpkin flower soup, never heard of a pumpkin flower soup and I found it quite fascinated and I agreed to order since the server said it's a bestseller. The soup was hearty, but I just couldn't fathom why they called it pumpkin flower soup when in fact it's just pumpkin soup! Disappointing.

Thai Style Fried Pla Pla

For our mains, the 3 of us split the Thai Style Fried Pla Pla and Beef Medallion "Steak Tagalog". These two dishes were equally winners. The fish on it's own without being doused by sauce had a distinct sweetness that I couldn't get enough of. It was fried beautifully resembling a piece of art one way or another.

Beef Medallion Steak Tagalog!:) So Filipino inspired, I'm loving it!:)

The beef dish had such potential and inspiration behind it. It's a bold western move to use beef medallions, and the way of implementing some Filipino influence was to cook it in such an inspired Filipino way. The idea behind it would probably from the "Bistek Tagalog". There was Carabao Milk Cheese on top of them and a green mango, tomato, and onion salad that was really sour it made me flinch. This dish I absolutely thought was dazzling.

And as for desert, NO, I was full to my throat I didn't even have any space whatsoever for desert! But, I did buy some goodies from the ever appropriate Marks & Spencer which I will blog about another time!:)

Uncle Cheffy
Unit A216 and S201
Level 2, Eastwood Mall
Eastwood City
Libis