Taking Greenhills by Storm

Nicole has been my friend since I was eleven. Ten years later, we're still as close as ever – CLOSER THAN EVER! And I love her to death. We're both terrible busy but we always find time to hang out and catch up on the 1,000,457,234 things that are happening in our lives. It's cool how we have completely different circles of friends – makes it way more interesting!

So one time we decided to food trip around Greenhills. First stop? Ristras.

Home of the best Mexican food in Manila! I generally stay FAR away from all Mexican chow (really not my thing) but when it comes to Ristras, it's a whole different story.

Customers

Ristras t-shirts for sale

Danks St. Depot, Sydney Airport

My first Danks St. Depot experience wasn't thrilling at all. I was in a rush cause I had to board soon,so I had to shoot for those pre-made sandwiches. I can quite exactly remember what I got but I remember the chicken being totally bland and what's worse, dry. And seriously, from that time on, I really doubted that I would want to touch anything from there.

But you see, I've got this friend who works there, and he told me to drop by when I was going to leave for the Fils. And yes, I did. He suggested what to have and I was up to it! Oh, he shouted me the meal too! Cheers! As always, no true brekkie goes down without a mugga cap!

Good food mag+ great crusty bread with epic toppings+
mugga cap!

Making burgers like a boss

The other day, my siblings and I decided to make burgers. We always do this kind of thing.*

Bread with mozarella and pickles and mustard

Assembly and the feet of our helpers (they like to stand around and watch us work, haha)

Mesa, Mega Atrium

MESA is obviously gaining in the Filipino food scene. They have some brilliant concoctions that ultimately challenge your perspective on Filipino food, but nevertheless, they reflect the key aspects of the cuisine. Ultimate WIN I must say.

Crispy Tawilis with Mangga on a spoon- P135

The fish was crisp, the batter was great, it was REALLY fresh and not the slightest bit oily. Good stuff, brah. The contrast of the sweet sweet mango was fantastic against the fish. Each spoonful just made me want MORE. This dish is a MUST!

Omakase, Il Terrazo

I still remember the first time I tried Omakase. My friend was quite enthusiastic about it, he knew what to order (spider roll!) but it left me dizzy (I thought it had too much MSG) and unimpressed. It's been more than a year since I first tried it, and now I love it very much. My siblings and I go there really often and I've recently discovered the seafood salad, as recommended by my friend Mireille. And I love it! (but when these photos were taken, I had yet to try said salad, so there are no photos of it, hehe).

Here's what my sister & I ordered during one particular meal:

Salmon sashimi

Tuna sashimi

My carrot cake + Baked by Anita

Here is a photo of my carrot cake. I make it with cream cheese, stevia, whole wheat organic flour, coco sugar, CARROTS, and other secret & delicious things..

Not to toot my own horn (too loudly), but it is DIVINE. I'd share the recipe with you but I intend to make a squillion bucks out of it in the future so...

Baffi & Mo, Redfern

For a change, me and my friends decided to have brunch instead of the rather typical lunch/ dinner.

I love brekkie, and possible brunch even more!

As always, I was on the hunt for the BEST place to dine. Again. That's my job!

MOUSTACHE.
perfect for MOVEMBER.

It's got that chill retro vibe.
Really, really LIKE!

Apparently, Baffi & Mo is one of the top of the tops!

That only meant that we had to try it out!

Haberfield: Dining Like an Italian.

Italian food is indescribably good. Nothing gets me hyped up like an al dente pasta with an epic sauce and some top notch gelato for dessert.We decided to go on a food trippy to Haberfield- where all the Italians are at! It's a small town but dang, there sure were some good things in store. Let me explain, and you'll surely see.

First stop: Dolcissimo for a much needed lunch fix. It was raining, it was cold, it was windy, we were very hungry. Not to worry, we didn't compromise by settling for something that we just happened to pass by. We surely had some tasty tasty food!

Pellegrino, the only way to go!

Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli- $21.80

Midas Hotel, Manila

This is probably going to the most photo-heavy post ever.  I've just finished uploading the photos, and there are 21 of them!! :O :O I'm really sorry I haven't posted in ages! I've just been so caught up with things (by "things", I mean school, business, College Fashionista, exercise, yadayada). But Chloe and I are arranging an official posting schedule, so that the blog posts will be more regular.

Anyway...

There's a new boutique hotel in the Manila area called Midas Hotel. It's really cute and it serves BUFFET!!! :) The first time we ate their was at a birthday party, and the second time was after the Manila Book Fair. I was too shy to take pictures during the birthday party (you know how I am so shy! HAHA), so these are pictures from the 2nd time around. The cost comes out at around 2k per person, including tax and all that! But (big BUT here) at 2,000 I think I'd rather go to Inagiku :) Though that's just me :)

Here's the food!

Baked salmon with tomato sauce and cheese

Bread Lately & A Smart Sandwich

Lately, I've been absolutely loving my BREAD even more than usual.

Few days ago, my friends and I rocked up to Bourke Street Bakery right after our final FINAL exam. 

here & here for other Bourke Street posts

Hungry as I could possibly be (because I skipped lunch) I got the pork and fennel sausage roll.

Only because they ran out of the lamb and harissa one which was my absolute fave.

It was okay, we were in the Alexandria one which didn't prove to be as epic as the original in Surry Hills.

Also, they were closing for the day, and we got free loaves of bread. 

The boys all got baguettes which we picked at indefinitely when we were in the car.

It was that tasty.

Fennel, raisin, and cherry sourdough.

And I had a fennel, raisin, and cherry sourdough to bring home.

I wouldn't actually buy that loaf cause it's not my sort of thing.

But I've got to admit it was different and quite tasty.

And it went down really well.

Breakfast on Bondi

Thumbs up, thumbs up.
Reason to chill.

I've been pretty ridiculously busy. I don't know how it happened. Well, there's my degree which always proves to be a pain, grandparents visiting, 2 days work per week, and lots and lots and lots of night outs and hanging around sort of things. But I've got to admit, nothing gets me pumped like being busy. It's fun trying to juggle everything but only until a certain degree until you realize that you miss the things you love such as this blog, exercise, and sleep.

Don't you find the sky just gorgeous?

Anyway, when I was fresh off the stress/ busy with school train, my friends and I decided to spontaneously hit up the Breakfast on Bondi event. We decided the arvo before which wasn't insanely spontaneous anyway. 

Didgeridoo folk.

&& the lovely orchestra

We woke up around 4:30am-ish so that we'd arrive at Bondi right around 6am in time for the sunrise! Props to Ozzy for picking us all up! We got there right at the right time I reckon, there were quite a few people on the beach already, the didgeridoo just started playing. After a while, the orchestra started playing.

Night Noodle Markets 2011

October is undeniably my favourite month.

Spring is in full bloom, Oktoberfest is on, and who can forget all the happenings of the Crave Food Festival?

Heaps of people frolic to Hyde Park.

The Night Noodle Markets is one of the big bang events.

I wouldn't say so much it's about the food, the smashing environment really gives it away.

Lounging and unwinding on the grass on a cool summer spring evening enjoying scrumptious Asian fare and perhaps sipping on some booze. 

A Korean Restaurant in Pasig

Blogger has a new layout/setup and I find it so confusing! I like it when things are old and familiar and everything is part of a routine, so as you can expect, I'm not entirely thrilled about this new layout.

I've been looking through my computer and realized just how LONG my backlog is! Hence, I will begin posting regularly until it's zapped down to nil (this is probably never going to happen). Anyway, this particular post is about (as you have certainly gathered from the title) Korean food.

Plenty of Koreans have been migrating to the Philippines, and the presence of Korean restaurants has grown proportionally. I love Korean food because I don't feel fat after and I love spicy things! A lot of good Korean restaurants are in the Manila area and in the Pasig area. My family and I had lunch in one of them but I forgot the name (woops!). No matter, because they generally (in my opinion) all taste the same :-)

Starters are for free! Salad with Korean dressing, kim chi cucumber, kim chi cabbage, some sauteed green vegetables, tofu. Usually there's small dried fish too (known in the local jargon as dilis). If your eyes are sharp you can see that there's a dish of macaroni too, which is really un-Korean and unusual.

Moochi: It's a Phenomenon, It's an Obsession.

Absolutely PERFECT on that hot hot HOT day.

Frozen yogurt makes me go weak at the knees. Not kidding. While I was living in the Philippines, I was hooked on Red Mango, it was trip after trip after trip. My friends and I would each order the biggest size just to ourselves. Believe it. Anyway, my friends introduced me to Moochi and oh boy an introduction it was. I'd say they've got the best frozen yogurt that I've had so far. Love it! 

Napoli in Bocca, Haberfield

It's no secret at all that Italian food is my absoute favorite. I'm always up for it whenever, but definitely not wherever though. I tend to be really picky when it comes to that. The best go-to places for Italian feasts are Leichhardt and Haberfield, I believe.

So one evening the fam headed down to Haberfield. My first time btw. Left and right there were a lot of Italians chatting and having dinner. That was obviously a good sign! My uncle had been to Napoli in Bocca before and he claims that it's fantastic. And he has high standards! Got me sooooo excited. Just as we stepped in the restaurant, it was heading into what I would picture as a traditional Italian trattoria- huge wood-fire oven and the works. Some of the people there reminded me of the folks on Jersey Shore. hahahaha.

True Prep's Post Hangover Cure

No, I didn't go on a drinking spree last night and resort to a hangover cure made out of egg and cheese – my sister and I just wanted to give this recipe I found a shot because we both love breakfasts and we both love eggs (should you care, we eat at least two eggs a day, everyday).

The recipe is from this book I've been reading: True Prep by Lisa Birnbach with someone-someone, I can't remember.

It was an impulse buy and definitely one of my better ones. This is the cover (sans jacket):

Alfalfa House, Enmore

Back to blogging!

It's been an insane few weeks, obviously the reason why I haven't been around.

Anyway, me and my friends were out and about sourcing things for our project. 

Then we got off on the wrong stop, and stumbled upon this charming food coop.

Absolutely love how the paint is faded and looking really rustic.

Inside the tiny coop shop.
The sign out the back looks really hippie.

They've got locally sourced organic veg.
They were LOCAL, SEASONAL produce which is what we really should be eating.

Italianni's, Eastwood

I know that the Italianni's franchise has been in Manila for such a long time but I only got to try it a few weeks ago. My mom had always said that it was overpriced and not delicious, but on a short beach trip with friends, someone tossed up the Sicilian salad (will tell you more about this later) and I just fell absolutely in love with it. So I just had to bring my mom and sister to Italianni's, to let them experience said salad.

To begin: thick, crusty, white bread served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

My sister's curry rice

Remember how I said that sometimes we don't have any groceries? Well, necessity is definitely the mother of invention: my sister cooked/created/cookS (in the present tense) this curry rice. It's just brown rice, Japanese curry, organic eggs, and any sort of Spam. Tasty, quick, and always available.

And here is a photo that does not have anything to do with food blogging, but I love it and want to share it:

After years and years of wanting to change the way I look, complaining about looking like this or that, I am finally learning that we're all beautiful and gorgeous and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON is ugly, or needs to diet, or needs a nose job, or should get implants or whatever. We were ALL fearfully and wonderfully made!

Hope you're all doing great!

All my love
Daryl

P.S. Really sorry for not having posted in such a long time! Next week is Finals Week.

At Adara's.

We've been hanging around at Adara's place a LOT.

And lately it's been pretty much every Sunday- doing group work.

We turn up there, just bum and chill for a bit then we TRY very hard to get work started and done.

While working, we're usually thinking about what we're having for lunch.

Seriously, that's how we roll. 

What better way to kick start mornings, yeah?
Workshop Espresso is the bomb. Or at least for now.

Boost for brunch.
Went for the carrot-celery-ginger juice that day.
Usually I'm a sucker for brekkie to go.

SPRING PICNIC at Centennial Park.

HAPPY OCTOBER, mates!
(woo yeah, time for oktoberfest! haha.)

Anyway, this was a month or so ago, my friends and I were totally welcoming/feeling SPRING.

Nothing says SPRING like a picnic.

And so we held one at Centennial Park. 

It was a beautiful day.
A tad windy for my taste though.

We hung around there until sunset.


And saw some beautiful swans.

Damn Skippy, It's THE DIP.

So the place is puny, and this is the sign you should look for up front! 

Amidst all the deadlines drama with school work, me and my friends actually got to sneak out for dinner. Which was fantastic cause a lot of school work definitely becomes overwhelming after a certain point. Biggest understatement of the year. I've probably never been more busy, tired, and stressed! But let's leave the miserable note at that! I get to escape all that when I blog- it's just so pleasant.

The Dip is inside GoodGod.

We decide to hit up The Dip on Liverpool Street. It's actually been getting a lot of coverage lately via blogs. In my opinion, their food is straight to the point sorta comparable to fast food but with a touch more pizzaz. It's American, duh.