Here are the Restaurants I've Tried so Far this Month: Reviews

I've noticed G that this month (January), I've eaten in a lot of restaurants. Some I've tried before and others are my first time. I feel so bourgeois for doing this, but at the same time, it's so exciting because I get to try new restaurants. 

It got me thinking that maybe, I should do this on a monthly basis--you know, try a new restaurant--and have a review about it so that when you come back, you might want to try it, too. However G, don't expect that my reviews will be stellar because I only ate a small portion of their menu. 

So let's begin. By the way, I'm posting this chronologically, okay, so that I can easily remember.

Watami in Glorietta: I've tried this before with Redge and Bean and I was impressed with their boneless chicken wing that's why I recommended it to Met when we ate here. It's the one on top. It is consistently delicious. We also ordered the cold soba (pictured below the chicken). You have to dip the soba in a sauce so that it'll have flavor. I think the sauce is just tonkatsu. You can add scallion and wasabi to the sauce if you want to spice it up. However, even if we added tons of scallions and wasabi to the sauce, it still did not add flavor to the soba; that's why we decided to just put the sauce into the beef sukiyaki. The sukiyaki is not pictured here, but it's delicious, too. 

Altogether, if we are going to eat here, I'd still recommend the chicken wings. However, one thing I don't like about it is the size. The cuts are so small and even though its 8 pieces, I think it's still expensive. We ordered three dishes and I think we paid just over a Php 1000. Not bad, I think.

Buddys in Kakarong: You know this already because we ate here. We had the usual: Pansit Lucban and longganisa. This time however, we tried their lumpiang sariwa and bulalo. Honestly G, I don't think there's something special with these two. I still recommend the pansit and longganisa, though.

Chili's in Greenbelt 5: I've eaten here before during Met's birthday 3 years ago (I think) and all I can say is, Chili's is consistently good. The last time we were here, we tried their baby back ribs and it was delicious. This time however, we tried their beef and chicken carnitas, nachos with melted cheese (the one in the middle), and I ordered grilled salmon. Oh by the way, this was my birthday dinner. 

OMG G, Chili's is really good. I especially liked the caramelized vegetables that came with the carnitas. It's sweet, refreshing and added with the meat and the garlic tartar, it was a  Mexican fiesta inside my mouth. It was that good. The nacho cheese was good, too. I've actually never tried dipping nachos in melted cheese before so this was a thrill. Oh btw, you can also dip it in the tomato ceviche, but I think it did not complement the nachos as it was too cold. 

This is the grilled salmon that I ordered for my birthday dinner. The fish is good, but I am surprised by the rice. I think it's basmati with a little bit of olive oil and some spices that I can't identify. It's really fluffy inside my mouth. I really want to cook this for you G. 

Linguini Fini Manila in SM Food Hall: This is Aira's birthday treat to me. It's the first time that I tried this restaurant and to be honest G, I am a little disappointed with their food because all are oily. I think that Italians are big on oil, but this one, they bombarded their food with it! I do not recommend this restaurant because the food are salty and oily. 

We ordered a salad (foreground) and there was a bittersweet after-taste, but it's understandable because I think that it's arugula.  The beef platter (not really, but I forgot the name) was also oily and I don't think the bleu cheese complemented the already strong flavor of the beef. Aira liked this a lot, but I only ate it because there was artichoke (which was slathered with oil once again so I was disappointed again). This dish had very strong flavor and I do not recommend it. Another dish that we ordered was their spicy seafood aioli. As you know, I like spicy food, but this one was full of the artificial kind that's why I had to finish it with a heavy heart. 

All in all, this was not a good choice.

California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) in Century City Mall: We were supposed to go to Pampanga when we had this (this was during the Papal visit) at Century City Mall. We ate at CPK before in Glorietta (sadly, it's closed now), but I can't remember the taste. 

Moving on, we ordered another kind of pasta (which I forgot again), mozzarella stick, and pizza (below). Their mozzarella stick is good, on the same level as Don Henrico's, but what I did not like about it is that it was wrapped in think wrapper, but the cheese was not spread throughout. When you bite the ends, it doesn't have a lot of cheese, but the taste is pretty much okay.

This is the pizza that we ordered. It has some special kind of ham which I've never tried before. The ham was salty and sweet which really made the pizza noteworthy.

Dessert at Banapple with Kaye in Market, Market: We had this on a Friday during the Pope's visit. Kaye had gift certificates so we went shopping there (which was so stressful because the choices are so limited!) and after 3 hours, she treated me to dessert because she knew that I was tired from choosing and standing already. 

We had the tiramisu and banoffe. The tiramisu was good, but it was the banoffe that I remember the most. You see G, I don't really order this cake because I don't think that it's in my palette arena, but oh my gosh, when I tried it, it was divine! I think G that we should try more banoffe cakes in the future, okay?

Charaptor in Makati: Met and I ate here on a Friday that she decided she doesn't want to go to work. Nikki, Karen, and I were supposed to eat here a long time ago, but I didn't get to join them because I was with Diana, I think. 

Anyway, this is a grill-all-you-can restaurant for just under Php 500.00. I have to say though that I expected more choices. There was the usual kikiam, hotdog, fishes, all kinds of meat, but I think that they all have the same taste. I'm also a little confused with the selection because there was mashed potato, kimchi, dilis and chicharon in the menu. Kinda confusing, really. Lesson learned while grilling: It's so goddamn hard to grill to perfection G, especially if the pieces are really tiny. Argh. They have a lot of sauce choices, though, that some I think are not complementary to the grilled meats and fishes. I like the lemony sauce a lot.

Mesa in Greenbelt 5: Met and I had this for Sunday dinner after mass at Greenbelt. Met said that we should start saving money because she's going to spend a lot for her condo. What she had in mind as "affordable" is dinner at Mesa. I've eaten here before with my former offiemates in Digitalmoz, but this time, we ordered something new. 

We had daing na bangus belly, sigarilyas sa gata, ensaladang talong and laing fried rice. The rice was phenomenal. Before I ordered this, I had doubts that this will not taste good, but Mesa stepped up. It was the perfect mix of garlic, oil, and just a hint of hotness from the laing. The ensaladang talong was very well presented (it was in a martini glass), but G, it was so sour. I do not recommend it. The bangus belly was okay, there was nothing special about it. They didn't even have toyomansi for it so that was a bit disappointing. I had a problem with the  sigarilyas. For Php 165 (I think), I think it was just 3 stems of sigarilyas, huh! That's the most expensive sigarilyas ever! 

Yoghurt at Pinkberry Greenbelt 5: After our Sunday dinner, Met and I decided to try Pinkberry. We had two flavors-vanilla and salted caramel. We had 5 toppings and I enjoyed the vanilla + nutella combination the most. Their salted caramel flavor is to die for! I love it! I think we should try this G when you come home.

That's it for the mean time G. I'm pretty sure this will be updated because Ate is coming this weekend and I have a restaurant in mind already. Also, my photos rock, don't you think?