Shrimp+Garlic+Hungarian Sausage = Greenwich Stuffs Me Again

Before I hit the sack, let me share to you what I had for dinner with the boys. For my food blog, pictures would best describe everything.

Okay, obviously I didn't devour the whole thing. If you've seen the latest commercial, that's Greenwich's newest concoction, the garlic and shrimp pizza. What I have here is the thick crust version, but as you could see below, they also have a thin crust version.
I'll choose shrimp at the drop of the hat when given a choice. Although I'm not much of a heavy pizza eater now unlike back then but shrimp is my weakness and yes, I have to have this.
I had five slices of pizza today. With that much shrimp on your pizza, who wouldn't resist? Don't you love it that they're not stingy on grilled shrimp that when you slice the pizza, shrimp just falls off the slice? Yay also to the green bell pepper slice to neutralize the rich taste of cheese, garlic, and shrimp.

For those who are carnivores by choice or due to seafood allergies, the Hungarian Sausage and Bacon Overload would be a better choice. Here's a picture of the thin crust version:

Bacon, Hungarian sausage, barbecue sauce, cheese, nuff said. Meat lovers would prefer the richer flavor on this one. This is best served with hot sauce.

Definitely burp burp burp during dinner. I find the shrimp and garlic pizza the more addicting one. I would prefer it in the thin crust variety though so I could enjoy it more as a thicker crust could fill my tummy up quicker. When I'm with my carnivorous friends, I would go for the Hungarian Sausage and Bacon pizza to share with them but I'll be having my pasta aglio olio on the side. :)

Revisiting Dad's Ultimate Buffet

If you're a kid of the 90's we'd always remember that every graduation dinner would be celebrated at DAD'S. Back then, people would line up at the sushi bar, have their pastas custom made, or line up for turkey with cranberry sauce or steak.

It's been more than a decade since my grade school graduation and now I've decided to visit the Makati branch and give it a go.For Php645.00 you do not only get to the Dad's Buffet but also the Kamayan and Saisaki Buffet. Anyway, so my first stop was the Dad's Buffet where my servings were devoured first before I got to take a picture of it. I had the Dad's Paella, which didn't disappoint me with the seafood servings, and lots of vegetables as usual. The buttered vegetables have always been my favorite so I got quite a large portion of that. I noticed also that they've added tomato and mozzarella at their bar. Meat was not scrimped so I asked for the steak and piled up on pepper sauce. The pepper sauce overflowed to the buttered veggies section on my plate, but they tasted well together.

Halfway through munching on my nachos, the waiter asked for our drinks. And you know what? Each drink you order happens to come with a cute little critter like this:That's an upgrade from the Triple V balloons back then. And yes, I gotta take this little doggy home. Dad's also has their merienda buffet for Php 149.00, available from 3 to 5 pm, which are perfect for late lunchbreaks. The stuffed creatures don't come with the drinks at that time though.

Anyway, after my trip to Dad's it was time for the Japanese corner. Of course, with me and Japanese food, the first thing I look for is the sushi bar. And into my plate went the melt-in-the-mouth salmon sashimi, kani sushi, tuna sashimi, and sashimi that I never had in my neighborhood sushi place. Then, I hopped over the tempura section and got myself my prawns and kani tempura. The salmon sashimi practically melted in my mouth so I had to go back for it. Saisaki though was the first resto that made me love sashimi and sushi, and I did know for a fact that they were raw fish.



This is the view from my seat. The Kamayan or Filipino section, and that's a halo-halo bar I'm staring at, beckoning me that there was still a third section.

I had to choose the thick corned beef sinigang as my soup, which tasted like it was made from real tamarind instead of the powdered kind. The chunks of corned beef were present for the carnivores too, and I'm talking big chunks of beef.Staples in my plate in the Filipino section is kare-kare, seafood, and bagoong rice. Why the small portions? I'll tell you so later.
When dessert came, I immediately went for my favorites:Cream puff, leche flan, gelatin, and sapin-sapin. That's one piece of puto bumbong in the lower left, that they cook right on the spot with those smoking pipes thing that they do every Christmas. Not shown again is the gelatin and pinipig concoction I created from the halo-halo bar.

For buffets though, my tips to really enjoy the experience is to go for small portions first, so you get to experience everything without going overboard. That explains why my plates aren't filled. Since this is a no-leftover buffet, I went for small portions of what I like, hence seafood and vegetables. If there's something that I like, then I go back to it. Another tip I share is that I skip rice. Rice tends to fill me up more and since I could have rice anytime, I'd rather make room for those that I can't have everyday like the steak or sashimi. For specialty rice like paella or bagoong rice though, I still go for small portions, albeit a spoonfull or less. My philosophy though in experiencing buffets is rather than going for quantity of portion, I'd rather go for variety, so I get to taste more. Normally too with buffets, I go for just water since the sugars in drinks like soda and iced tea tend to fill up my stomach more.

Php645 isn't actually bad for the buffet. It's for those who are on a budget who want to treat out their friends visiting from other countries. It's smaller compared to buffets I see in hotels, but it's good enough. I still like that it had its family-friendly vibe over the years and it gives children the chance to explore food aside from cheeseburger and fries.

Sweet and Soft Treat: Bizu Chocolate Souffle

With a dessert as good as this, it's okay to be sinful once in a while. Bizu's Chocolate Souffle was a melt-in-the mouth treat I instantly fell in love with, never mind if it came with ice cream, which the lactose intolerant in me should avoid:The souffle cake is actually on the right. The one on the left is dark chocolate syrup which you pour (drool) on the cake before eating it with vanilla ice cream (center). A souffle is actually a light and fluffy baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites. It's quite difficult to make since it entails careful monitoring of temperature so the cake doesn't sink and it maintains its fluffy consistency. They usually are baked in ramekins, which is the technical term for those grooved white porcelein containers.

The container may be quite small, around 2 inches or so in diameter but the richness and flavor makes it a suitable dessert to share for four hungry sweet-toothed girls. The hot chocolate sauce isn't too sweet for me to have a headache after and it blended quite well with the sweetness of the cake and ice cream.
I just love how the sides puff up when I pour the chocolate and the syrup just sinks in to the cake making it moist. Oooooh.... guilty pleasure indeed!

Tipco 100% Juices Are Healthy Veggies In A Glass

Vegetables are food I've never had problems with developing a certain liking in them at an early age. I said that the only thing that could stop me from going vegan is a plate of sashimi or grilled seafood. On the other hand, I'm quite picky with fruits. I've been traumatized with prunes and papaya back then, next to beans. Don't ask. Won't tell.

My first experience with veggie juices was really from scratch, straight from the juicer. It was interesting for me yet quite tiresome. Juicing was a chore per se and the effort of cleaning was indeed a lot.

My best friend has then been juice straight from the bottle or pack, which although tasted good, had a bit of chemical tweaking as a preservative.

When I got the invitation to the launch of TIPCO JUICES, I was interested to try another healthy drink. Apparently, this brand has been around for quite some time and now they're launching a few new cool flavors.

When I got there, the first I tried was purple carrot. Why? Because it looked like a fun veggie and I didn't know that purple carrots existed. Apparently, they have fivw times more health benefits than the conventional orange carrots.

The deep color reminded me of an opaque wine. Taste was refreshing and fruity and not too tart.

After that, I wanted to try the blend of veggie juices. I was thinking pureed salad but the taste was just as good. The color didn't scare me as a deep green thick juice but it was orange. It was refreshing as well and it didn't gag me. If you know someone who wants to add veggies to their diet but have veggie trauma, this ought to do.

Speaking of green juices, I was intrigued at their bestseller, which happened to be broccoli juice. Yes, you read that right - BROCCOLI. A veggie currently seen mixed with mushrooms and beef in oyster sauce, would you believe it's now a juice? And the bestseller apparently. Interesting.
See? I told you I'm not kidding you. Broccoli juice does exist. Apparently, this also was sweet and the taste reminded me of fruit roll-ups. I asked what the fiber bits were on the juice. It was actually vegetable fiber. So nothing artificial here.

Tipco 100% Juice is all-natural with no added chemicals, preservatives, sugar, or colorings. That's why we were advised to consume it 3 days after opening and to keep the tetra pack chilled in the ref. They're currently #1 in Thailand and are now available in the Philippines in leading supermarkets.

So I was wondering, how come the veggie juices don't taste like vegetable in liquid form? The thing was, they also blend it with fruit juices (which are also healthy by the way, any one with aversion to certain fruits could take this too). In this case, the broccoli juice has tomato, grape, kiwi, apple, orange, pineapple, and green tea powder incorporated in it.

I also found out that children and toddlers could also take in this too, but not the aloe vera variety. I think it's a good way to introduce children to have the healthy habit of including fruits and vegetables in their diet.

Aside from the delicious and refreshing juices, here's also what we were offered:

Healthy lunch courtesy of Icings restaurant (I ate the zucchini. oops!)

I was addicted to munching on these Mornflakes, a healthier alternative to sugar-ladden cereal. It's normally eaten with milk (soy in my case) but munching on it dry is addicting too. I'll probably pack on some of these since I'm out to go to work later.

The taste was like apple pie.

Tipco 100% Juices are available in all leading groceries and are available in 22 different variants. They come in 1 liter and 200-mL packs.