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.

A Mighty Meal That's (Not Just) For The Man Of The House

A slab of thick, juicy, steak is always alluded to guys. Somewhat, steak seem to be a guy thing. It was my late grandfather who introduced me to steak telling me it's best eaten medium rare, or rare, rather than cooked well-done. When we used to have our Sunday lunch, I would order the same thing as he does, and try to finish it without a morsel left. He prefers it medium rare. I would try the same, trying it medium-well at first and then medium, which is how I still like it up to this day.

I tried turning vegan and sorta suceeded a few years back, only to turn to meat-eating due to practicality (They do not serve veggie burgers in fastfoods here in the Philippines) plus my love for sashimi and seafood and Don Galo tapsilog. Health consciousness plus a family history of hypertension and high blood pressure and personal preference has made me avoid meat when I can. I found this quite easy since it's hard to find a decent steak anywhere, I can't cook meat, and the only person I know who cooks steak really well prefers is well-done.

This time, I break the rule a bit, thanks to Arpee who dragged me along to Melo's and told me that this I have to go or I would miss half of my life. As Melo's Steakhouse has been famous to serve certified Angus Beef and has steak that would make me forget my name, I complied. And so I did, forgetting cough and colds. Fortunately, my taste buds started coming back and my sense of taste has not numbed. Going to Makati from my place has been horrid due to the traffic but for a good slab of steak, telling myself that it's my birthday I could eat what I want. I met up with Eric first at Starbucks where we proceded to Melo's Jupiter.

As the event started, we were served chicken liver pate as an appetizer. The guys went around and asked us how we wanted our steak done. Despite Arpee telling me to go for medium rare, as he would tell me to, I went for my classic preferred medium and asked him that I would just try from his medium rare. We were shown a powerpoint presentation on the various grades of steak, the best forms of steak, and even the kinds of steak. Practically, it was steak 101 and a short history of Melo's. It was that I found how the famous Wagyu beef came about with the cows being pampered and humanely treated (*whew!* no torture here). We were shown the mouth-watering steak dishes from the humongous slab of porterhouse steak to the thin strip of sirloin steak (all Wagyu, nonetheless) and also, we were served the star of the event:

This I present to you, is Steak ala Dad.

This is the latest creation of Melo's cooked up just for the special men in our lives - all the dads in the world. Yet you don't need to be a dad to actually love it (I loved it and I'm a girl!). Imagine this -- Melo's signature Wagyu Tenderloin (zoiiiiing!) wrapped in bacon (double zoiiiing!!!!) seasoned with Al Funghi Porcini Sauce on a bed of tasty mashed potatoes and vegetables that are crisp and not soggy.

I tried the steak first with the bacon. The steak practically melted in my mouth. It was chewy and I was able to swallow it without choking myself. It was easy to slice and even without bacon, the steak itself was flavorful. When I tried the medium rare, I was quite satisfied that it was still warm on all areas and it didn't have any "fresh blood" taste. I told Arpee the reason why I avoided medium rare was that I did try medium rare before from a certain restaurant yet I wasn't happy with it because it had that distinct "fresh blood" taste and it was cold on the inside. Definitely this one I tried that night was really good steak.

Aside from our very own Steak Ala Dad, we were also served slices of steak that were presented to us. I found the rib eye the most flavorful of all. The striploin won me over, having the slice and leanness that I wanted. As a refreshing treat, four of Melo's signature cakes were served.

The mango cake was light and refreshing and provided perfect balance to the heartiness of the steaks.

Not that I'm giving up my love for greens. I did end up munching on the vegetable sidings from time to time, but of course, I would enjoy a treat like this once in a while. The Steak Ala Dad is a perfect father's day gift for the man of the house, but give yourself a chance to enjoy it too once in a while, since I also did. I might try going medium rare just like my grandfather did then.

My Burp-Day Lunch at CPK In Pictures

I chose CPK as my burp-day birthday lunch treat since I've always loved CPK. It was a late lunch that day so would you believe we wolfed it down all, nothing left save for 2 slices to take home.

For starters, I chose the Asian Chicken Salad. The personal size is already good for two people, and I love the healthy combination of greens, fried wonton noodles, carrots, and grilled chicken. The sesame dressing adds zing and zest too. On its own, it makes a light and healthy lunch on a summer day. And it has no beans. You know me with legumes.

The Tomato Basil Pasta is always a classic that I love. Not too stingy and sour and I could finish a personal size in one sitting had I not had the Pizza.

And speaking of pizza, CPK Pizza is one of my favorite non-bloating pizzas. They have creative flavors like the BBQ Chicken, a family favorite. However, here's my recent discovery: have you tried the Buffalo Chicken Pizza?

I had a cold at that time yet I could still taste the spicy hot sauce. The ranch dressing you drizzle on the pizza tames down the spicy-ness. I love veggies so the carrots and celery slices add plus points to this. When I first tasted this, I thought it was a bit spicy. Yet it was addicting, so I kept ordering this. Since it's way spicy, I suggest to share this with friends or with someone who loves spicy foods. Also, constantly request for house water. This is a hot dish. Seriously. Hot but really good.

The CPK crew also was very prompt, something that an impatient person like me loves. They know how to prepare the food. The salad was crisp and the pizza and pasta were hot. I love also how family friendly this place is. They have kiddie cups and coloring sets. They even could accomodate a family of 12, like ours, in all CPK branched we've been to.

Thank you CPK for being part of my birthday and other family-friendly special occasions!

Sharing Thesugarbug's BNP Picture

Of course my lil food blog would have to be included in Blognapinoy. For those who still do not know about Blognapinoy, it's a site Mike put up that's a directory of the most influential Filipino bloggers. However, instead of the usual name of the blog, URL, and description, it showcases the pictures of the bloggers with a link to their site. There's no ranking for Blognapinoy so that everyone would be equal here.

I've been shot already for my beauty blog but I wouldn't pass up the time for my food blog not to be included in the directory. I arrived early at Mike's place, and practically shocked the living daylights out of him that I arrived way earlier than 10. I went there with skin prepped and evened out so basically all I had to do was slap on the color and contours and sculpture my hair.

So I thought of a new concept for Thesugarbug ergo it took a lag for me to shoot for my food blog. For my makeup blog, I thought of going glamorous and Hollywood-like - the big wavy hair, black dress (which coincidentally is a makeup artist must) and my makeup would be my trademark red lipand cat eye a-la screen icon. For my food blog however, I wanted it fun, quirky, cute, yet still having a touch of my love for classic.

I thought at first pink, and going Vargas girl. Obviously, I had to keep it wholesome for the site so I had to tuck away the pink corset and hot pants. So in place, I got out from my closet a cute KSP-pink dress with a bubble skirt and a bow on the back.

The logo for my blog had a ladybug with cookies around her so I thought to place both elements in my picture... a little ladybug stuffed doll and homemade baked cookies. I styled my hair thanks to a tutorial I found in YouTube for the pinup girl look and substituted hot pink lips for classic red.