Avenue Plaza Hotel: Making Dreams Come True

Avenue Plaza Hotel 
Making Dreams Come True  

Aside from being one of 
the best hotels in the region,



Avenue Plaza Hotel,


 
…is also an elegant and awesome
venue for special occasions,





…like fulfilling a dream
debut for young ladies.




Read on the links below for related posts:

Avenue Plaza Hotel

Avenue Plaza Hotel's Café Plazuela, Naga City
Avenue Plaza Hotel's La Piazza 
Avenue Plaza Hotel Spazio Room

Avenue Plaza Hotel, The Tent: Eat Love Laugh Valentine Show

Avenue Plaza Hotel's Umbria   

Champagne Treats: Sweet Sensations, Salty Imperfection

Champagne Treats  2.0
Sweet Sensations, Salty Imperfection

We were in hurry to go home so we dined at

Champagne Treats 2.0 as they had ready to eat 
meals and served immediately after ordering.

Located in Mayon Avenue, it offers pre- cooked dishes
displayed in a glass encased counter, a tidier version of the 
popular Turo- turo restaurants. However, diners who are not
 in  a  hurry may also order dishes à la carte from their menu.

I was glad A&W Root Beer was available and being

one of my favorite drinks, I immediately ordered one.

One should also not miss ordering the tasty and healthy goat milk 
sold on the organic store beside the restaurant. which I beleive is 
also owned by the same people that owns Champagne Treats. 

We started our dinner with Halaan Soup.

It tasted good as it had a delightful ginger

aftertaste, but we found it a little salty.

We also found the Gisadong Kalabasa salty,

… so was the Chicken Teriyaki,

…and the Kaldereta.

The Fish Fillet with Sweet and Sour Sauce was otherwise

very delicious. It had a perfect tinge of sourness that fleetingly

lingers on the sweetish tangy sauce. This is one dish I would

recommend that one should not miss in this restaurant.

Their briny dishes may have brought some form

of disappointment but  their  dessert  selections

may be what Champagne Treats is all about.

The Chocolate Cake was nothing but perfection.

It was oozing the rich flavor of chocolate from the

icing to the moist cake that seem to melt in the mouth.

It soft and creamy but doesn’t fall apart on the bite.

The Brazo de Mercedes was heavenly. Unlike other

versions, this one is not sickeningly  sweet as it had just

the exact degree of sweetness. It was also firm and chewy,

does not have the usual melt in the mouth sensation so you

got to enjoy its delightfully creamy dessert a little bit longer.

The Leche Flan was divinely creamy and delicious.

One thing we discovered, Champagne Treats

probably serves the most delicious Egg Pie in

the city.  The filling was creamy and not overly

sweet, the pie crust was  firm and does not fall apart

when eaten unlike other soft- crusted versions.

Champagne Treats 2 would do well as a coffee shop

and good cup coffee would have been a perfect

combination with the tasty sweet treats but

they had nothing but a 3 in One Instant Coffee.

They should start seriously considering to serve

brewed coffee and that would be awesome.

Requiem to Hotel Intercontinental Manila

Requiem to 
Hotel Intercontinental Manila 

The Ayala Group recently announced that by
 year end, after 46 years, they are closing down 
the iconic Hotel Intercontinental Manila .



This hotel would be terribly missed as it had been
the hotel of choice by travelers  staying in Makati. 



The Intercon was built during the period of grand 
dame hotels  with grandiose architecture reflecting
the era’s lavish and opulent old world charm.
It was designed by National Artist Leandro Locsin.





The Jeepney Café will also be missed is that
serves a massive buffet of some of the best
local and international cuisine in the country.







They also have luxurious rooms,
with top notch amenities,





…and probably the only hotel in the Philippines
with a pillow menu, (something I never knew exists)
with eight different types of  pillows to choose from.



Without any plans of re- opening as it would be
demolished to give way to a modern transport hub, 

 
Source: http://realty.flyphilippines.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hotelintercon.jpg

...Hotel Intercontinental would be deeply missed. 

Read the  link below for more: 

Hotel Intercontinental Manila
Stay, Play and Feast

Honey’s Kimchi: Affordable Korean Goodness

Honey’s Kimchi 
Affordable Korean Goodness 

Honey's Kimchi is a Manila based Korean Restaurant 
where most of their stores are found in mall food court areas.

The good thing is, when they opened a branch in

Naga, it was a full restaurant located in Cereza,

 a popular lifestyle center in Magsaysay Strip.

Kimchi is located just a block away from my

son’s school, and since the store franchisee is

a friend, this is where he eats lunch everyday.

I also got to enjoy Kimchi dishes almost everyday  as  
my wife would always buy lunch to take out for me.

.  

This time I had a chance to fetch my son

and took him to Kimchi on his noon break.

The restaurant had an interior typical of

the East Asian culture’s penchant to what

is simple, straightforward and modest.

The tabletop napkin holders are lined up straight in flawless

symmetry with those with the other tables, reflecting the

country’s uncomplicated and understated traditional simplicity.

The menu are displayed on the upper walls

around the restaurant and it gives the diner an

idea that this is a budget fast food restaurant.

Being regulars in Kimchi, I ordered Beef Stew, as this

is my all time favorite dish here. It had a sweetish-

tangy soup base with a pleasant sesame- like aftertaste.

The beef was tasty and had a melt in the mouth tenderness

This is a deliciously greasy dish and best eaten with rice.

Literally and figuratively, ‘this is a dish to die for’.

My son had a delicious Chicken Barbecue.

It was served as bite size chicken nuggets that

seemed to have been soaked in a sweetish-

peppery marinade before cooking and it tasted good.

It was served with rice and sautéed bean sprouts.

Of course, dining in this restaurant is never complete
without ordering their most popular specialty, Kimchi, 
which could either serve as an appetizer or a side dish.



Also available are various Korean drinks and sodas, and we 

ordered Chilsung Cider- that interestingly tasted like Seven Up.

Honey’s Kimchi is a clean and tidy restaurant 
that serves delicious Korean food fast.

 It has been my children’s daily lunch break destination 
in school as it serves student budget friendly dishes.

French Baker: Mall Of Asia, Manila

The French Baker   
Mall Of Asia, Manila 

Despite the numerous dining choices at the 
Mall of Asia we always make it a point to dine
at French Baker whenever we are in Manila.

We had taste of real French dishes during our visit in Paris
a long time ago and while we enjoyed it, it is a classy and
highly refined urbane cuisine, something that we could not
eat everyday considering our less than ordinary Pinoy lifestyle.

Whenever available, we always order Soup on a Bread Bowl. 
While most of the versions of this dish use sour bread for the
bowl, French Baker uses fresh French bread bowl, that is so
crispy on the outside and hot soup does not make it  soggy.

My wife ordered Fish A La Meunier, which is one of
our favorite European dishes as the fish had a light flavor
of butter and lemon and a delightful aftertaste of parsley.
It was served with two large slabs of fish lying in a bed
fresh vegetable and  a pyramid shaped mound of  rice.

It was a huge serving that came with a free
bowl of soup, so she shared it with my son.

My daughter ordered Lasagnia Verdeas as we wanted to try
their meatless version of the dish. This healthier version tasted
very good and just as delicious as its meat laden counterpart.

I love blue cheese and having Blue Cheese Burger 
in a restaurant menu is a dream come true for me.
Nothing compares relishing the delightfully pungent
aftertaste of blue cheese mingling with the savory
flavor of tender and  juicy pure beef burger patty. It’s 
heaven in every bite on this French Baker specialty.

Aside from making French dishes acceptable to
ordinary Pinoys like us, French Baker also made
these sophisticated cuisine affordable for everyone.