My favourite things..Part 3

Here's wishing a Happy Diwali to all my Hindu friends :)

The last 2 (My favourite things) posts consist of pictures taken in Manila during the Merdeka long weekend.

Well, Part 3 is (yet) again a barrage of pictures of Manila (and a tiny bit of KL) taken the week before as well as during the Hari Raya break.



~*~*~*Kindori ice cream, Berjaya Times Square*~*~*~

Pingu came back a week before Raya to attend to some errands. I couldn't be happier :)

We wanted to catch a movie but seeing that the queue was so long (and we were pressing for time) we decided to give it a miss. Spotted this cute lil ice cream kiosk and we decided to give it a go.

Kindori ice cream has been delighting many ice cream lovers in Japan and Taiwan with its creamy, healthy flavours. Though their tagline 'The Natural Gift of Health' sounds kinda like an oxymoron, there is no doubt as to why Kindori's ice cream is all the rage in so many parts of the world.

Go try it and you'll know what I'm talking about. We went there on two consecutive days. :p

Green tea and Black sesame flavoured ice creams. I heart them both.

'l

Mmmm...Can we come back for more hunny?

~*~*~*A week later*~*~*~

Manila Day 1

Took this picture in the parking area at Manila airport. It was around 6am when I left the airport, look at how bright it was then. The sun rises around 5am in Fili.

I was famished and it was too early to have a decent breakfast anywhere. So we decided to have Mcker's for breakkie.

This Mcker's is really quite 'different'. It is located next to a petrol station and in front of a church. It gives a new meaning to the word 'busy'.

We went to the Mcker's @ McKinley Hill (about 5 mins drive from Pingu's pad). He had the Sausage McMuffin while I had the Hamdesal burger.

Dunno why, but I prefer to refer to the hamdesal burger as the 'hamsap' burger. And the name's stuck ever since. :P 


The penguin striking a (wannabe) cool pose :p

#1: L-R: My hamsap burger, Chicken McDo set, and my Hello Kitty mirror which comes free with the Chicken McDo. Weee :P

#2: That lump of rice was wrapped up so nicely. See what I mean by the pinoys loving rice with everything?

After a short nap, it was time for us to have our 1.5 hrs of pampering spa treatment.

I met this Malaysian lady at the airport while leaving Manila the last time I was there and she recommended this massage parlour to me saying, "it's got pretty nice ambience and the massage was amazing and it was value for money at P495 for 1.5 hrs (approx. RM35)."

Snapped this picture while walking over to Serendra and over to Market Market to hail a cab to the massage parlour. We decided to take a cab as Pingu mentioned that there is limited parking space in Legazpi Village where the massage parlour is.

I enjoy people watching, especially so when they have a dog with them. :)

Spotted another cafe in Serendra that I wanna check out. :)

To me, it's always more fascinating to check out a tea cafe as compared to a coffee place as I'm more of a tea-kinda-gal.

~*~*~*Dinner @ Elbert's Steak Room*~*~*~

There is no visible signage outside the building where Elbert's Steak Room is located. As low profile as it's trying to project, you can still locate it if you put in a lil more effort.

It is located right across Somerset Salcedo, diagonally across a Ministop, and two floors above an Indian restaurant.  Check out the map here.
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Never would I imagine that there is a fine dining restaurant on the 3rd floor of this building. Looks kinda dodgy right?

But that's the beauty of this place.

You enter this ordinary flight of stairs leading to the third floor, to be honest, there was nothing which spells fine dining to me at all.

However,once you enter through the door, you'll find that you're in a totally different world altogether. No more dodginess, only 'atas-ness' (sorry, I've caught a bug - i've gotta use the word 'atas' at least once today...thanks to my cheemuis - you gals know what you did :P)

Ta-dah!

It's like finding treasure in a secret hiding place, wondering what gems this place has to offer.

Pingu made a reservation and requested for the 'lover's corner', where it is a lil secluded from the rest. Unfortunately, we didnt get to snap pix of us together in our lil corner. (In actual fact, we kinda forgot to ask the waiter to take a picture for us cos we were too busy gobbling down our food and taking piccies of the food).

The bar area, taken from our cosy lil corner.

~*~*~*Camwhoring before dinner*~*~*~

Lounging at the Gentlemen's Cigar Room

Elbert's Steak Room, one of the country's finest steak houses  has been steadily developing a cult following of the country's steak lovers, eventhough it's a lil pricey to start with.

We each ordered a USDA Prime grade ribeye which costs around P2200 each (approx. RM170). Each steak order comes with a house salad and a choice of soup.



Fan-like bread rolls

We were served a basket of warmed bread shaped like a fan or a bloomed flower. So pretty.

After popping the first mouthful, I couldn't help but to squeal in delight. It was good stuff. The dough was so soft and it melted in my mouth almost immediately.

Not only did it taste good, it looked really pretty and I had so much fun slowly picking the petal piece by piece before popping them into my mouth.

Salad

The salad was laced in raspberry balsamic cream. Simply yumm.. 

Soups

Though I love the bread roll and the salad, I was careful not to overdo it as I wanted to make sure that I have more than ample stomach room for the pièce de résistance, the steak. Pingu forewarned me that the steak is hugeass!

I ordered the chicken consomme as I wanted to avoid creamy soup knowing fully well that creamy stuff line my stomach too well. 

Pingu had the creamy broccoli soup.

Our side dish - gramigna with mushroom and truffle cream sauce. 

Pretty good but it was way too rich for the both of us as we could barely finish our steak. (Note to self: if we're both ordering one steak each, we can so do without the side dishes. Must.not.be.overly.ambitious.)

 The pièce de résistance

I kid you not when I say my steak was HUGE!

Pingu exclaimed that the steak was the size of my face. Or was it bigger? 

Where got ribeye so huge wan?

Our desserts

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of chocolate mousse but this 'Our Best Chocolate Mousse' was really something else! I couldn't stop digging into it. Seriously, one spoonful warrants another.

However, it was their Panna Cotta which got me transfixed. Weee...I've finally found the place for panna cotta! I'm SO coming back! :D

Mr and Mrs Piggy after dinner.
(Read: super-bloated, even though I only finished half my steak)

Elbert’s Steak Room
3/F Sagittarius Building III
111 H. V. de la Costa Street
Salcedo Village, Makati City 

www.steakroom.com