Hungry in Banawe? Try Chef Robert

So after Thirdy's check up at Chinese General Hospital last Nov 16, 2013, Chea, Cedric, Tita Fe and I (along with Thirdy of course), went to look out for a late lunch at Banawe Avenue.

The area is now home to a lot of food establishments, which means, there are new places for us to try out.

With a little help from Foursquare, we found this little gem of a cafe, called Chef Robert.

Don't be fooled by this unassuming place

It's easy to overlook, since its front is just as wide as two parking spaces, and it's sandwiched between a Lord Stow's bakery and another store.

There's only a few parking slots, so you need a little bit of luck if you're bringing a car.

Outside, I saw a poster saying there's a 30% discount for all items (25% if you're using a credit card) between 2pm-5pm. We were in luck, as it was just a little past 3pm.

The place is quaint. There's a lot of glass and mirrors. Most of everything are wood (or made to look like wood) and bricks. So it gives you a homey feel.

It was empty when we got seated, save for one of the staff who made it look like the place was just opening up.

A few moments later, other patrons started to come in.

We were given a menu, and i was grateful to find out that they served pasta. I was in the mood for some pasta, but while going around Banawe, all I could see were chinese restos or fast food with their instant spaghetti.

What made it even better was the price. Now, I'm one who thinks that an inexpensive meal is if it's priced at less than 200 pesos and it's not fast food. Any resto that can give me a carefully prepared meal that tastes great and doesn't break the 200 peso barrier, I would praise to high heavens. So you know where the rest of this blog post is heading to.

I ordered the Chicken Pesto pasta for only 175 pesos (Really!). This is the first recipe that I have ever tasted based on pesto sauce. So this brings back memories. The best I ever tasted I think was with Italianni's. They don't have it in the menu (when we ate at their branch in Greenhills, I think), but they will make it for you if you order it.

I asked them to hold the nuts since I don't agree with it. Unfortunately, they can't do it since I think the sauce was already made beforehand, and it already had the nuts.

Cedric ordered the Chicken Parmesan spaghetti (195 pesos). Tita Fe ordered the pork cutlets in mushroom gravy (145). Chea wasn't too hungry so she decided she'll pick off of our plates. She however ordered pumpkin soup (65 pesos) for Thirdy.

That is one big single serving.

Thirdy was up for the challenge.

The soup was first to arrive. And it was huge. It was in a 6 inch bowl that was about 3 inch deep that was practically full. And it was the single serving. Thirdy enjoyed it. I gave it a taste and it wasn't unpleasant. The only reason i didn't say it was great, because i'd want mine with some salt in it. If Thirdy wasn't eating it, i'd probably put some salt and pepper in it (and a little bit of spice), and it would have been perfect.

Serving is good for one person. Unless you're hungry like me. It's about 3 fork twirls short.

Then came the chicken pesto pasta. The strips of chicken were ok. The noodles were firm. The pesto sauce was near perfect. It was a bit dry as it didn't have too much olive oil. But I prefer that over noodles swimming in it. Some restos would just hand you this menu item with olive oil, basil, a litle bit of garlic, and nuts. But Chef Robert does it better with capers and olives!

The parmesan marinara spaghetti arrived next and I had to taste it as well. And it was great. You could really taste the fresh tomatoes in there.

When the pork cutlets came, I was again surprised. The serving was big. Two people could actually share it. Chea and I (and I think Cedric too), pulled a few strips with our forks and Tita Fe had gotten full herself, and yet, we had some leftovers that we brought home later.

Pork was ok. Mushroom gravy is exactly how it should taste like.

After that, I asked for the bill. And guess what? All of that only cost us 700 pesos. And with the 30% discount, our final bill was around 500 pesos. What more can I say? Great food, great ambience and amazingly low prices.

Yes, I did!

Looks like there's one more reason to drop by Banawe than spending for your car.

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It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

So, November 16, 2013, Thirdy has a check up scheduled at Chinese General Hospital. Chea was feeling a bit under the weather, so she asked her brother, Cedric, to drive us. Tita Fe came along as well.

We left around 11, I think. There was a little bit of traffic, and at the clinic, there were a lot of patients as well. It took us a long while to have Thirdy checked out. Chea also had to visit her OB-Gyne so it was past 3pm that we finally left the medical arts building.

Although we had a few bites of KFC fries and sandwiches during the wait, we wanted to sit down for a proper meal. Chea was sleepy at the time, so I decided we head over to Banawe Avenue and look for a place to eat there.

While we were cruising along Banawe, I was glancing around looking for something that we haven't tried yet, of which there were a lot. There were new buildings coming up all over the place, so there were new establishments in the area.

I checked out Foursquare to see a list of restaurants in the area. But nothing tickled my fancy. With all the chinese restaurants in the area, a name stood out in the list: Chef Robert. I looked at the comments but didn't read anything that convinced me to try it out. We drove past it and we were already passing Everthing At Steak, when we decided to turn around since there was nothing past that area anymore.

On the way back, I thought we should just try it out, since it was getting late already. It was fortunate that there was a spot for us to park, so we did, and we headed in. I'll blog about it another time.

After that, we headed home. Our usual way home when we're around this area, takes us through Scout Torillo. This is the area which has the warehouse sale on children's toys.

When we passed by, we saw a tarpaulin showing that the annual pre-christmas sale had started that day. Chea wanted to have a look so we had to turn back.

what? cash only?

We went in and had a look around. Most of the new items had discounts of about 20%. It's the old items that had bigger discounts. And they got even bigger with items that had ruined packaging.

That's at least 20% off from what they're being sold at the malls

There were a lot of people there despite it being almost 5pm. And there were people still coming in.

50%! You couldn't find that in malls (since they're marked up first, and then supposedly discounted. lol.)

Thirdy saw some Minion toys (Despicable Me), but they were new, so they were expensive, at about 1,000 pesos. Thirdy isn't really into toys. He basically just likes to throw them. So we passed on buying them.

We did, however, buy him a couple of shirts. I also bought myself this action figure. It's a McFarlane toy, and they're usually expensive. It was being sold for 300 pesos because the packaging was practically torn. I'm planning to use it for toy photography.

From 999pesos to 300pesos. That's 70% off right there.

We then headed home and dropped off Cedric at Trinoma since he was meeting Rose.

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Welcome to the World of Tomorrow(Land)!

Last October 26, 2013, we attended Rockwell's children's halloween party. This year's theme was: TomorrowLand.

The Rockwell Tent Entrance. I can't help myself not saying the words: "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" ala the guy from Futurama.

We arrived late this year. Everyone was inside the Rockwell tent already, so we went through the registration and the activity stations by ourselves. Although we weren't the only ones who were late as kids and their parents and/or yayas were still trickling in.

Tita Fe had some things to do, so it was just me, Chea, Thirdy and Rona.

So before heading to the tents, there are activity stations that the kids (usually in groups) stop at first. By doing the activities, you are rewarded with candies!

The first station is building a rocketship.

So you have cardboard cut-outs of a rocket and you stick them to a board to form the rocket. Thirdy's too young to make sense of the game, and since there weren't any other kids along with us, the guide completed the puzzle for us.

Way to go lady-guide!

Next stop was the Hungry Aliens station.

I wasn't paying attention. I have a shorter attention span than Thirdy.

My new phone (Alcatel OneTouch Scribe Easy) was giving me fits. The camera kept crashing on me, so I wasn't able to pay attention to what they were doing at Station 2. I hate my phone. Truly.

Only 3 stations this year. Janet Lim Napoles must've siphoned their funds too.

At the third station, it was a moonrock hunt. There were big vases and you had to fish out the moon rocks which were basically just stuff covered in tin foil. And then you're given treats in exchange for the moonrocks. And since there weren't any other kids around anymore to engage in the activity, we just asked for the treats directly.

I think I had dreams that had these when I was a kid.

Stating the obvious as you would have to pass the bridgeway before arriving at this sign.

The beautiful wifey and the handsome son.

Inside, it's still the usual. There are shows held on the main stage and seats fronting it. The sides of the tent are lined up with booths with kiddie activities and a few food carts.

If this is the vision of the future, then I don't think we'd have population problems like Japan or Singapore. I kid (pun intended). Or do I? (cue foreboding music: Dum dum dummmm).

I did a quick tour, taking pictures along the way while Chea looked around for some seats and some of her friends.

While I was looking around, the show featured a lady creating balloon animals. The place was barely lit. I didn't know it then, but it was because of performance number to be done later. So it was difficult to take pictures without turning on the flash on my phone. And i didn't want to do that because I didn't want to distract people from what they were doing.

The activity booth that had the longest line was the Flip Booth. It's where your video is taken for a few seconds and they get printed in paper and they get binded. Then you can flip through the print outs and basically watch your antics. We had Rona get in line while I went around.

They should have two of this next year.

There were other booths like glitter tattoos, face painting, a kiddie salon (for real), and plaster painting. The plaster painting activity didn't have too many kids there, probably because it felt like a school activity for most of them. What surprised me was the kid salon, but hey, I guess a lot of little girls do want to look like princesses.

Glitters. A parent's worst nightmare. Lol.

Low light + shaky hands = terrible shot.

I guess our economy's improving enough that kids have their own salons

Vanity mirror and lights. Train 'em young I say.

They should give it a better name. This awfully sounds like a lot of work.

Oooh. Saturn.

After taking pictures, I turned my attention to Thirdy who seemed overwhelmed with all the things happening around him. He either sits around in a chair or walks around aimlessly.

Thirdy usually likes being around kids. But then again, he gets shy around too many people.

A little bit later, the host announced that they'd be turning down the lights for the next couple of performance numbers. It was intriguing but I guess they were doing a show with the lights off.

After a few minutes, a couple of stick figures walked out on stage and danced. It was actually amazing. These two guys were clad in black and had fluorescent strips attached to them that made them look like stick figures with the UV lights shining on them. It was pretty awesome even for an adult like me.

Another show had about four (or more) people wearing fluorescent clothing and paired up to look like  two separate people. Half of each pair dressed up as the torso, head and arms, while the other half dressed their arms as the legs. So the entire show had them executing feats of acrobatic performances you could only dream of. They were playing volleyball, badminton and basketball. I was actually half expecting them to do the 'matrix' table tennis video I saw a few years back, only they didn't. Too bad, that was pretty wicked.

The last show was with sea creatures, such as schools of fish, blooms of jellyfish, squids, octopus, and even a quick glimpse of SpongeBob! (which is probably the highlight of the entire party, except for the treats of course).

I took a video of the performances, but haven't gotten around to shrinking it down to a web friendly size (they're about 250mb each). I'll try to upload it when I get the time to trim them down a bit.

Those three performances signaled the end of the party, so after that, they turned out the lights and the host closed it out.

We were already at the front of the line at the Flip Booth but Thirdy was asleep so we decided to just let it pass this year and just come early next year.

Thirdy with his doleful eyes. Can't figure out if he enjoyed himself or not. 

After that, we headed out and went to Powerplant Mall to have lunch. We ate at Wooden Spoon. It was new in the area and is owned by the Dazas. I'll blog on it another time.

We then headed to Pioneer. We were looking for a gas stove and there's this factory outlet for kitchen wares and appliances. For most of my life we've been using electric stoves for cooking, fearful of gas leak accidents. Over the last few years, we've tried induction cookers, kerosene stoves, and even smoke free charcoal stoves, trying to find the perfect balance between safety and inexpensive cooking.

After a quick look around, we decided to leave.

Chea checked her phone if there were any sales going on that day. Just our luck, there was one being held at MetroTent for BPI card holders.

So we drove there and looked around. Thirdy was mostly sleepy so we left him with Rona at the food area.

There were a lot of clothing brands like RRJ, Petrol, Mr.Lee, Giordano, Levis, etc. A few shoes like Adidas, Hush Puppies, Sanuk, Elle and some other brands I can't remember. Chea bought herself a couple of shoes for a fraction of their mall prices.

We also found what we were looking for: gas stoves. Imarflex had a booth set up selling their appliances. They had three pieces of the the double burner variant. They were originally sold for about 1,700pesos and were now being offered at 1,200 pesos.

Our first foray into gas cooking

We actually were on the lookout for two: one for us, and one for my parents. So we were able to save 1,000 pesos. This was a real bargain for us.

pressure cooker. for tender loving cooking.

There were other items for sale. One of them were pressure cookers. Chea's been asking me to get one for her. I've been putting it off because I wanted to buy the high quality ones which unfortunately costs upwards of 3,000 pesos. But since they were on sale here for less than 1,000 pesos, I told Chea to get one for now, and we could get the more expensive ones later if this one didn't suit our needs.

1.2L of pure awesomeness

While ogling the Imarflex products, my attention was drawn to the multifunction electric kettle. Unlike most electric kettles which were primarily used for boiling water, this one had a large base that can be used for cooking as well.

I was primarily drawn to it because of the idea of being able to cook noodles directly in it. It also had a sticker on it depicting other uses for it like boiling eggs, and hold for it: shabu shabu!

I was thinking of bringing this to work and have shabu shabu with my workmates on our merienda breaks. Not to mention, this would probably make better instant noodles and pancit canton instead of using the microwave.

So we bought all four items and then headed home with dreams of shabu shabu in the near future.

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