Minions and Tamagoya

It's a Friday and chea's taking a day off. It's also raining particularly hard in Quezon City so I opted to take a leave as well so we could spend the day with Thirdy.

Thirdy by a Minions movie poster

Minions, the animated movie spin off from the Despicable Me franchise, has just started its run in the local cinemas. So we decided to take Thirdy to go to his first movie house. We called around asking if the cinemas still issued certificates for first time movie goers. My sister got one for Fiji (my nephew) when he was a kid. Unfortunately, none of the cinemas we called (SM, Robinsons, Ayala and even Promenade in Greenhills) issued them anymore. Bummer.

So we went out around 11:30 am, dropped by a McDonald's to turn in some coupons we got for buying the Minions Kiddie Meals pre order promo.

At the parking lot with Tita Fe

We then headed of to SM North Edsa checked out the cinemas at the Block. It was already past 12:30am, so we decided to take the 1:45pm showing at Cinema 3. There was a 1:30 showing, but it was over at the main building.

Nanay Chea and Thirdy lining up for tickets

Thirdy's enjoying himself so far. It's around lunch already but there aren't that many people yet

The food stand. We ordered the popcorn. Thirdy enjoyed them and was eating them all throughout the movie

Buying tickets

Still buying tickets

While waiting, we did a quick look around the cinema level and one floor down to look for shoes. After that, we went back to the cinema and even if it was just around 1:20pm, we were allowed to head inside. We took a few pictures of Thirdy as well.

Waiting to get inside

Thirdy jumping around

It was too bad that the lights were down already and they were showing some trailers and some ads, since we couldn't take pictures of Thirdy inside the movie house as it was too dark. Turning on the flash on our phones only managed to take pictures of him and not the surround area.

Picture inside the movie house

We were at the premier section (level above) so Thirdy could sit down and still have a little bit of elevation to see the entire screen. While waiting for the movie to come on, we munched on some popcorn which Thirdy liked. He was eating pieces on his own.

Later the place started to pack with adults and kids and soon, the movie started. Thirdy was mostly quiet as he was really trying to take in everything. He commented out that the screen was big. He was quiet most of the time but I saw him smiling a few times while watching. After the movie, when I asked him if he enjoyed the movie, he said yes.

We went around a bit and then headed off to the columbarium to visit my brother and towards Antipolo to drop off Thirdy since it's the birthday of Chea's mom the next day, so he'll be staying there overnight.

After dropping of Thirdy and Tita Fe, Chea and I went to Marikina to have dinner at Tamagoya. Chea's eaten here before but I haven't and I'm in the mood for some noodles.

Slight drizzle

It's 7 pm so parking's full except for 1 open slot on the other side of the road. Good thing too, as there was already a slight drizzle. We had to wait outside for a minute to get seated as the place was pretty full too. There was a 3 person group waiting right after us and a few more were coming along.

Signage outside

We we given table 30 which was at the 2nd floor, so we took the stairs behind a door on the first floor to go upstairs. It's kinda weird to have a closed door blocking access to the upper floor. They probably put a door there so when there aren't that many patrons, they could close off the upper floor and save on A/C.

The menu

Drinks

I assume the mascot's an egg

View from our table. Place is a bit cramped

We were given a menu and most of the dishes are below 200 pesos. I ordered the chuka suba (because it was the cheapest noodle soup at 148 pesos) while Chea ordered Katsudon (158 pesos). We also ordered Yaki Gyoza (fried dumplings for 99 pesos) in case the noodles i ordered didn't have too many toppings. I also ordered a can of coke zero (38 pesos).

Gyoza

The dumplings were pretty soft with the meat really ground to almost a paste. It's the soy sauce that gives it that sour flavor. Overall it's pretty ok.

Pretty good

The katsudon arrived in a bowl 5 inches across and about 3 inches deep, half of it filled with rice. The rice is mushy with the sauce as you'd normally expect. It has onions and green peas and probably some egg. The pork is pretty good. It's soft even with the breading.

Good amount of noodles for the price

Naruto!

The noodles came in a bowl almost 7 inches across and  3 in deep. It had several toppings such as half a boiled egg, a slice of pork, nori (sea weed), some veggies and a couple of fish cakes (narutomaki). The broth is pretty nice, it being a little salty. The noodle was just the right amount of thickness.

It's a bit of a wait as everything's made upon ordering and the resto's full with patrons waiting for their orders as well-being.

After being served your food, a paper with your orders will be left on your table which you'll take to the cashier later to pay.

Chea wasn't that hungry so she just ate half of her order and a piece of the dumpling. I managed to finish my entire order. The serving was just right for me, which is why it's probably cheaper than the other ramen shops as they really have large servings.

The ground floor

Eating was pretty uneventful, and I kinda felt that we waited longer than the time we used to eat.

Had to wait to pay

So after resting a few minutes after eating, we went down and queued at the cashier. There were about 4 people ahead of us paying at the lone cashier. Outside, there were still groups of people waiting to get seated.

5 pesos for a boiled egg? That's cheap!

After paying, we went home. Along the way, we stopped by a Burger Machine at Visayas Avenue and bought a burger for myself and a sansrival for Chea as she wanted to have a dessert and there was none at Tamagoya. Chea commented that the sansrival at Burger Machine wasn't as good as they used to be.