Baby Nomz for Halloween

We at BaconTunaMelt have been racking our brains for a good Halloween topic and for the longest time, we've been coming up with duds. Cliche though it may sound, inspiration came from this cute little sunflower who went "trick or treat"-ing at our office Halloween party.

This little cutie saved the day

There were dozens of adorable tots in costume last Friday, but this wee little one in a flower hooded onesie won my heart. Because of her, I've decided to indulge myself and make a happy little Halloween post with a list of the cutest food costumes for babies (what? baby pictures cheer me up).

My Top 10 Nommable BABIEZZZ!

A Rave Review of 101 Hawker Food House

In this post, we'll start with the verdict- 101 Hawker Food House in Makati is one of the best finds in recent times. True story.

101 Hawker Food House, Hawkers for short, is a little eatery along Urban Avenue in Makati. They serve Singaporean food at very fair prices considering they're in Makati where nomz are usually priced a bit higher compared to others (save for the jollijeeps).

Just last week, I blogged about Shiok, a Singaporean restaurant in Global City. Similarly, Hawkers is also a hole-in-the-wall Singaporean restaurant that caters to the after-work crowd of Makati (Shiok is for Global City yuppies). They also have similar items on the menu, with Hawkers having a bit more dishes to choose from.

McDonalds Twister Fries vs KFC Fries

DISCLAIMER: Conclusions made in this post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the people of BaconTunaMelt. Opinions and conclusions in this particular post are that of the dude in picture. Hoping for your kind consideration.

The recent resurrection of McDonald's Twister Fries has stirred up some controversy among the fastfood eating community. Some expressed their excitement at the availability of the new-old fried potato curls from McDonald's while others scoff and raise their eyebrows at McDonald's re-offering. The naysayers say that Twister Fries is merely a gimmick and that they prefer the fries at KFC because it's basically same and is available all year round while the fans say the Twister Fries is better because it's crunchier and tastier.

We at BaconTunaMelt have decided to take matters into our own hands and do some testing of our own. Because the people of this blog are camera-shy, we have enlisted the help of one of our camwhore camera-friendly friends over at Comicology. Mr. Comicology himself has willingly volunteered for the role of taste-tester-slash-food-critic (although he might be slightly biased). He's game because he gets free french fries and at the same time additional Internet fame.

Mony Milk Powder is a Blast from the Past

When my young cousins gave me some Mony Mony Milk Powder one Saturday while I was at their house, I couldn't help but grin at the sight of the colorful bottles- it made me remember my childhood.

Back in gradeschool, I remember saving up my allowance to get candies instead of lunch (kids, this is a bad, bad thing to do). I'd get my sweets from the candy stall at the school canteen, from the vendors who hopped on the school bus on the way home, and most of it, I would get from the sari-sari store at the corner of our street. 

Mony Mony Milk Powder

Manang from the sari-sari store would have a wide variety of sweets that ranged from the imported Nerds and Gobstoppers to the locally made Choc*Nut and Haw Flakes. Once in a while, Manang would mix it up and surprise us with different sweets from the usual ones. This candy was one of the less common but much loved surprise treats.

Like paste containers!

Mony Mony Milk Powder is basically just powdered sugar packaged in colorful soft plastic bottles that is eaten by sipping it through the straw that it comes with, or simply pouring the contents into your mouth (this I do). I remember enjoying the texture of the powder and letting it melt in my tongue before swallowing all of it.  Now it kind of feels weird to be eating that much amount of powdered sugar in one go.

P.S.
Kids, another cool thing about Mony Mony is that you can pour the powder on a small piece of squarish paper, roll it up, blow into one end, puff away and pretend you're smoking. You can also achieve the same effect with baby powder, but always remember to never suck in (baby powder does not taste good at all).

P.P.S.
Don't ever smoke, it's bad for you.

Shiok Lah!

At Bonifacio Global City's Stop Over parking lot (the one beside Shell gasoline station) is a tiny restaurant with a brightly lit sign that reads Shiok. It caught my eye one night as I walking from the car to the nearby Yogurt Nation to get some fantastic ube yogurt. 

A dinky outdoor parking lot seemed to be an unusual place for a restaurant, most specially because a few steps away is a complex of eateries of all kinds. I then resolved to eat there when I had the chance to see what they had to offer. That chance came up last week after work when I was in the area looking for somewhere to eat and remembered this little place.

Shiok, it turns out, is a Singaporean-Chinese restaurant with a menu that caters to office yuppies around the area looking to have an affordable dinner somewhere close by before heading home. Skimming through the menu, I find out that the prices aren't as cheap as I was expecting for a tiny eatery in the middle of a parking lot. No matter, I wanted to try their nomz anyway.

Modern Peking Duck of Singapore - Sinfuly Delicious

Another great find on my recent trip to Singapore, Modern Peking Duck, can be found in most food courts of the big name malls along Orchard Road. The main draw of these little stalls is obviously their Peking duck, but also on their menu is a rather sinful suckling pig.

Peking duck and suckling pig sold in a fast food stall? For most of us, Peking duck and suckling pig are usually reserved for special occasions. The last time I remember having really good suckling pig was years ago at some fancy-schmancy Chinese restaurant where we were celebrating a cousin's graduation. In Singapore, these are just food court nomz. Then again, most mall food courts in Singapore look like classy restaurants.

Modern Peking Duck's The Big Pig (SGD6)

Modern Peking Duck sells rolls of chopped Peking duck or suckling pig enveloped in a crepe-like wrapper (they look like cute mini wraps). They have an aquarium-type preparation area where you'd see the server in plastic gloves chop up the duck or the pork into small, uniform pieces and line them up on the round wrappers ready to be neatly rolled by the next server and packed in red boxes of five (their neatness excites satisfies the OC in me).

Singapore Street Treat - Selecta Ice Cream Sandwich

Even before the inception of this blog, I was already taking occasional snaps of nomz I've tried or wanted to try. It's a good thing that I kept some of them, now I can share my past food discoveries with my readers (all three of them). Some shots were from few months ago, when I was in the lovely country of Singapore for a summer trip (primarily to check out the newly opened Universal Studios ^^,). 

While walking along the famous Orchard Road, a pushcart not unlike those you can find in the streets of Manila caught my attention. My curiosity was piqued but I chose to ignore it the first time. A short distance away, there was another one. The length of Orchard road was peppered with these red trolleys! All of them bore the familiar heart logo of Selecta ice cream. I figure it was the perfect way to deal with a hot summer day (any excuse for ice cream), so I made my way to one of the carts to see what they got.

Yummy Selecta Ice Cream Sandwich (SGD1)

On the cardboard menu filled with pictures of ice cream sandwiches in different flavors, along with the typical ice cream flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and cookies & cream were a number of unusual flavors such as honeydew, durian, and jackfruit. Being my weird self, I bought a durian ice cream sandwich. The nice old man who was manning the booth took out a huge chunk of ice cream (he was wearing plastic gloves), sliced it in half, plunked the solid ice cream block in between two square wafers, and handed it to me.

Stop by Eat and Go at Megamall Atrium

We're on to yet another Monday, a rainy one at that. Going slightly off tangent from what we usually talk about in this blog, I would like to implore everybody to please try to keep indoors as much as you can and take the necessary precautions against the floods. This ominous super typhoon currently violating our country, Juan, has already claimed its first death.

After that bit of depressing news, we go back to regular programming. I'm actually here to write about Eat & Go, a cute little diner in SM Megamall that I recently discovered (I'm from the South, going to Megamall is like a field trip for me).

The storefront of Eat & Go

Taking a break from shopping (for this guy's very cute Halloween costume, watch for it!) to find somewhere to eat a really late lunch, our feet led us to Atrium where we found Eat & Go, it's sign brightly lit and happy-looking. The traffic stoplight theme suits the diner's name perfectly. Another factor that made us decide to eat there instead of the many other choices in Atrium is the reasonable prices (more shopping monies, yeyz).

Max's Restaurant - The Old Reliable

There are some days when I don't really feel like being adventurous with food choices. Trying out new restaurants can result in one of two things- it may end up being the best meal you've had in a long time or it could also be the worst, which kind of ruins the night. Sometimes, we all just want to have a sure dinner.

Sixty years of good chicken

This is why we each have our own favorite restaurant lists. These are the places that we have fond memories of and go back to time and again for a number of personal reasons. On my list, there's Conti's because their baked prawns are fantastic, Bag of Beans for their lovely cheesecakes and coffee, Sonja's Garden because they serve the best dalandan juice on the face of this earth. For their incomparable fried chicken, Max's Restaurant has also been there for as long as I can remember. They're comfortably in the Top 10 and won't be getting dislodged anytime soon.

Max's menu from decades past- one whole chicken is just five pesos!

The same goes for a number of Pinoys, it seems. Max's Restaurant has been serving their "sarap to the bones" fried chicken for sixty years and counting. While they've modified their menu (they sold scotch and steak back in the day) and cooked up exciting offers (the most recent is their Chicken All You Can Promo) through the years, what has remained a staple in their menu is their original fried chicken. Max's original fried chicken is meaty, juicy, and fried to a golden crisp. Like their tagline says, it's sarap to the bones!

Mad Scramble for Pinoy Skrambol

There's a new dessert fad in town and I've just hopped on to the already-crowded pink bandwagon. Everyone is just going crazy for the classic Pinoy cooler- the skrambol. (Is this the end of froyo?) Some people spell it as 'scramble' but I choose to spell it the way I do because this refreshing sweet  dessert is uniquely Pinoy and it deserves a (relatively) Pinoy name.

Couldn't take a picture without anyone in line

What was once street food has now gone mainstream, with many new franchises littering your favorite malls. One of the more popular franchises is BuzBox Scrambles. They have a stall at the busy food court of SM Megamall and the customers just keep on coming. We were there last Sunday around eight in the evening when the crowd was thin but we still had to wait a good few minutes in line before we got to order.

Isdaan Offers an Enjoyable Dining Experience

Sometime last month, my family and I found ourselves spending a Saturday morning somewhere up North. We were done with business come lunchtime but our grumbling stomachs told us to find a pitstop before heading back to Manila. This was when I forced convinced them to find that restaurant I've been hearing good things about- the one with the Tacsiyapo Wall.

Being pseudo-Kapampangan (my grandparents hail from the lovely city of San Fernando), I've always known 'tacsiyapo' to be a kapampangan term. In fact, I distinctly remember a video recording of my 1st birthday with my lola yelling "Mga tacsiyapo kayo!" to my young uncles when she found out they were filming her, eagerly cheering her granddaughter on with her hair disheveled and wearing one of her famous dasters. (To me, the video is gold.) 

Isdaan, Tarlac

Going back to the topic, I was telling my family to look out for a restaurant sign bearing the name Tacsiyapo, because that was what I thought it was called. Apparently, I was mistaken and the restaurant we were looking for is actually called Isdaan Floating Restaurant, thanks to one of my titos who had already been there. It's hard to miss as it's located right along the National Road of Gerona, Tarlac.

Christmas in October at Cinnabon

Hello guys and gals! The past weekend was pretty hectic for me, with no time to sit back, relax, and watch the world zoom by. I'm glad that's over and done with, today is the start of another exciting workweek (yay?). Anyway, I checked the calendar today and saw that Christmas is only 74 days away. That's too soon! I have much love for the coming holidays but I can't say I'm excited for the hustle and bustle that usually comes with it. I'm getting a headache just thinking about the packed stores and the insanely long queues.

Before you think that I'm such a Scrooge (I'm not, I promise I'm not!), let me say that while I am dreading the Christmas rush, I am looking forward to all the glorious Christmas nomz! When it gets frantic, if there's one thing that can make me stop grumbling, it's Christmas nomz. One of the smells that I associate with Santa season is the smell of cinnamon. Along with chestnuts, fruitcake, turkey, and leche flan, the smell of cinnamon always cheers me up and takes me to happyland.

Cinnabon Classic (p90)

Yogurt Nation Made Me Like Ube

The cohort and I were in the mood for something sweet after our filling dinner last night. After a few minutes of discussion (dessert is srz bznz), it was decided that we would get some frozen yogurt for dessert. 

A very bright yogurt shop caught our eye while strolling along Serendra. The chalk white interior of Lulubelle was a stark contrast to the other restaurants, all with yellow and mellow lighting. The menu and prices weren't bad, but what put me off was the ordering method- it wasn't self-service. I've gotten used to (and have grown fond of) choosing my own toppings and deciding how much and how many different kinds I want to put in. It was a no go.

Yogurt Nation's really large cups

I've been hearing good buzz about a new frozen yogurt shop near The Fort recently. Because we were around that area anyway, we decided to look for that instead. The new shop is called Yogurt Nation, located at the ground floor of Sapphire Residences at Bonifacio Global City. It took us (more than) a few wrong turns before finally getting there. The store is a bit out of the way and it isn't easy to find if you're not familiar with the area.

Beard Papa's Cream Puffs - SUPERIOR!

A bit of Googling (yes, it's now an official word) led me to Beard Papa's Wikipedia page where I found out that my favorite cream puff store is actually a franchise from Japan (woot!). Admittedly, I wasn't expecting that. Yes, Japan is known for many things- technology, anime, pixelated body parts, and virtual girlfriends among others; but if there's one thing they're not famous for, it's desserts.

Japan, superior (again)!

I was lucky enough to have worked with a lovely Japanese national for a good two years (Herro Ms. Chiaki!) and within that period, I have learned many a thing about the Japanese food culture. One thing I learned is that although they make for fantastic cooks (we always got to try Japanese-style home-cooked dishes), the Japanese don't really like strong flavors- sweets included. And this is the reason why I'm surprised that Beard  Papa's sweet cream puffs are from Japan.

An Easy Dinner at Burgoo Podium

Another day, another dinner.

While the statement may seem bleak, dinners are actually meals I look forward to the most. They (my mom) keep(s) telling me that I should eat heavily at breakfast and lunch then eat light come dinnertime but that never happens with me. Somehow I always end up doing the opposite, barely eating in the morning and then gorging making up for it at night.

Conversation over crayons over beer

It's unhealthy I know, but dinnertime is my relax-and-sit-back time. It may sound old-fashioned, but I like having long dinners over easy conversation. I'd rather be doing that than shouting to be heard in a dark club with neon lights flashing all around me. That's why I like having Burgoo dinners at The Podium.