Cebu Part 2: Hello Bantayan Island

After a hectic tour of the city, Trency and I woke up LATE the next day. We wanted to wake up at 6AM but since we were both tired from the day before we overslept and instead woke up at 9AM. After a quick breakfast, we checked out, and hailed a cab to take us to the North Bus Terminal. Good thing our hotel was only about 15 minutes away from the bus terminal, so we got there pretty quick.

As promised more photos, less words. :D

NORTH BUS TERMINAL. Take a bus going to HAGNAYA PIER. It's a good 3 hours away. Bus fare Php130. This bus ride actually reminded me of our Manila-Laoag-Pagudpud-Laoag-Vigan-Manila trip earlier in the year. But it was scenic drive so it's pretty much ok! :)



HAGNAYA PIER. Take boat that will go to STA.FE in BANTAYAN ISLAND. Fee costs Php170, terminal fee i think was Php2.



We were to stay at the Hard K Kafe & Kiwi Kottages. They were kind enough to pick us up from the pier. After checking-in and had our bags brought in to our rooms, we decided it was time to get our late asses moving. We had already arranged our island hopping tour (more on that on the next blog), but for that day we decided to go to the Bantayan town proper to get to an ATM, look around the town, and to go to the palengke (market) for the food we were to eat during the island hopping. We hopped on the trike that took us from the pier to the resort, and went on a 15 minute ride to the town. We paid Php300 for that.



BANTAYAN WET MARKET. I usually get disgusted with markets because they can get pretty stinky and dirty. But not in Bantayan! It was clean and it didn't reek of anything out-of-this-world. So going around wasn't a problem! :D



THE OLDEST CHURCH IN THE ISLAND: STS. PETER & PAUL CHURCH BUILT IN 1580.




KOTA BEACH & SUNSET


FOOD TRIPPING. I swear Cebu is a city of sin, but more on GLUTTONY. Case in point, this eat-all-you-can buffet for only Php295 with unlimited iced tea. I swear I gained about 20 pounds here! But it was so good. They had a wide variety of dishes, from pancit, spaghetti, fish, adobo to native kakanins like biko and maja blanca.






To cap off the night, Trency and I drank by the bar. We started up a conversation with the most hospitable resort owner I've ever encountered, GING. She married a Kiwi, hence the name of the resort, and they have a daughter named Steffi. It was a fun night of trilingual conversations, switching from Tagalog to Bisaya to English. Funny!

For the next, and the last entry, on Bantayan Island. It's going to be about our island hopping escapade with Bantatay and Kuya Jun and our habal-habal ride to the town of Madridejos. STAY TUNED!! :p

Don JuanHito's Grill: The Newest Bar To Hit Town

It was payday Friday 2 weeks ago, I got a text from friend Ninya inviting me to go to this newly opened grill/bar in Granada St. in Quezon City. I was still unsure if I could go since I had a despedida party to go to that same night. But when I found out that my two other officemates, Chuchie and Jenny were going to be there too, I decided it was time for a reunion of sorts! I MISSED THEM ALREADY!

After almost 2 hours on the road, I reached Gilmore St., but had a slight confusion with directions. Turns out GRANADA STREET IS NOW GILMORE STREET! Good God! But it turned out okay since we found it.

Owned by sports enthusiast, Dexter Araquel, Don JuanHito's Grill is this hole-in-the-wall type bar right smack in the middle of Gilmore. What's so cool about the place is that up until around 10PM it's lit by this giant billboard of Anne Curtis, don't laugh it was actually cool to be drinking under a billboard! :) And also for us Filipinos, we couldn't go wrong with INIHAW or GRILLED food! :))

You could watch television while you're there, on the other side Ian and his friends were watching football, and on our side we watched PBA. Then later on we switched channels. It's that carefree to be there!


If you guys are wondering why it's called Don JuanHito's their specialty is HITO (for the foreign readers, it's catfish). Since it was Friday, and I was still observing the Lenten season, I couldn't eat meat. So I ordered their JUNIOR INIHAW NA HITO (Php120)

It was really good, and since they have an aquarium filled with catfishes, you are 100% sure of its freshness! Although there was a slight incident with me getting a fish bone stuck on my throat, I had fun eating this! The stuffing of tomatoes and onions made it all the more tasty.

Ninya and Jenny ordered their Pork Sisig (Php150). Too bad I wasn't able to taste this, it was meat! :( But they said it was really good! Perfect with the beers we were already chugging down!


Chuchie was the one who recommended we ordered this, and it was an instant hit! Sizzling Garlic Mushroom (Php120)

This was really GOOD! It was filled to the brim with garlic, and we had fun picking at it. This is really good with beer actually, but you could also order rice and eat it with it! :)

Lastly, we had the Seafood Sisig (at my request) (Php160).

We all liked this because it was spicy! It had squid and fish in it, and both had very generous serving.

For those who are really into hanging out with friends, have a beer or two, and watch basketball or football, while eating really good, cheap food, Don JuanHito's Grill is a nice place to go. They also have this drink-all-you-can promo for Php300 but only for Coors Light Beer. You can have a bucket of San Miguel Light for Ph225.

This has to be said though, you have to be a bit patient while waiting for the food. Since it's cooked on the spot, you'd have to wait for several minutes before the food gets served. But at least, you're assured of the quality and the freshness especially with the seafood.

Here are some picture we took that night. Chuchie, Jenny and Nya I missed you guys! We should do this more often!



Here's me with owner, Dexter Araquel. Thank you for accommodating us Sir! We really loved the food! I am now officially a fan.

Don JuanHito's Grill
96 Granda St., Quezon City
Tel. No. 585-3175
Mobile No. 0917-8741101

Mother-Daughter QT @ Banana Leaf

Mom had been really, really stressed the past couple of weeks. She was working on a project on a souvenir program for a glee club's upcoming anniversary benefit concert, so she had been writing non-stop and coordinating stuff with the people in-charge.

So when she finally had the chance to breath, she told she wanted to just go out and have a nice dinner with me. So on a nice Wednesday night, Mom and I met up in Greenbelt 3 to look around for a nice place to eat.

Our quest for a nice dinner took us to Banana Leaf, a Thai restaurant in Greenbelt 5. I've eaten here a couple of times before, and have really nothing against the food. But of course nothing beats the real-deal Thai food in another restaurant in Rockwell.

We were both hungry so we sorta ordered a lot. So we had the usual star of any Thai meal - Pad Thai (Thai Style).

It was semi-hot, although I would've preferred it to be a bit high up there on the spice level. It was freshly cooked, and the hotness went really well with the slight twang of the calamansi.

We also ordered my favorite, Deep Fried Pandan Chicken.

It's always fun unwrapping the chicken from underneath those woven pandan leaves. Plus those leaves always gave the chicken this great aroma making it even more enticing to the palate. The chicken meat was soft and cooked just right. It was perfect just the way it is you don't need to dip in the sauce that comes with it.

New to our usual Thai fare was the Thai Style Marinated Pork.

Just a little note, when they say Thai style it's a bit spicy. But since I've been sort of accustomed to really SPICY food, I was slightly disappointed with their spice level. But this pork dish was good, meat was easy to cut-up into tiny pieces because of its tenderness. And they must have really taken a lot of time in the marinating process because the meat was tasty - it must have sopped up the marinate. A must try!

And since my Mom's a vegetable fanatic we had the Stir Fried Chinese Kangkong with Sambal Sauce.

This dish was also a bit spicy, but not that much. It wasn't too salty either. Since Mom has officially joined the hypertensive club last year, she really couldn't eat salty food. But this one was particularly okay since they did a good job in not making it too salty. Whatever that sambal sauce is, it's really good! Totally recommended for those who can't live without veggies on the table!

For dessert we had the Sticky Rice with Mango.

This was a total FAILURE because we remembered it wasn't the season for mangoes. So when this arrived I took the first dibs to check on the mango, and true enough it was as sour as sour could be! But the sticky rice was good (hahaha!), not too sweet. Although the one at SOMS is better. I don't know why, maybe because of the milk they use. The milk they use at SOMS is tastier than the one in Banana Leaf.

Since we were there around dinnertime, the place was packed with yuppies and other families having dinner. But Banana Leaf's seems to have gotten the right groove because they were able to serve our orders (and the others') in a jiff! Good job!

Oh and even saw an officemate in the next table! Hello, Steph! :) She's the girl busy eating at the right-side. :p



Banana Leaf
2/F Greenbelt 3
Ayala Center, Makati City
Tel. No. 729-3333
Website: http://www.bananaleaf.com.ph

A Reunion That's A Couple Of Years In The Making

I've mentioned in past entries that I used to work for a publishing company. It was a small publishing company, and we were all overworked but had a grand time! We were mostly fresh graduates when we got hired, so it was a great way to learn everything you can about publishing. It was where I met my good friends and some of the worst people on the face of the planet.

Many of us left for greener pastures, better job opportunities with probably better pay. I left the company November 2007, and I miss it dearly. We all became good friends when we were there so it was hard to say goodbye.

We've been wanting to have a reunion, but since people have their own lives, it was hard to get all of us together. The last time we got together was during our former boss' wedding last October 2009. But last Saturday we finally pushed through after n million re-schedules!! :) We all met up for lunch at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City and ate at the Super Bowl of China. Great thing for me because I super love Chinese food (as testified here, here, and here!).

But first, let me introduce you to my former officemates! :)

Team Chinky Eyes: AR and Mariko

Part of the original Editorial team: Gera, yours truly, and Jermaine

The super originals of FAME Editorial and PR! The best days of FAME, I must say, was when we were all together! :)

So now, let me let you guys in on what we had for lunch that day. We were all hungry and we had two boys with us, but the funny thing was we still had a doggy bag when we left.

Gera and I both wanted noodles. So we got the Cripsy Noodles with shrimp ad vegetables.

I super loved the sauce in this dish! Although it was just sad that it made the noodles soft in the end, it was nice to mix it in with the noodles and dip the shrimps in it.

When the boys arrived we asked them what they wanted to add and AR said Lemon Chicken.

The chicken was soft and tasty. But what got me disappointed was the lack of twang from the lemon sauce. If I recall correctly it was sweet! So I didn't really feel like I was eating LEMON CHICKEN.

I recommended this because I would order this in ANY Chinese restaurant: Sweet and Sour Pork.

Two-thumbs up for this one! One of the best sweet and sour pork I've had in a while! :)

And last but not the least, Yang Chow Fried Rice.

The star of every Chinese restaurant. Since I'm on a constant diet I don't eat rice. Maybe I should ask them how this was! :)

It was a great reunion I must say. We all had fun that day catching up and talking about the good old days in FAME. We may have our own thing now, but I guess you don't just diss your old friends. 'Til the next reunion guys! Hope that next time, there'd be more than just 8 of us hahaha.

This reunion was only the first half of my Saturday reunion extravaganza. Up next is my reunion with my BFFs in Tagaytay.

Super Bowl of China
SM Mall of Asia
Ground Level South Wing Main Mall
Tel. No. 556-0584
Telefax 556-0583
Website: http://www.superbowl.com.ph/new/index.php