When Cooking Was A Disappointment

Was supposed to blog about this earlier, but bumped it because I just had to share with you guys my favorite comfort food.

When Yakimix first opened its eat-all-you-can, drink-all-you-can, shabu-shabu doors at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City, it was JAMPACKED. I remember seeing a platoon of families waiting for their numbers to be called. So I thought, hey! this place must be good!

So on New Year's Day I decided to treat Mom, since she was the one who treated me for our Christmas dinner. We got to MOA WAY EARLY for dinner, so when we got to Yakimix (they don't accept reservations, by the way) they weren't giving out the numbers yet. It was a free-for-all ball game, so we decided to just go for it.

This is not my first time at a shabu-shabu, but I was very disappointed right away at how little the food was. I couldn't help but compare it with the previous shabu-shabu restaurant we ate it where the food was OVERFLOWING and segregated into kinds (pork, beef, barbecue, etc). They even had that hot pot for SOUP.

On one side was the uncooked meat for the shabu-shabu

Yes, that's basically it. Meat lovers, like me, would be super disappointed. But they did have barbecue and even fish that you could cook on your own.

They also have different kinds of soup bases and you can just feel-free to add whatever garnish you want in it


Here, you have the DESSERTS!

Had fun with the desserts. They also had ice cream, and you can have as much as you want.

As I was going around taking pictures of the food, one of the waiters suddenly approached me and said, "Bawal po yan!" (That's not allowed). I was super bummed and irked. So I left my trusty DLSR (who by the way was its first time to get dejected!) and went on to get food.

I mixed the cooked and uncooked food in one plate. For their cooked food, Yakimix had sushi, maki, and sashimi. They also chicken lollipop, sweet and sour pork, and lechon kawali. They were actually pretty good! :)

But I had so much fun in cooking, since I don't really cook anything at home less we want our home to turn into ashes.

Here's Mom enjoying her food.

We left Yakimix full and bloated, but very much disappointed. For P1290 (drinks weren't included in the P580) we could have eaten at a much-better restaurant with much-better food. It was all just a hype since it's eat-all-you-can, and we Filipinos are just suckers for that! If you guys want an eat-all-you-can shabu-shabu just go to TONG YANG!


After that, we went to New Year's Mass at the Shrine of Jesus behind the mall. Then we saw HUBERT AND FREDDIE WEBB.

That is a blurry pic of Freddie Webb who is MORE BUFF, HANDSOME AND YOUNGER LOOKING than his son. Everytime Hubert would pass people would give him the "we-know-you-killed-the-Vizcondes" look, it was funny!

But what we really came all the way to the Mall of Asia for were the fireworks display. It was pretty, and it lit up the night sky with a multitude of colors! It sure capped off our night, and it was a great way to spend New Year's with Mom. :)






Yakimix Sushi, Smokeless Grill, Restaurant
SM Mall of Asia
Central Business Park
Bay Blvd., Bay City
Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel. No. 836-1535 to 37

Other branches are at:
Hobbies of Asia
Hobbies of asia
Macapagal Blvd.
Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel. No. 387-8120 and 387-8112

Tomas Morato
Forum Bldg.
270 Tomas Morato Ave.
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel. No. 385-7500

Greenbelt 3
3rd Level, Greenbelt 3, Greenbelt
Paseo de Roxas cor. Legaspi St., Ayala Center
Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel. No. 475-5153

Tuesday Group Raids Shabu-Shabu

I got a call last Tuesday, a usual call from the girl friends, to have dinner and have a drink. It was supposed to be at LU, unfortunately they were packed that night and we were forced to spontaneously think of a new place to eat in. Then came the idea of going to a shabu-shabu. It wasn't my first time to try shabu-shabu, I remember eating in a similar place in Glorietta eons ago. I wasn't a big fan of it though, so I begrudgingly got in my car and drove to Tong Yang in Jupiter.

Like I said, I'm on a constant diet, but forget it when you're in Tong Yang! Seriously, the damned place is an endless purveyor of anything edible! Definitely a place for one with a bottomless pit of a stomach.

The funny thing was none of us really knew how to cook. Trency, doesn't cook. Amanda pretends to know how, and well Mike, I don't know! But me, I DON'T COOK! So when we started rummaging around the stove and grill, we didn't even know if our food was cooked. In the beginning, it was either we ate it semi-raw or super cooked to uber blackness and hardness. We even forgot to spread butter on the grill so the meat wouldn't stick.

But hey! We got the hang of it after several failed attempts of eating sashimi instead of grilled meat.


This would be our gigantic cauldron of chicken soup, noodles, and other meaty stuff. I remember eating fish and squid balls from this hot pot. The noodles, I wasn't a big fan of. It tasted like plastic, so I stopped eating it after the first serving. But the chicken broth was good! And the other meaty goodness they decided to cook in there was better!

Anybody who would come to Tong Yang must have incisors as big as a T-Rex's. This was meat heaven! Trency, loves her meat, and that night she just couldn't get enough of the thin slices of meat. We were all done, but she still stood up and got a heap more of it. We even had to take a breather and get some of the food down by going outside and have a date with the cowboy dudes in Marlboro country. Amazingly, Trency still had space to wolf down another batch from the meat section (seen below)!

Sky's the limit in this resto I tell yah! They also had a dessert station and dimsum station (picture below). The drinks are refillable, and you can have as many drinks as you can - from juice, to iced tea, hot tea, and beer. Too bad they only served draft beer, so I wasn't able to dink! :( After eating tons and tons of meat, we feasted on ice cream to rejuvenate our nerves which I believe were about to bug down from the oil and cholesterol.

If you guys decide on eating at Tong Yang, I say go for the meal with the grill. It's P580 with the grill, and P565 without the grill. So for a P15 difference, I totally recommend going for the grill and have as much meat as your bodies could take. It's not as expensive as you think, because there are other things you could try in the place.

Try Tong Yang and you will not be sorry. It's actually cool to cook your own meal. Since I don't cook, it was a joy to be Martha Stewart-ish even just for a night. :) Although I have to admit I didn't really feel well the next day. Must be the hardened oil in my system haha! But whatever, I'd do Tong Yang again if I have to! :D

Tong Yang has several branches - Megamall, Pan Pacific, and Quezon Avenue. But we ate at the Jupiter branch, here's the address and phone number.
Tong Yang Jupiter
34, Jupiter cor. Planet St. (near EDSA), Bel-Air, Makati City
For reservations call: 899-3388


P.S.
Oh and this just has to be said that this adventure would have been great HAD it been chosen for the reason that we would enjoy it as a group and nothing else. It was just sad that this place was picked because it was the favorite place of the boyfriend. Although admittedly we had fun in this place, when we found out the motive behind the sudden shabu shabu decision, it sucked completely! I only found out about it last night, so it's too late for anything. But still, I'd put it in the blog. Oh well!