Backyard Kitchen and Brew in UP Town Center: My Review

I met with my former college classmates last week and had lunch at this much-talked about restaurant in UP Town Center - Backyard Kitchen and Brew. As we got in the restaurant, I noticed a cool vibe with lots of interesting stuff like bucket lamps, old car plates repurposed as lamp covers, etc. 

We started with the famous Salted Egg Chicken Skin Flatbread. The saltiness of the salted egg and chicken skin is tempered by the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes. The ricotta cheese and mozzarella give it more character. I'm not fond of flatbreads, but I like this one; it has the right thickness, baked with the just the right crispness but you can still roll it like a pizza. 

We also had the Slow Roasted Pork Belly. It's an all-in-one meal of sliced beef belly, fried egg, mushroom gravy on top of herbed barley. The barley is supposed to be a rice substitute. I kinda liked the combination. I'm a true blue rice junkie - I eat rice thrice a day, but this time, I didn't miss eating rice with this dish. Really good! :)

For dessert, we had the Pizzookie. It's a giant chewy chocolate cookie with 2 scoops of Mantecado ice cream. The ice cream blended in perfectly with the cookie and seemed like for the 3 of us sharing the dessert, I felt like I needed to have more. LOL! 

Overall, this is a restaurant with good and affordable food. I will definitely come back to try the other items in their menu. :)

Gino's Brick Oven Pizza - A Review

I was craving for some Italian food last week when my friend mentioned about Gino's Brick Oven Pizza in Salcedo Village. We were in the vicinity after visiting our friend in Makati Medical Center, so we went there to binge on Italian food. And I was glad we did.

First we had the Burrata with House Salad. I love Burrata because it makes anything you have with it taste so much better. By the way, Burrata is mozzarella cheese filled with cream, which makes it taste buttery and rich. It becomes even more heavenly with a drizzle of spiced honey.

We then had the Lemon Mushroom Pasta. It is a cream-based fettuccine with mushroom served with a side of lemon. The lemon needs to be squeezed into the pasta to bring out the flavors of the dish. The mushroom makes the flavor quite earthy and the zing of the lemon makes the combination very interesting and addicting. 

For pizza, we had the famous Smegg. This pizza comprises of homemade sausage, mushroom, eggs, Gouda cheese and cream. The musty raw egg together with smoked mushrooms make the taste quite interesting and very different from the pizzas that we've had.

We also had the Queen Margherita pizza. This is my favorite since I love kesong puti and tomatoes. 

Gino's Brick Oven Pizza is now one of my favorite Italian restaurants. Now, I need to lose all the extra pounds that I gained with all food that I ate! LOL! 

Gino's Brick Oven Pizza

G/F Finman Center, 117 Tordesillas corner Bautista Sts., Salcedo Village, Makati City

Phone: (02) 7798192

Heliocare Purewhite Radiance capsules - A Review

I have a problem with sunblocks since I get rashes every time I use them, especially when I sweat. I also want to lighten my skin since I feel that the constant trip to my home province is now taking a toll on me. So I was so glad when my dermatologist told me that there is an oral sunblock which also lightens my skin - Heliocare Purewhite Radiance.

It is an oral supplement which has Fernblock, a natural plant extract that provides protection against harmful UV rays by decreasing pigmentary response. Therefore, it not only protects the skin from sun damage but also makes it fairer. It also has White Tech complex, consisting of pomegranate, vitamin C & B3 and cystine, which help fight free radical damage, slow the aging process and control pigmentation. So these capsules protect, lighten and rejuvenate the skin from the inside out.

I've been taking these pills twice a day for a month now and I notice that my skin is getting fairer. I also notice that even though I still go to my home province every weekend, I don't get dark anymore. My friends also notice that I'm not as dark as before anymore. Plus they say that I'm glowing. They even thought that I'm in love! LOL! I'm really glad that I found my miracle pill! No sunblock creams/lotions anymore that cause me rashes and my skin is now fairer with a healthy glow! It's a bit pricey but I'm willing to pay the price if I keep on getting the benefits that I'm having now. These capsules are totally worth it. :)

Jurassic World: A Review

I'm a big fan of Jurassic Park and I watched all the sequels of the original movie. So I didn't let Jurassic World pass without watching it. The movie centered on Claire, the operations manager of Jurassic World Park; her nephews who came over to spend time with her; and Owen, the velociraptor handler. The story revolved around the new hybrid dinosaur that Dr. Wu and his team of geneticists have created, the Indominus rex. In the middle of the story, the Indominus rex was able to escape his pen and wreck havoc in the park. It was a fun adventure, with good humor, scares, thrills, and more than its fair share of awe-inspiring dinosaurs. However, like the other sequels, it didn't recapture the magic of Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park.

Cetaphil™ Daylong Sunblock Spray SPF30: A Review

It's summer time again. And all of us at one time during this season will head to the beach. I went to Panglao Island with my family last month and it was really hot. Good thing that my dermatologist, Dr. Margaret Corcoran, recommended the new Cetaphil™ Daylong Sunblock Spray SPF 30.

I'm not really fond of sunblocks since they make my skin very oily after I sweat, so as much as possible I stay away from them. But I know that the sun is very harsh especially during the summer and in the beach, so I had to ask my dermatologist what she can recommend for my very oily and sensitive skin. Cetaphil™ Daylong Sunblock Spray is very convenient as well since you just spray it on and spread it with your fingers and you're good to go. Plus, I didn't really find it too oily on my skin. And it's very water resistant so even if I sweated a lot in the beach, I was pretty confident that it wouldn't come off. I do recommend it for people with oily and sensitive skin and those who don't really like thick sunblocks that make their face quite whitish after they sweat. This is going to be my go-to sunblock on a constant basis. 

Niu by Vikings: A Review

I had the chance to try out the new Vikings buffet restaurant called Niu at the SM Aura Premier last weekend with my best friend. First impression was the place looks more luxurious than the original Vikings Buffet Restaurant in Seaside Blvd. near SM Mall of Asia.

And the elegant appearance of the place didn't disappoint. There were more food selections than in other Vikings Restaurant even that in SM Mall of Asia. The quality of the ingredients in the food is better than the usual buffet places in the metro, even better than most hotel buffet restaurants that I've gone to. Their sushi selections are top notch, particularly their Spider rolls. One thing to remember is to order the steak medium rare since I noticed that they tend to overcook them; we ordered ours medium well, but ended up having well done steaks. Other than that, overall rating of the restaurant is very good and will be coming back there for sure in the future.

Adultery by Paulo Coelho: A Review

I wanted to have a good read for the start of the year, and chanced upon "Adultery" by Paulo Coelho at National Bookstore. I've read some of his books and I liked them for the philosophical approach at life and I was looking forward to the same genre but this book is so much different.

A woman who has it all, a good husband, a great family, well-off lifestyle, having an affair with another man. Very common plot, but I was hoping for a different perspective, the Paulo Coelho that I've come to like. I found the main character, the "adulteress" very unlikable and hard to accept. The other characters left me pretty cold as well. I finished the book, hoping that the turn of events would improve and something profound would happen, but I was so disappointed. I found some of the interactions between the characters totally contrived and absurd. I found it hard to believe that it was Paulo Coelho who wrote this book. The result feels forced. I honestly think that reading this book is a waste of time.