FOODQUESTS

Archive for November 2013

Outback Steakhouse (Acropolis)

After we caught wind of a discount promo, we decided to try the Outback Steakhouse near the Libis area. The place is hard to miss; it's that big, elevated house along the southbound side of the road. I have to say, this design really helps, since people with cars get a lot of parking space. At least for a 2pm late lunch anyway. It's become sort of our thing, eating at the odd hours of the day. Usually means less people, which also usually means better service. Plus we like the quiet :).

Here's the appetizer, a six inch(ish) long loaf of bread with some butter. It's not the usual white bread we see, but I can't really say it's rye bread either (not much of a bread expert here). Tasted nice and sweet though, and the butter that came along with it was creamy too.

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KPUB BBQ Meat All You Can (BGC)

I've always thought that the KPub in the BGC was some sort of party place, but it turns out it's a restaurant! Well, a restaurant with a party-ish ambiance anyway. Since we like the Korean take on protein, we gave this place a whirl a few weekends ago. They had a promo on their 1 hour timed buffet (more on the mechanics in a bit) so we tried that. It's a bit on the noisy side when you get to a seat, but you'll notice immediately that it's a pretty spiffy place. From the crew costumes to the tables and decor, the place screams K-Pop.

So the way the 1 hour buffet works is that once your first plate of buffet meats reaches the table, the 1 hour starts. You then have 1 hour to order whatever you want off their menu. Here's the first plate of food we got: the usual appetizer dishes (various pickled items + the ever-present kimchi) and salad greens with some sesame-like dressing. All of these were quite flavorful, and the dressing was quite good. Kind of reminded me of Japanese style salad dressing. We also had some of their Kimchi rice. And yes, it’s spicy. Sweat inducing spicy :)

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Sambokojin (Eastwood)

Ah Sambo Kojin. For us, it's the standard by which we judge all other non-hotel buffets. When we first went there, it was a real treat. You get many good food selections, Japanese and Korean food, at a not-too-expensive price. Plus their Eastwood branch is easily accessible from where we live :). So we decided to document one of our recent trips there, to see how things are at our buffet of choice. Hint: mmmm.

Like what we said before, there's a lot of choices for food, cooked or cookable. From Japanese style katsu to Korean Kimchi, from chilled green salads to hot soup, from the grilled-at-your-table meat dishes that used to walk or used to swim, I think it's safe to say that everyone will find something nice to eat here. Chesca starts off with her usual sushi and sashimi plate, and it's great, as usual. The sushi was a little large though, so it may be hard to eat in one gulp, but we're not complaining.

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Gavinos (Greenhills Town Center)

I think the first time we tried Gavino's donuts, we were in Megamall. We were just walking around and this little stall popped into view. "What a weird/cute looking donut" was the first thought in our heads :) We ended up trying some and it kind of clicked. So here we are at one of the bigger stores they have in the Greenhills area.

Here's what we had that day: some Oreo and choco-almond styled donuts. It's not big, actually it's pretty average size-wise. The difference is in the unique chewiness of the dough. It's kind of a cross between the lightness of a J. Co. donut and the chewiness of a Chewy Jr. donut; combining both textures into one not-as-light-and-not-as-chewy donut. It's hard to describe, so that's as much as I can do it without giving you one :).

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Pho Hoa

We had a little lunch stop at the Gateway Pho Hoa a couple weeks ago. Actually, we're sort of patrons of the whole Pho Hoa franchise, since they've been pretty consistent with the food quality and speed of service (at any branch). We had a hankering for some soup, as well as some of Pho Hoa's spring rolls. There was enough time before the noon break was over and we both had to go back to work, so we went ahead and got us some good ol' Vietnamese style lunch.

We ordered some of their beef and meat ball soup (I forget which one it was exactly). We added in some side salad for some extra fiber (plus we love the sweet and sour vinegar-y dressing it came with). The carrots and cabbage in the salad gives some nice crunch along with the tasty flavor of the dressing, plus some bitterness from the crunchy garlic bits on top. We used to order an entire serving of their chicken salad until we discovered that you could have a smaller, veggies only side salad for a fraction of the price. It works for us because it leaves room for other things :).