A Yummy New Title

Summit Media has released its latest title: YUMMY Magazine! It's a new food mag stuffed with over 40 recipes. The second issue is out now, and includes easy stuff you can make using bananas, simple iced tea treats, and even a feature on elusive food blogger Marketman. Also read about going on a Binondo food trip, and so much more!

The mag is perfect for those who are on-the-go, as recipes are simple, easy to follow, and with ingredients that are readily available at supermarkets--no fancy, impossible-to-find condiments here! It's available at newsstands, bookstores, supermarkets, and wherever else magazines are sold, and it's only P95!

P.S.
Check out Yummy Ideas--guess who wrote and styled a few pages for the April issue?:)

Chai for Cheap

I am not big on the coffee (which is weird, considering both my parents--my mom especially--are coffee chuggers), but I do enjoy a good cup of tea. It's too bad Struan and Tang didn't last long enough for me to appreciate it--the market wasn't ready for it yet. (And the name only held some significance after I read Tai-Pan!) It's only in recent years that I discovered how much I actually liked tea.

My liking turned into something deeper when Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf invited us over for an afternoon of tea-tasting about a year ago. I fell for the Moroccan Mint latte, which is Addie's drink of choice. It actually tastes like mint chocolate in liquid form. Ahhh. I also discovered the wonders of Chai (a cinnamon-tinged tea similar to an Indian-style one I tried before). I'd go back and forth between these two, as well as a cup of Hot Vanilla and the occasional non-coffee frap, whenever I visit CBTL.

Alas, the nearest CBTL branch is in Strata, which is a good walk away. A while back, though, I discovered a great, cheap substitute--Tea Square! It may not have that coffee-shop ambiance, as it's a little stall normally found in food courts, but it's perfect for people on the go. Whenever I'm pulling out from stores in Shang or Glorietta, I make sure to drop by. My top two picks: Four Red Berries (it tastes a lot like CBTL's Swedish Berries, and it's only P35!) and the Honey Vanilla Milk Chai (only P55!). You get to decide if you want your tea hot or iced.

Chai isn't for everyone though. "You're not gonna like it," I warned H, as he asked to have some of my iced Honey Vanilla Milk Chai. "You know me so well," he sputtered after taking a small sip. But Tea Square has got a number of other interesting flavors to choose from, Cranberry Green Tea and Milk Chocolate Chai among them--and they all cost either P35 or P55! I'll drink to that!

Gluttony with a Side Order of Salsa

For our post-V-Day date this year, H and I headed to Mandarin Oriental for their poolside buffet barbecue. I first read about at uber-popular Dessert Comes First, and was taken by the fact that a) it was all you can eat, and b) there was a salsa band playing. The selling point for H, of course, was the free-flowing beer.

H shows his approval.

So we had to move our date a couple of times, and since this Barbecue by the Poolside shindig only happened on Wednesdays, we agreed to go on Feb 28. Good thing we didn't push it back further--found out that that was the last night Mandarin was having it.

The poolside buffet is a scaled-down version of the Paseo Uno one--there's a salad bar, rice, baked potatoes, and lotsa barbecued offerings: chicken, beef, pork, lamb, red snapper, lapu-lapu, and different kinds of sausages. H feasted on the lamb and sausages (and I don't know how many rounds of beer...). He loooved the mustard--it had this wasabi kick that literally brought me to tears! Not being a lamb person, I opted to stuff myself with other goodies, such as the chicken and red snapper. My favorites were the beef (which a roving waiter sliced onto a waiting plate on our table)--I drowned it in black pepper sauce (essentially yummy runny gravy with whole peppercorns mixed in)--and the lapu-lapu, which I smothered in creamy lemon-butter sauce (dare I say the best I've tried so far?).

(From top) The chef at the barbie; the waiter gives me beef, Brazilian style; the ice cream bar.

Dessert wasn't anything to sing about, especially since I had to stay away from the ice cream bar. Oh well. I don't know if it's just me but I normally don't enjoy pastries and cakes at hotels. I usually just pile some pudding onto my plate and I'm good to go.

The aftermath.

We spent the rest of the evening bobbing our heads to the salsa music--the singer was quite a performer, I loved it!--watching the DIs try to persuade people to dance with them, and rubbing our bellies contentedly. There were candles and flowers, the usual elements of a V-Day date. But more than these and the free-flowing beer, what made the night truly sexy was the free-flowing conversation.

Too bad I had to go back to work!