Store windows and homes look festive during the holiday season; Christmas carols are piped in through speakers in public transport and malls in an attempt to stir the Christmas spirit in everyone. But despite the atmosphere of love and celebration, there are plenty who are prone to the holiday blues.
Pure chocolate is said to bring many benefits; a small amount is enough to lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, even stimulate the production of endorphins and make people feel happy. This is why the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf added Double Chocolate drinks on the menu to welcome the month of December. Coffee Bean has been making ice-blended coffee drinks since the 1980’s but this month, they’re mixing a unique smooth drink called the Double Chocolate Ice Blended. Those who prefer having caffeine-free drinks can choose to have the Pure Double Chocolate Ice Blended instead, a non-coffee based ice blended drink.
And for those who think it’s a little silly to be drinking an iced drink when the weather has been so cold lately, you can also enjoy the Double Chocolate drinks hot. Just let the barista know.
All Double Chocolate drinks taste wonderful paired with the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s Christmas pastries: the Rhum Cake, topped with sugar frosting and pecan nuts; Espresso Pistachio Biscotti, a coffee-flavored biscotti that goes well with any type of coffee or chocolate drink; and the Triple Berry Coffee Cake, their own unique version of the fruitcake with dried fruits mixed in a brown sugar streusel batter.
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf can be found at TriNoMA, SM the Block, Gateway, Ortigas Park, Paseo Center, Bonifacio High Street, Mall of Asia, Convergys Ayala Avenue, Salcedo Village, Alabang Town Center, Rockwell, Robinson’s Erminta, Greenhills Promenade, Robinson’s Galleria, eastwood, Tomas Morato, and two more branches in Cebu.
I detest indie, scenester-types but I enjoy hanging out at Cubao X despite it being the artsy-farts haven of Metro Manila. The shops have all sorts of interesting knickknacks and antiques, and the food is slightly cheaper than the restaurants at the nearby Gateway mall.
One of my favorite restaurants at Cubao X is a quaint cafe called Cafe Halo that specializes in organic and vegetarian dishes. I had only been there once and I wasn’t in the mood to eat then, but I remembered the place because of its cozy interiors and an excellent cup of coffee that only cost 40 pesos. After a shopping expedition at a Cubao ukay-ukay store last Saturday, my friends were complaining of hunger and wanted to eat dinner at Cubao X. I saw my opportunity to try the food at Cafe Halo and suggested that we grab some grub there.
Cafe Halo has a very healthy menu; their appetizers, salads, rice meals, pasta, and all-veggie meals contain homegrown vegetables or seafood freshly shipped from General Santos. My friends got tuna steak (P110) and tuna salpicao (P100); I ordered a Spanish sardine pasta (P85) and a cafe latte shake (P40). I suppose my only complaint about the place is that the service was slow. We were the only customers there, but it took about twenty minutes for our food to arrive. There are times when I don’t mind slow service, because it gives you time to talk to your friends, but we were all hungry and the waiting time seemed to take forever.
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I love cakes just as much as any person with a sweet tooth, so when I got Red Ribbon’s invitation to try out their Christmas cake, the Coffee Walnut Bavarian, I immediately accepted and waited eagerly for the launch day to come.
The Coffee Walnut Bavarian is Red Ribbon’s first cake in their new line of Premium Selections. This delicious creation is a decadent, multi-layered chiffon cake that combines the exquisite flavor of smooth coffee and Kahlua cream.
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I’m all for trying out new things, and dining at Chef Laudico’s Bistro Filipino was a rather out-of-character experience. Those who know me well know that I am a very pedestrian eater – literally and figuratively. Good food is low on my priority list and I’m not at all picky about what I eat; four-course meals at a fancy restaurant and fishballs at the corner are all the same to me (I’ll admit that I’m not too crazy about fish or vegetables though). Because I don’t really think about food all that much, I don’t really know what makes good food good beyond “I like how it tastes” and “I don’t like how it tastes.” Don’t ask me why I write for a food blog.
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I will forever associate the Beggars Chicken with Makati Shangri-la Hotel’s Shang Palace. It’s a chicken dish that is not even remotely beggar-like, but what struck me about it most was that the meat was cooked and served inside a real lotus leaf. I have never seen nor tasted anything like the Beggars Chicken until I had lunch at the Shang Palace for a blogger tech event. So when QTV The Beat asked for the restaurant of my choice, I requested for the Shang Place at the Makati Shangrila. Other food bloggers featured was Phoebe who chose Cibo while Allan Ko’s choice was the Kai (Greenbelt 5).
The taping of my segment started at 3:00 PM last Friday and I thought I was going to faint already. I willed myself to focus and not collpase as I walked towards the table because I had not eaten lunch yet. The manager kept offering me appetizer but I refused because I didn’t want to get full before the taping. I wanted to eat with gusto. Imagine eating 10 dishes!?!? Good thing no disaster befell upon me.
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