Frannywanny

Every time we fly home, Paul and I would go over our growing list of restaurants to try in Manila. I tell you, it has really been a challenge to keep up as there's just too many new restaurants and only a couple of visiting days available. As much as we love trying new restaurants, we also take this opportunity to re-visit our favorites. I'd say we get better in planning our itinerary through time. Take this recent visit for example, this is finally the only trip where we got to spend a lot of time with both families. Spending lunches with my in laws and dinners with my side, we took a break from our crazy back-to-back schedule to have quiet meals at home, long hours catching up or dining at our favorite places. So, for our first dinner in Manila, Mommy suggested that we go to Lugang Cafe . This has been one of my family's favorite restaurants as we are all fans of xiao long bao (steamed soupy dumplings) and Lugang Cafe makes one of the best in town. I'm so happy t

O's birthday is coming up and he decided to celebrate it with the Normanton kids (NKids) a little bit earlier. So one Sunday, we traveled to the west *background music: Go West by Pet Shop Boys*   to have lunch at the new Westgate Mall . It was our second time here and I really like this mall a lot. While the zoning was a wee bit confusing, I just love the good mix of restaurants that you can find here. There's Tim Ho Wan , Ippudo SG, Paradise Dynasty, Miam Miam, my favorite Poulet , Tsukada Nojo and Skinny Pizza to name a few. One thing about the Nkids is that we are all up for trying out a new restaurant every time we go out together. So on this special day of O's, we tried Chicken Hot Pot which is a franchise from Shanghai, China. As the name suggests, this restaurant specializes in hot pot which is also known as shabu-shabu or steamboat. However, what makes it different is that the pot comes with a whole lot of meat and less soup initially. After you get your first

While waiting for our table at Crystal Jade one evening, my best friend T told me about the new restaurant that has recently opened just a few blocks away called Lugang Cafe . It's a new franchise brought in by the famous Bellagio Group which originated from Shanghai . Since T stayed in Shanghai for a while and has been going back and forth since then, she immediately tried Lugang Cafe the moment their first branch opened along Connecticut street in Greenhills. She was happy with the quality of the food and told me that some of the servers there were the same ones who were in the Shanghai branch. I was sold. I really trust T for her taste in food and after hearing her raves about Lugang Cafe , I made reservations to have dinner there with my college best friend L and her fiance T a week after. Paul and I really look forward to dinners with them as we have been double-dating for more than seven years already! You see, both T and Paul courted L and I almost around the same

Last week, Paul and I were fortunate to be invited to a small dinner get-together with a couple of blogger friends hosted by Zenses Neo-Shanghai Cuisine over at the A. Venue Mall . We arrived just about the same time as everyone did and had a great time chatting with the owner, Chef Johann Santos , who explained to us what cooking with Nitrogen meant and how nitrogen is actually safe for our body. I was the one who actually asked him if there's any harmful effects brought about by taking in liquid nitrogen into our body and Chef Johann explained that the air we breathe is composed greatly of nitrogen. Furthermore, a lot of tests have been done and it has been proven that it is completely safe to use liquid nitrogen in cooking. Hooray! After a lengthy discussion which brought back memories of my high school chemistry class, Chef Johann demonstrated the use of liquid nitrogen to show how it actually has a freezing effect on food. Zenses Nitro-magic #1: Nitrogen Popcorn Chef Johann