Category: food

weekend update

Rainy weekend. Bleh.

Badminton on Friday, where a long rally often ended up with me smashing the shuttlecock past the line. But I’ve stopped playing for points against J a long time ago. I just enjoy the game now. :) Went to Chocolate Kiss later and tried their elusive chicken kebabs with yogurt sauce.

Chicken Kebabs & Tzatziki
Skewers of chicken fillet marinated in Mediterranean spices. Served with yogurt sauce, and turmeric rice or warm pita bread.

Highly recommended! For dinner we had seared chicken breasts and homemade slaw and the cake slices we weren’t able to finish at Cho Kiss. I should have taken pictures, J sears chicken perfectly.

Saturday, while J went off to UP, I went to Trinoma and ended up buying this:

I asked people online and most of my friends said Smart Bro is more reliable than Globe. What I didn’t like is that the free 125 hours of surfing the prepaid Power Plug-it offers can only be used for 5 days. Five days, are you kidding me? At least Globe makes its free hours available for 30 days. But then only Smart offers a one-year warranty for the dongle (heh dongle heh) and its interface shows your load balance. I haven’t tried it myself. I should be able to check it out when I go home for my father’s birthday next week. Oh my God, I hope it works well in Bulacan.

That’s all I really wanted to buy, but there was a sale at Artwork and there was this book in Powerbooks –

You know how it goes. Lunch was pasta with a shot of espresso from Seattle’s Best which, for some reason, did not help me stay awake at all.

Later that night, Kanin Club at Ayala Technohub for HGC’s sixth anniversary dinner. :) I’m not a member, but I’m all for geeks and food!

Deadly food, it appeared. The group ordered crispy pata and aligue rice.

Photo source.

Jaykie and I added pritong manok (fried chicken) and pad thai. I loved everything, but I liked Mango Tree Bistro’s pad thai better.

We went back to Jaykie’s place and into that black hole of a drinking game called “I have never”.

I have never played “I have never” (shot).

We were at Podium earlier today and only then realized that Delifrance is now Cafe France. Oh-kay. I had their dish for Sunday: one-half serving of spaghetti pomodoro and an egg sandwich. I’m craving for that spaghetti pomodoro now. I should have followed my heart (chos!) and bought take-out pasta for my dinner later.

In other news, I: am currently a walking vat of cholesterol.

Hello, morning.

Happy we were finally able to go home to Bulacan, despite the near knee-high flood submerging the subdivision. Happy, too, that Jaykie agreed to stay till Monday morning, and he was able to finally meet my sister and my lola. They were showing Pak Pak Dr. Kwak on the bus, and I laughed at times, to my utter horror. We arrived late Saturday and had my mother’s (famous!) caldereta, Reese’s ice cream, leftover sansrival cake, yema, and possible diabetes. My father insisted that Jaykie drink; isang shot lang daw, pero maya-maya ubos na ang laman ng bote. Also learned that he was going to have an air-con installed in the master bedroom, but every time he sets an appointment for the workers to come in, a storm enters Philippine territory. All of my siblings enjoyed Jaykie’s iPad, lured by Fruit Ninja. Discovered this new TV game show via my sister: R U Kidding Me? where host Vic Sotto (si Vic na naman, sinundan kami galing sa bus!) on Saturday night mistakenly said, “Magbabalik ang Who Wants To Be – ” Then we all got freaked out by this segment on Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho about people who eat raw meat. Kare-kare for lunch the next day, then spaghetti, then fish for dinner, then these banana cookies made by the creators of Boy Bawang (they’re yummy), then more sansrival, and the entire second season of Justified. On our way back to QC they were showing You To Me Are Everything on the bus, but I think I fell asleep.

PS I’ve sold a science fiction story called “The Mechanic” to Kaleidotrope. Hooray! Details to follow.

<just click to enlarge>

Went to Makati Med armed with my healthcard to have my ears checked, thinking they were the culprit for my vertigo. The ENT doctor said my eardrums were clean. I had a hearing exam (pure tone audiometry and PTA with speech, similar to the one I had last year), and the results came and my hearing was fine. So I guess the diagnosis is still BPPV. He handed me a brochure with information about vertigo and how to deal with it (see above photo), and instructed me to keep taking Serc as long as I was “symptomatic” and avoid salty and spicy food.

Crap. I thought I had ear blockage of some sort and the doctor could make my vertigo magically disappear. Oh well. At least my ears are okay.

That night Jaykie and I watched the first two episodes of Justified. I’ll be sure to follow this. I didn’t know it was based on an Elmore Leonard story! Have a read:

“Fire in the Hole” by Elmore Leonard

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Oh, on Monday night Jaykie dropped by work to pick me up. We had dinner at Mom & Tina‘s before we went to his condo to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

mango kani salad (half-order)
fettucine with smoked salmon and capers
fish 'n rice
chocolate fudge cupcake, lemon meringue square
jaykeh!
uncontrollable laughter and the Huge Upper Arm of Doom

Sniff. No more Game of Thrones. I don’t know how long viewers had to wait for Season 2.

I have reviewed all four books (so far) of A Song of Ice and Fire series, but I haven’t reviewed the TV adaptation. I only have this to say: it’s good TV. Good production values, rich scenic detail, spot-on casting.

(Cut for possible spoilers.)

Continue reading

twenty months

It’s fun to count the months. Just four more and it’s the second anniversary. :)

It began to rain, so instead of going out, we just had Amici (gelato cakes!!!) delivered for dinner. We watched some episodes of Top Chef Canada while eating.

prosciutto e funghi (pizza), cannelloni agli spinaci (pasta)
spumoni surprise, mango sans rival

Jaykie had class on Saturday, so he went to UP, and I went to Trinoma to shop for gifts for my parents (my mother’s birthday is on the 25th, my father’s in July). This despite the fact that I woke up suddenly at 5 am, broke out in sweats, and felt as though I were falling. Vertigo once more, with feelings. I popped a Serc (24 mg.) and hoped this would pass soon and not come back to bother me again.

I wanted to buy a bag for myself, but couldn’t find anything that I liked, so I ended up buying costume jewelry.

TV necklace, pink rose ring, black rose ring

I know I have way too many rings, but I’m on the lookout for more plastic rings. And that TV necklace was just cute. (I’m wearing it today at work, and I broke one of the antennas. :( But it’s still cute. I’ll just cover the broken antenna nub with my hair.)

We had late lunch at Mango Tree Bistro. It’s our second time at this Thai restaurant. We love their food.

Photo source.
Thai iced tea

We had honey-glazed pork ribs, rice with vegetables, and of course –

pad thai goong!
Photo source.

Just writing about it is making me crave for it. So delicious.

We got home before the rain fell. And how it fell. I was amazed it didn’t flood the streets. Early dinner was a tuna sandwich. Jaykie made the tuna spread (mayo + celery + apples = delicious). Later, when we got hungry again, I poured us some cereal and cold milk.

We finished Damages Season 2 and watched Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, a TV movie that is basically an extended episode of Burn Notice with Sam Axe and a pinch of Michael Westen. It’s hilarious.

Jaykie’s little walk-in closet’s roof was leaking, so we left a plastic bucket there overnight. Look how much water we got.

"What are you doing?" "Taking a picture." "Why?" "I'll blog about it." "But they'll find out I have a leaky roof!" Haha.

This morning we woke up and Jaykie said he wished he could just stay under the sheets and read. I’d love that too, but alas, work.

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Happy Father’s Day to my Tatay! :D I’m coming home next week with the gifts. I hope it doesn’t rain.

reviews

Moon


Sam Bell works for Lunar Industries, a company in the business of harvesting helium-3 from the far side of the moon. Sam oversees the company’s automated harvesters and sends back canisters of He-3, which Earth then uses for energy. Sam is the only human being in the facility. Every now and then he receives messages from Earth. The messages (from his wife, Tess, and child, Eve) are not live, because communication problems on the moon have hampered the reception of live feeds. He is accompanied by an AI named GERTY. He has been on the moon for three years. When the film opens, he is nearing the end of his contract.

But there’s a problem: it appears that he is losing his mind. One moment he turns and sees a teenager with dark hair and wearing a yellow jumpsuit in an empty cabin. He longs for his wife. He spends his days distracted. One day, he goes out to drive his rover and crashes into a harvester and loses consciousness.

While watching the film’s first few minutes, I kept asking, Who’d sign up for this? Who’d be so desperate to agree to stay on the moon alone for three whole years? Then I find out.

Moon (written and directed by Duncan Jones, who also directed Source Code) is the kind of film that sucks you in and spawns discussions. The references to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris are apparent. I loved it, and Sam Rockwell is awesome.

Damages


I just finished Season 1. It was brutal and compelling and I just couldn’t peel my eyes off of it. It’s not an episodic show, like Law & Order, and it’s definitely not a comedy, like Boston Legal. There is one big case that the characters try to crack within the 13 episodes. Meanwhile, the body count continues to rise and lawyer Patty Hewes becomes more and more psychopathic. Glenn Close is perfect, but I find myself more drawn to lawyer Ray Fiske (played by Zeljko Ivanek), and the young couple who gets caught in the web.

My sister brought home strawberries and blueberries from Baguio

and they are superb when mixed with milk and cream. Mmm.

Also during this week: Yakimix and Amici with Jaykie’s family, home, lipstick for my mother and sugarfree candy for my father, my mother observing that there’s always murder in my stories (eek!), and that promise that Jaykie and I will eat right, exercise and lose weight – totoo na! :)

Dinner for two: soup, spam-and-egg sandwiches, rootbeer floats.

We had Thor-day on Thursday. Friday was supposed to be badminton, but Jaykie was feeling sick, so I lifted weights while he rested with his iPad. Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and the first day of the two-day Comic Con, but it was too hot to leave J’s air-conditioned room. It was so hot I had to take at least two showers. Saturday pm it began to rain really hard, complete with thunder and drama. Counterproductive weather. We did nothing but eat and watch shows. White Collar. Sons of Anarchy. Battlestar Galactica (the remake). How I Met Your Mother. Parks & Rec. Big Bang Theory. Community. Modern Family (their Mothers’ Day episode cracked me up – I love Gloria). Plus Inside Job, a documentary that J and I liked a lot.

Around 800 words on a new story. Yaaaay.

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Happy Mothers’ Day, Nanay (who thankfully doesn’t read this blog, haha). :)

pizza monday

Monday night, we were on our way from Makati to QC. Jaykie wanted to eat somewhere, and I mentioned Domino’s.

He seemed pretty excited haha. He said he hadn’t had Domino’s pizza in a long while. The last time I had Domino’s was in grade school! There was a Domino’s branch near our home, but it folded I think only after a year.

Anyway I liked their ordering system. Your name appears on a screen, plus the number of minutes before your order can be served, and the status of the pizza (IN OVEN, etc.). Pretty cool.

The pasta (I had bolognese) was blah but the pizza’s pretty good. We had Domino’s Deluxe. The pizza remained soft even after it went cold.

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Fantastique Unfettered has reviewed the third issue of Stone Telling 3. :)