~ Reviews by dieselgirl_77 ~

Showing 1 - 10 of 31 reviews

  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    friendly (and heavenly) neighborhood restaurant
    Angel's Kitchen, San Juan
    Rating - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Food - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Value - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    i didn't even know there was an angel's kitchen until my friend suggested it and boy! am i glad to have stumbled into this restaurant. i agree with previous reviewer, interiors are tastefully done. it sort of gives off this french provincial vibe. i especially love their washroom with the white wainscoting and stamped aluminum (?) mirror.

    okay, now the food. we ordered: baked dory with parmesan + caesar glaze. this ever-so-versatile fish is done wonderfully, flavorful (creamy garlicky), soft & moist. salisbury steak was like a "sik-sik" burger pattie drizzled with gravy & served with mushrooms & mashed potato (okay, lah!). baked salmon in aoli potato crust, i like that the potato is baked right on top of the salmon fillet (generous serving). potato is crusty on top but fluffy on the inside (like baked mashed potato), salmon soft & perfectly done.

    don't order the classic roast beef pandenini. i found it lacking in flavor. but i think i made a wrong choice - i should go back and order the fish again or eat what the other reviewer suggested.

    this place is jampacked for a weekday lunch and my friend said it's always like that there, so i highly recommend making reservations. for 4 people, 4 main dishes, a shared dessert & coffees we ended up spending about P500/pax. i think it's worth it for the good food, great ambiance (we spent more than four hours lounging in their comfy restaurant!), great service. worth visiting (again & again!)!
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    authentic jap in makati
    Izakaya Nihonbashitei Steak, Makati
    Rating - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25
    Food - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Service - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Ambiance - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    i would judge this place as authentic by the number of actual japanese diners i saw during my visit to this restaurant. there's supposed to be 2 sections here, a regular japanese sushi bar/resto section on the first floor and a teppan section on the 2nd floor.

    i just dined on 1st floor. sashimi was very fresh, they have a wide selection, including hamachi & toro. although the toro was fresh, it wasn't as flavorful as i'd expected (it was a little bland & a little too frozen)... but staples like salmon and tuna sashimi were very fresh, looked & tasted like they were supposed to. likewise, sushi was good too (sushi good serving sizes, sashimi about 6 slivers, not too big, not too small).

    there's a wide selection of menu items that will please anybody. they also have a good selection of sake and sochu (you can buy a bottle & leave it in the restaurant with your name on it for future visits).

    i look forward to visiting the teppan section in the future though. heard good things about their wagyu. worth a visit if you're feeling japanese in makati.
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    tuesdays quiz night oh what a night!
    Murphy's, Makati
    Rating - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25
    Food - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    every tuesday you can head to murphy's for a one-of-a-kind experience: quiz night. basically, you & a group of friends form a team (minimum of 4 i think) and compete against several other teams to answer a bunch of trivia questions from several categories like general knowledge, history, music, film, sports and geography.

    mind you trivia questions are not easy - most are very challenging & quite obscure - questions like what is the largest inland sea? (caspian), what film was it where marilyn monroe sings diamonds are a girl's best friend (gentlemen prefer blondes), which U.S. state is dodge city located (kansas)... but there are still some familiar or easy to guess questions that make it a fun & educational night.

    there are prizes for team winners, first gets free sunday brunch/lunch for four, 2nd a bottle of wine while the last team (losers!!!) get a free round of local beer/drinks.

    there's a nice beer listing in this pub. i only got to eat bar snacks (nachos, etc.) but it was pretty good.

    i'd come back here for quiz night after i've brushed up on my history! btw, you've to call in advance to make a booking for quiz night, they'd need the number of people in your team and your team name. quiz night = beer, greasy bar food, noisy fun, friends + a good dose of knowledge! what more can you ask for?
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  • 3 of 3 people found this helpful:
    thai delights await you!
    Azuthai, Makati
    Rating - 4.75 - 4.75 - 4.75 - 4.75 - 4.75
    Food - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    this is a fairly new restaurant (as of this post) and i'm very impressed with the new baby of the group that brought us milky way & el cirkulo (i'm amazed after so many years el cirkulo is still around!)

    the interiors of this restaurant are minimalist asian, a lot of wood paneling, warm yellow lights, buddhas and buddha heads scattered about and frosted sliding doors for the private function rooms.

    there's ample parking at the basement so that's a plus when dining at pasay road.

    food: very good! my only complaint is some of the serving sizes were a bit too small for sharing. for starters we had the spicy papaya salad: shredded unripe papaya with peanuts and shredded carrot, beans & ginger. crunchy, juicy and i think they added a little fish sauce in the dressing to give that thai kick. it's quite spicy so they give "cool" vegetables on side plate like cucumber slices to taper the burn in your mouth.

    crispy prawn cakes - there's 5 fat (siksik!) cakes per order and comes with sweet chili dipping sauce. it's exactly what i expected and we enjoyed it so much we ordered another round.

    tom yum - i love this sweet and spicy thai soup and beware when ordering this in azuthai! it's very spicy!

    bagoong rice - nothing new but still good!

    what was really awesome was their crispy plapla with fried basil. very flavorful and goes wonderfully with the bagoong rice. the green curry chicken was delicious, too!

    for desserts, instead of having thai, we rounded up the evening with some halo2x from milky-way. you can order desserts from milky-way without having to budge from your table. now that's what i call great service!

    highly recommend this restaurant for dates, meetings, family gathering, intimate parties with friends.

    price wise: about P3,500 for a party of 5
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    so so abbondanza
    Abbondanza Pizzeria Ristorante, Pasig
    Rating - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75
    Food - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Service - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Ambiance - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Value - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    i think i set myself up for disappointment when i visited abbondanza. i went there because of all the rave reviews here on munch punch so i had high expectations. let me get straight to the most important part, the food:

    generous servings, definitely good for sharing, inexpensive. but flavor is so-so. i did not encounter the 5-star taste experience my fellow reviewers raved about. i definitely have had much better and more authentic italian food than this.

    what i CAN rave about is their brown foccacia bread and their italian sausage. first time i've ever tried brown foccacia bread and it was warm, sweet, dense and soft. they serve it with all the pastas. the italian sausage, although i can't really say it's super authentic italian, was very good! it's spicy, lots of black pepper, and they marinate it in oil and herbs like rosemary. it's very flavorful and definitely will give you bad breath after, but it's awesome. they serve it with their special baked potato (thickly sliced potato with cream cheese in between). two of my fellow diners commented that their italian sausage tastes very much like longganisa.

    we tried their house specialties which was recommended by their very friendly owner: spaghetti abbondanza (tomato-based, with some carrot slices, sausage), pasta alla pescatora (seafood white sauce), tutta carne and vegetarian pizza. also caponata. these are all just OKAY. no explosion of flavors here.

    ambiance, it's very laid back. slightly elevated cafeteria atmosphere (fall-in line for orders, pay at counter, then waiters will bring orders to your table). but i must say, very good service. another plus is very good value (around P1,500 for 1 pizza - 8 generous slices, 2 large pastas, 2 antipastis & 4 drinks - with leftovers!).

    all in all, i can't honestly say that abbondanza is an absolute gem, but it's an interesting find.
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    have your cake and eat it, too!
    The Chocolate Kiss Cafe, Roces Avenue
    Rating - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5
    Food - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Value - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    i went to this cafe along roces ave., qc after noticing a week earlier how many people were dining there during merienda hours (3pm onwards).

    so i went there to have coffee and cake... and i gotta say WOW! what a wonderful 2x discovery! this is just tiny cafe with a very home-grown artsy feel. there are a lot of local artists' artwork on the walls, they use black plastic chairs for seats but were thoughtful enough to put cushions on all of them. waiters were very friendly, good at suggesting menu items, excellent service.

    coffee - i am a coffee lover and i was very pleased with their coffee. it was aromatic, slightly dark but delicious (i was a little bit worried at first). and tried out the following cakes: blueberry cheesecake, carrot cake, devil's food cake & sour cream cheesecake (some were for take out hehe! i didn't eat them all in one go).

    ALL ARE VERY GOOD! i am not kidding you, this place serves the best cakes in town. their cheesecakes are baked, which i love. their cakes are dense, flavorful, not too sweet. the icing on the carrot cake was perfect buttery smoothness. there was just enough icing to compliment the moist carrot cake.

    the devil's food cake is chocolate cake with fudgy filling generously lathered with white frosted icing peaks. it is not the best chocolate cake i've had but i was definitely good! but i'd order the blueberry cheesecake or carrot cake over this one.

    to top it all off, you get bang for your buck. for about 10 generous slices of cake and 2 coffees, i spent only P700. in other cafes, 1 small slice of cake is more than P100. here, the cake slices are NOT small, they are all great for sharing.

    i highly recommend this cafe for desserts or coffee time. also a great place to buy cakes for special occasions or just because.

    i'm so happy to have stumbled into the chocolate kiss cafe! this is a place where you can have your cake and eat it, too! (literally & figuratively!)
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  • 3 of 3 people found this helpful:
    italian fare 2 minute walk from power plant mall
    Cantinetta, Rockwell
    Rating - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25 - 4.25
    Food - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    whenever i go to rockwell, i'm stumped when it comes to deciding where to eat. not because there's an abundance of wonderful choices but because there's not much to rave about (most are good, but none i would go out of the way for - except maybe for the jap restaurant kuretake at the basement).

    then i discovered cantinetta! which is located outside of powerplant mall (but still inside the rockwell compound), it's a short walk from the entrance near zara. if i'm not mistaken, it's near ucc.

    this restaurant serves your standard italian fare of pizzas and pastas - along the levels of pagliacci's in podium imo. what you should definitely order is the tartufo pasta, which has truffle cream. i am a huge fan of truffle or at least the essence of truffle (since the real thing is insanely expensive!) and this pasta dish was a winner.

    i didn't order this but my friend did and most of the evening i was eyeing her plate with envy! she gobbled it up sooner than we finished with our plates and in fact, she went back to cantinetta again later (takaw talaga!) that week just to eat another plate of tartufo pasta!

    i ordered their vongole pasta for i am in a search for the best vongole pasta in manila and cantinetta did not disappoint. there were a lot of fresh clams on my plate, there's the right amount of white wine garlicky goodness and a healthy heaping of pasta (good for sharing portions here!).
    it's not the best i've had but it's still good! i would go back - but next time i'll order the tartufo just for myself.

    i'd also love to try their lobster pasta. they also have a wide selection of pizzas.

    ambiance is very cozy & clean. there are high ceilings and lights are warm but not harsh. service very attentive. it's a great place to sit back, enjoy a nice dinner and a glass (or two) of wine and good conversation with friends.

    it's also a great stop after a long hard day of shopping at rockwell. recommended for dates, too! btw, expect to cough up about P700 per person, this should include an entree, drinks and shared appetizer.

    buon appetito!

    note: went back here 2x after my first visit and had the tartufo pasta both times. this pasta dish alone is worth a visit to cantinetta.
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    la tienda muy bien
    La Tienda, Bel Air
    Rating - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.75
    Food - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Service - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Ambiance - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    come here for yummy tapas, paella and wine (if you don't mind a foreigner crowd that looks like they like hanging out in makati's red light district, which is just a block away! haha!).

    i've yet to try other interesting items on their menu but for sharing tapas, i would come back here. it's not cheap, for 2 people we spent about P1,500 for wine, 4 tapas and a salad.

    there is a trio of musicians during weekend evenings (i think just weekends - not sure) that wander around the restaurant to "serenade" you. ambiance gives off a spanish vibe - there's terracotta colored floors, red & white checked tablecloth, wood beams on the ceiling, yellow-colored walls and bull fighting posters.

    i must admit our choices for that evening were not adventurous but nevertheless tasted good: croquetas de jamon (crisp outside, soft & fluffy inside), calamares (tender squid in crunchy flour-y batter), salpicado (slightly tough but drenched in garlicky-sauce), chorizo (salty goodness) and la tienda salad.

    on another visit, tried their paella and cheese platters with wine, it was very good, too! worth a visit if you're feeling spanish.
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    new chinese alternative
    Choi Garden Seafood and Shark's Fin Restaurant, Annapolis
    Rating - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Food - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Value - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
    i live near this restaurant and every weekend, i always expect some kind of bottleneck along annapolis because so many people are trooping to this new chinese resto.

    if you like eating short order chinese dishes and dimsum, i highly recommend choi garden. i also recommend making reservations if you're planning to squeeze in with the lunch & dinner crowd (especially during weekends).

    must-trys: yang chow fried rice, shao-lin pao, haw-kaw, salt & pepper spare ribs (their specialty, goodbye belt!), claypot eggplant. even their noodle soup & congee is good. this is a super alternative to gloria maris. serving sizes are generous and it's surprisingly inexpensive to dine here (around P250-300/pax for four short order dishes).

    the only thing i don't like about choi garden is they've tinted all the windows red. almost all the interiors is color red (lanterns overhead, walls, seat upholstery). after a while it made my eyes and head hurt. but i think this red interior (albeit over-the-top) is what gives it a modern edge over gloria maris/north park/hap chan restos.

    service is super, too. worth a visit!
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  • 2 of 2 people found this helpful:
    ramen my ultimate comfort food
    Shinjuku Ramen House, Makati Ave.
    Rating - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5
    Food - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Service - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    Ambiance - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3
    Value - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
    i don't know what it is about a steaming bowl of noodle soup that just completely comforts me. it's most satisfying during gray & rainy days but just as lip-smacking good during hot summer days.

    visited this place after YEARS since my last visit and the place has not changed at all! the interior looks like it's from the previous tenants - probably a mediterranean restaurant. but who cares?! the ramen is gooood.

    they have 2 sizes, small and regular (which really looks like a basin - where you should put your face over with a towel covering your head!). small is really more than enough for one.

    there are so many noodles to choose from and since their menu comes with pictures, you can spend a good ten minutes drooling over all the different noodles to choose from.

    since my hubby and i were starving we found our targets easily: sapporo corn (slivers of tender porkloin with corn and vegetables in soy-based broth), moyoshi ankake (mixed vegetables with some pork slices, mostly bean sprouts in thickened soy-based broth) and chicken karaage. we had salmon sashimi to start.

    at first i was wary of ordering sashimi from this ramen house but my apprehensions were shattered after the first bite. it was fresh, soft and oh-so flavorful. there were about 8 slices there.

    the ramen was very2x good and quite filling. if you're not that hungry, i suggest you share the regular portion with someone and order gyoza on the side. there was just the right amount of toppings to the noodles. noodles were firm to the bite, which i love. the stock was seasoned wonderfully, it didn't leave that dry taste in my mouth as other ramen soups do.

    i was looking forward to eating their desserts (they had a few shaved ice desserts topped with so and so) but unfortunately was too full.

    i highly recommend this place!

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