Conti's

We had our early dinner at Conti's last week after doing a little shopping and groceries in a nearby mall. We scouted for a dining place as we went around. I suggested Conti's to hubs and daughter. I first had a taste of the frozen mango tart from this restaurant during a birthday celebration at the office. It was really good. Needless to say that's one of the desserts we ordered.

The other one is one of their best sellers, choco overload. I would like to try anything chocolate, except for chocolate mint. Here it is, really delectable.

Before the desserts came the main course. No appetizers needed but drinks to quench our thirst from the long walk inside the mall. I had mango, hubby had iced tea and the little girl had her shake.

I tried the baked salmon as it is said to be their specialty. It's good though the cheese topping has a somewhat strong garlic taste.

One of hubby's favorite foods is the chicken ala kiev which he also prepares for our dinner from time to time. He tried this one from Conti's. He found the serving quite small versus his appetite.

My daughter had her chicken and fries with macaroni salad on the side. Nothing fancy about the taste, a standard fix for my daughter whenever we dine out.

The day proved to be full of Conti's as my cousin brought us a her belated birthday gift for my daughter, a chocolate cake from the said restaurant.

My daughter brought half for her classmates the following day and her friends loved it! Anyone's who's a chocolate lover would I suppose. It's delicious. :)

********** Mood : Pleased.
Music: Soft Melody, John Kaizan Neptune

Ladies' Night at Burgoo

This is the second time we dined at Burgoo as a group. The first one was when Raquel visited the Philippines with her family. This one was last Friday where we had a detour. The supposed Greenbelt 5 rendezvous was diverted to Power Plant because of the heavy traffic from our place (we are in the same area) going to Makati.

Check out the food we devoured. Not in picture is our our after-dinner coffee at the same mall. No more energy to take pictures but the sharing and stories did not stop till it was almost midnight.

Seafood Caesar Supreme is a good appetizer. But for me, it can be the main course already.

Now I forgot the exact name of this one. It's chicken that I am sure of. This was the first one to be served so we all helped ourselves here since we were already starving.

Sorry for a rather blurry photo but this is my favorite, Jambalaya. I go to Burgoo for this. It is so filling. I want to experiment on this one of these days.

The mommies said this is almost like Jambalaya only this has corn salsa. I did not anymore have a taste of this one but the girls seemed to love it. It's called N'awlins Classic Platter.

I generally like Arrabiata but this one proved to be too spicy for me. I prefer the one served at Figaro.

I had a pretty good serving of this one, Seafood Linguini. There's calamari and shrimp which are both my favorites.

Pizza Margherita I like. Huge slices of tomatoes with mozzarella. A staple in most pizza and pasta restaurants.

One, two, ready, click...the Mommies I love going out with - Chats, Cookie, Feng, Wenchie, Julie and Cess.

As I was doing the links for each names, I realized there's only the two of us with no dotcom yet.

Liver Spread Spaghetti

A week or so ago I thought of preparing spaghetti for dinner. I was supposed to email my sister how she does it with liver spread. I like the taste of it - the sauce a little coarse on the tongue but creamy. Well the cheese in the sauce made it creamier. I browsed for a second and landed to a recipe, Liver Spread Spaghetti, from Del MOnte Kitchenomics. I just added chicken livers. Thank you, thank you for providing a quick and easy recipe for women like me who eagerly wants to learn how to cook starting with something simple.

I only prepared just enough for us in the house. Normally there would be left overs around half full of plate but this time, there's none. My daughter even requested for it as her food sharing last Thursday for their class event. Same thing, it was a hit with the kids. :)

You may visit my other entry, Cupcakes at Everything and then Some.....
Have a lovely week ahead!

Penne Carbonara

It's pasta time again. I got a new copy of the ever reliable Yummy Magazine. As always, I check the easiest pasta to prepare. Easy meaning I have all the ingredients or they are easy to find in supermarkets. This one's no sweat.

This is my own take on Penne Carbonara I prepared yesterday. I just don't have green peas so the picture looks so plain. But hey, hubby and daughter liked the taste. :) See the presentation doesn't look appetizing because the hubby already got a plateful before I took the picture. I cannot anymore fix it the way I want it.


Let me share the ingredients and the procedure:
Heat:
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil

Saute:
2 tbsp. chopped onion
1 small clove of garlic

Add:
1/4 cup chopped bacon (I used my stock of Hormel's Real Bacon Pieces.)
1/4 kg. ground beef

Season with:
1 8g. Maggi All-in-One Seasoning
salt and pepper to taste

Pour in:
1 250ml. Nestle All Purpose Cream
1/2 cup water

Simmer for five minutes. Add:
1/4 cup green peas (No green peas here as I've said.)

Stir in 300g. cooked penne pasta. Top with 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese.

There! :)

Take a peek on some sweets in my other weekend snapshot at Everything and then Some..... Happy WS!

Cafe Mary Grace

I was reading Yummy magazine and there was a mention of Mary Grace's chocolate cake. The photo was just so appetizing. I suddenly had a craving for it. I love the cafe's brownies and cheese rolls but haven't had their cakes yet.

That's what prompted me and my daughter to have a snack at Cafe Mary Grace when we were at Trinoma a few weekends ago. The cafe is small, cozy and inviting. The lighting sets the mood as well as the interior. Country style if I may say. The service is quite fast or maybe one won't really notice a few minutes has passed because one tends to read the messages neatly laid out on the table. They are messages of appreciation from the customers. Isn't that nice?


I took pictures of my daughter too while waiting for our food. This was right in front of the mirror. My baby's a big girl already, sigh. :D


I had my coffee alright to go with the cake.

Oh yes, the chocolate cake is divine. I don't use this word much as most chocolate cakes taste the same and more often than not, I just get disappointed. But this one, it has the right moist and its sweetness is just right for my taste. The filling does not drown the chocolate feel and flavor. I'll have this anytime.

My daughter likes the cafe's rich and smooth hot chocolate. I like the colorful cup and saucer as well.

My daughter had her pasta vongole. It's a little watery. I'm not sure if it's the clams or the noodles were not drained well. It's good nonetheless.

We are going back here for more that's for sure. :)

No Frills Chicken Pesto Pasta

We just stayed home after church and grocery today, Father's Day. I'd like to make a special post for the fathers in my life another time.

It's the first day of school for my daughter Andrea tomorrow so we opted to just stay home and rest the whole afternoon. Rest...not quite, I checked and prepared, together with my daughter, what she would be bringing to school tomorrow. I always get excited on the first day of school.

After which hubby and I prepared the chicken pesto pasta, his all time favorite pasta. Actually the chicken was supposed to be for our salad but we were not able to buy our avocado so we just made use of the chicken breasts for this pasta.

These two are staples in the house since we are all pasta lovers here. Bravo Pesto is available in most supermarkets. I buy Bravo for some of my deli needs. Check their website for some Italian recipes. You'll find they are quite easy to prepare.

Our olive oil is half-filled by now. I used to buy this at factory price when I was still in the food industry. Now I have to buy them at retail price.



The chicken pesto pasta with cheddar cheese on top. The chicken strips are there somewhere. We run out of parmesan. It should be in the list of staples in this household.

That's it, your no-frills chicken pesto pasta.
*Cook the noodles the usual way - remember al dente. Hubby prefers linguini over spaghetti. He likes the feel of it better.
*Boil the chicken breasts and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
*Saute about two cloves of garlic in olive oil.
*Mix the noodles and pour in the pesto. Toss, toss, toss.
*Cheese on top.

Normally there should be cream and spinach but we made do with what we have in the house. :)

Before I forget there's the cake.

Today's occasion was a good excuse to have this mocha chiffon cake. :)

More snapshots here. I hope you all had a fun weekend too! :)

Holy Cow

It was a quick and early dinner a few weekends ago with hubby and daughter at Holy Cow, Greenbelt Trinoma. This is a steak house but I was wondering why it became holy. :) Anyway, the food we had were good. I specially like the pizza rolls. It's a pretty heavy meal, a good substitute for rice as me and hubby are trying to curb our rice intake.


Holy Cow is quite small. I find the layout a little off as the huge counter was in the middle of the dining area. It's a big block of fixture getting in the customers' way.

The nacho corn chips below is quite colorful what with the all too red nachos. But it was fun munching them.

The boneless beef ribs is very appetizing to look at but grilled is not really for me. We have cut down on this too save for teeny weeny taste of it.

They have cow heads for murals and it looks a bit creepy at some point especially the restaurant has some yellow lighting for that intimate and cozy effect.

Here's the facade of the restaurant. It feels like a modern barn to me.

My daughter posing beside the Holy Cow.

Hmmm cakes at Jack's Loft which is right beside Holy Cow. On second thoughts, we've had a full dinner already. The pizza rolls are really filling. Next time, Jack.



Click here for more of weekend snapshots.