The Lounge at 7th High

It's TGIF-mode for you and friends. Where to go?

When you're in the mood for a classy and music-filled chill night-out with friends, why not spend it at

The Lounge at 7th High?

The Lounge at 7th High - Full Menu

The menu of The Lounge at 7th High.

The Street Food Guide

They're cheap, they're accessible, and they're in every street corner.

No, 'they' do not happen to be illegal entertainment. 'They' are Filipino street food, the ubiquitous feature on virtually every street in Manila. They are inherently popular due to being cheap and quick snacks - in quantities, even meals! - and one may be lucky enough to find a place that serves really delicious servings. However, with the reputation of Filipino street food as 'dirty' and 'unhygienic', let this be your ultimate guide to a tasty and SAFE experience. Remember, street food is definitely more fun in the Philippines!

Calamares or fried squid.

Safety and Cleanliness

These are the most important things to look out for when scouting for street food (and to avoid the many diseases transmittable through raw food). 

• The brush (and sauce) used for uncooked food are in a separate container.
• The raw food on display are covered from the elements and insects.
• The sticks are clean; no soot marks indicating reuse.
• Bonus points if paper food containers/plates are given out (so that customers don't dip the cooked food into the common sauce containers).

Avoid the place if:

• Flies are on the raw food.
• After cooking the food, the vendor places them on top of the raw food again before packing them.
• The common sauces look murky or discolored.
• The oil being used is dark and murky.
• Charcoal is placed on the grill by melting the plastic bag (with the charcoal inside) through. This is downright poisonous.
• The sweet sauce is exactly the same one used as brush on grilled street food.
• The knife used to cut and slice raw food is the same one used to stoke the charcoal.
• The vendor is smoking while preparing the food (ash droppings).
• Customers touch raw and cooked food items with their hands (to check if it's still hot - a disgusting practice considering what we touch on a daily basis). 

Yes, that's blood or 'betamax'.

Food Quality

Most grilled street food are pretreated with an orange- or reddish marinade to give the food a 'fresher' look. While this hides many of the raw items' flaws, you can usually spot bad food if:

• The visible meat missed by the orange-colored marinade is grayish or grayish-yellow.
• The seafood items smell a little funny.
• The breading on some items are uneven or overly crusty (from experience, these taste bad).

The general rule of thumb is, if the food stall looks like it was crafted from scrap material twenty minutes ago, that's probably how they prepared their food as well. If the stall has a proper cart with cooking utensils, covered food display containers, or even a building, chances are that the food there is much better (and slightly more expensive). If the food items are prepared right in front of you, it will take a little more time to cook, but again, chances are the food is much better.

Food Types

There are a lot. So I will break them down into categories, depending on how they are prepared and/or the usual time of day that they are popularly consumed.

• GRILLED: Pork barbecue (pork meat), chicken and pork isaw (intestines), adidas (chicken feet), betamax (coagulated pork blood), pig ears, pig skin, butsi (chicken throat), ulo (chicken heads), chicken barbecue (chicken meat), hotdogs, corn.
• FRIED: Chicken and pork isaw, turon (bananas in flour wrapper), lumpia (fried spring rolls), kwek kwek (quail eggs in orange breading), assorted balls (fish, chicken, squid), kikiam (processed fish bites), siomai (Chinese dumplings), kamote (cassava in brown sugar), banana-cue (bananas in brown sugar), calamares (squid), baga (cow lungs), laman ng baka (orange-dyed cow innards), tokwa (tofu bites), mani (peanuts), butsi.
• STEAMED/BOILED: Siopao (Chinese dim sum buns with pork meat inside - sometimes rumored to be cat meat), siomai, peanuts with shells, corn, the infamous Filipino balut (egg with a developed duck/chicken embryo inside) and penoy (regular egg, but tastes gamey).

Good Eats

I've been in Manila for almost five years now, and I've gone around quite a bit to know some good (and bad) street food places or ihawan in Filipino. Here are some that deserve some mention:

• Mercato at Bonifacio Global City offers a wide-selection of over-sized street food at a reasonable price. The items are also guaranteed to be much cleaner and safer than anywhere else. Budget per person is roughly PHP 200.00.
• Barbecue ihawan near R. Papa LRT 1 station. The pork barbecue here is amazing and very cheap too. Food gets sold out here by 6pm-7pm, so a late afternoon visit is best. Budget per person is roughly PHP 50.00.
• Ihawan at Agata Street, corner of Zobel Roxas Street, Osmena Highway. Slightly more pricey than the regular street food, but the servings are quite good. Budget per person is roughly PHP 50.00.
• Grilled corn in the back-alleys of Divisoria Shopping Center, Manila. PHP 20.00 each if I remember correctly.
• Tinuhog ni Benny in an alley across De La Salle University serves excellent pork and chicken barbecue at cheap prices, and the place actually has tables and chairs to dine in. Budget per person is roughly PHP 60.00.
• Noel's Barbecue in another street behind De La Salle University (near Quirino LRT 1 Station) is one of the most affordable places to have street food along Taft Avenue. The food served are well-prepared too. Expect the place to be full all day. Budget per person is roughly PHP 50.00.

Quail eggs, or kwek-kwek (also known as pugo).

I purposely omitted exact location addresses because I believe that part of what makes street food so good is the experience of hunting for a good street food place :) Ask around, explore! Of course, be mindful of your safety always.

Please feel free to share your favorite street food havens by giving a nod below! 

Let's share the love of food together.

Calamares image from tumblr, retrieved on February 9, 2012.
Betamax image from venzsecretworld, retrieved on February 10, 2012.
Quail eggs image from Coffee on the Side, retrieved on February 10, 2012.

Cav Wine Shop and Cafe

With 2011 ending, PJ and I decided to give ourselves our last splurge of the year. During my last run in Bonifacio Global City (BGC, or what used to be known as just 'The Fort'), I passed by an interesting looking cafe, and so we went there.

Let's get this out of the way early in this post: Cav is a pretty expensive place for dinner. There. To their credit, the wine selection was a list of an entire folder, and I had quite a conversation with our server, who more or less knows his wine. We had the three-course set (two appetizers, one entree, and one dessert) and a bottle of Taylor's Promised Land shiraz, '09 vintage.

Our wine and wholemeal rolls.

Mushroom shooters and foie gras.

Beautiful :)

Young Arugula Salad.

Duck Confit Ravioli.

Angus Beef Tenderloin, medium-well.

Creme Brulee.

Good night out :)

The menu was a little hard to understand, and we actually spent the first ten minutes listening to our waiter as he explained the various courses they have plus the wines that go well with those. We went for the 'prix fixe' course menu to keep things simple. Since PJ's a pesco vegetarian (that means seafood items are allowed, but still no red meat) she had the two appetizers while I had the beef to myself. Good choice, with the shiraz that I picked for us.

The ambiance was gorgeous, and the service excellent, but for all of Cav's finer points, it's very difficult to say with a straight face that it is a true value for money establishment. The wine - which is sold within their premises - is still slapped with a PHP 300 corkage fee, something that I find very illogical and unreasonable. However, with bottles priced above PHP 1,500, the corkage is 'waived'. I think this is a ridiculous system since they are selling their wines in the first place. Also, the Brussels sprout on my Angus beef? Four pieces of the small green things were considered a PHP 700 'add-on'. Yes. Four pieces. Seven hundred pesos. Go digest that for a minute.

It was a beautiful date, and we did leave the place very full, but it was not exactly a dinner justified by the final bill. We've eaten in some of BGC's and Green Belt 5's higher-end restaurants, but this has to be the most expensive one yet, and I'm not sure it was totally worth it. Don't be too shocked by the rating below, especially with Value for Money :)

Food: 8/10
Service: 10/10
Ambiance: 10/10
Value for Money: 2/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 3,000.00 - PHP 5,000.00

Jay~

Out and About One Weekend

PJ and I decided to have some quality time together and we went out for a nice, quiet weekend evening. Hit up California Pizza Kitchen (GB5) for dinner and then we watched New Year's Eve, one of those seasonal films that are usually sub-par, but we actually enjoyed it.

Potato leek soup.

Thai crunch salad (chicken on the side because PJ's a vegan).

Spaghetti bolognese.

Spinach artichoke dip with tortillas.

Washing it all down with a glass of shiraz.

Haha.

This was my first time at CPK and it wasn't too bad at all. The servers were a little frazzled by the number of patrons (but that's a good thing, right? A full restaurant.) but otherwise, our orders were served well within the ten minutes promised. We've learned many lessons from our eat-out adventures so we usually just get a couple of appetizers and an entree and we're good. PJ's soup was her favorite, so she got that. I had a taste and it was okay, could have been a bit hotter. The Thai crunch salad was a winner for me, and with grilled chicken, it was pretty much a flavor- and texture party for the taste buds. Unique, is what I'm saying. Spinach dip was tasty as well, and it was fun eating colored tortilla chips. Haha.. My spaghetti was okay, though it could have been so much better.

Their wine was, in a word, delicious. One really gets what one pays for in places like this, and absolutely no regrets on the drinks :) The place was just a tad too noisy though, and it was a little warm. Other than that, another good dining experience :)

Food: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Ambiance: 7/10
Value for Money: 9/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 1,200.00 - PHP 1,800.00

California Pizza Kitchen

Greenbelt 5, Makati, Philippines

(02) 401-7160

Then we went to our movie, but that's another post :)

Jay~

MoMo at Ayala Triangle

 Another food post!

We initially wanted to go to Ayala Triangle a couple of nights ago to see the Christmas lights, but unfortunately, the light show would only begin on the 16th of this month. We ate instead.

MoMo Cafe is a very interesting contemporary Italian restaurant serving seemingly strange but very homely dishes that taste pretty good. We sat outside, and with the light rain, had a casual albeit cold atmosphere.

Mushroom Soup "Cappuccino".

Making faces.

Melted Crab and Spinach Cheese Dip.

Close-up of the dip.

Hehehe :)

Blue Marlin Kebab = awesome.

Big fish stick!

I really, really like MoMo.

So much so, that instead of the restaurants in Serendra, I might just bring my grandma here for her birthday dinner. The serving sizes were really just right for a full meal (we finished our food!) and was served relatively quickly. I was very impressed with the soups (I ordered something else but wasn't able to snap a pic) and the exact not-too-hot temperature in which they were served. 

Our appetizer was very interesting, and it was easily one of the best starters I've had. The crab and spinach combo was good on sourdough bread (I tried) and even better on plain tortillas, which came with it. Not so with the vegetable sticks that it came with. Our entree, the fish, was absolutely humongous. It was four slabs of blue marlin, in two kebab skewers, and served with stir-fried rice (at least, I believe it's stir-fried). I paired it with a superb glass of Stamp Reisling, making for a pretty foodgasmic night. Haha.. Now if only it wasn't raining..

Food: 10/10
Service: 9/10
Ambiance: 8/10
Value for Money: 10/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 1,200.00 - PHP 1,500.00

Jay~

New Orleans at Resort's World

We seem to be eating out a lot lately :) Good company makes for good food, and good food makes for a happy blogger! Haha..

This time, we had dinner right before catching The Sound of Music (the theatrical play) at Resort's World's Newport Theater last night. We didn't know where to eat, and New Orleans looked like a good place, so we went there.

Sourdough Bread.

Crab and Corn Bisque.

Not very clear, but this was Pork Belly.

PJ with her massive Cajun fish (I forgot the proper name).

The place was quite crowded but we were lucky to get a nice table at the side. Food servings were huge and for the price, one of the most worth-spending-on we've ever had. The pork belly went okay with the house wine, though they could have had a better selection (the waiter only mentioned 3-4 bottles). Pretty decent, and the service is quick, if a tad hasty. Even though the servings were heavy, it left a little bit (not enough to stop me from going there again, mind you) of a greasy after-taste.

Food: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Ambiance: 8/10
Value for Money: 9/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 1,200.00 - PHP 1,500.00

Jay~

Balducci Dinner Date

Balducci Ristorante is a pretty Italian restaurant at Serendra, at The Fort, and it is currently my new favorite restaurant. Good food, good wine, very good service = recipe for a good experience.

Appetizer.

PJ with her seafood soup.

Minestra di Pesce alla Balducci, or as I like to call it, "seafood soup".

Spaghetti alla Pescatora, or "seafood pasta".

A glass of Chianti to cap the night off. But no liver, Mr. Lecter :)

I cannot stress enough how much I loved the food that night. It was really good, much better than the many (commercialized) Italian places around Manila. I could be going to too few places, but for now, Balducci is a decent place to have a meal. The ambiance was very nice as well, but the music choices were strange for the place (pop and some heavy R&B?). Well worth whatever you spend.

Balducci menu courtesy of munchpunch.com, if you're curious :)

Food: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Ambiance: 8/10
Value for Money: 10/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 1,000.00 - PHP 1,500.00

Jay~

Sakae Sushi

It was yet another disappointing reservation attempt at Yakimix (both branches!), so PJ and I decided to go with some other friends to another Japanese place at SM Mall of Asia, Sakae Sushi. The best part about the place was that it had this pretty decent sushi conveyor belt. We went for the sushi and maki buffet, and Good Lord, we left the place full :P

Here comes the food!











Yes, we love to eat :)

The supposed last plate.

The look that says "I committed the sin of gluttony.

PJ a little woozy from the food.

Our last plate! Note that we reached the top of the conveyor :P

Yes, we had fun.
The food at Sakae was never going to be of the same quality as Nanbantei or Kai, but for sheer value for money, it was really good. The buffet we availed of was only PHP 399.00 per adult (or about $10.00 only!) or PHP 199.00 for kids under 12 years of age. Choices were very unpredictable, with long stretches before anything new passes by (or others were simply taking them before reaching us, but I doubt it; we sat near the conveyor exit). Service was a tad slow, with requests for water and tea taking up to five minutes, and the place did not look understaffed at all. The sushi and maki selections were decent, though they could decrease the rice a little, since many of the sushi - the ika and tuna especially - had huge rice pairings. Other than that, it was quite the good experience.

The total sushi destruction - our table, two persons - we wrought was 21 plates of sushi and maki, with estimated savings of PHP 700.00 for the both of us :D A really good deal, if you think about it. If you will not be going for the buffet, the prices are thereabouts on the standard scale, roughly PHP 200.00 to PHP 300.00 per dish (roughly $5.00 to $7.00). There was also no service charge, so please leave a tip.

Food: 7/10
Service: 6/10
Ambiance: 7/10
Value for Money: 10/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 400.00 - PHP 800.00

Sakae Sushi is located at the 2/F of the SM Mall of Asia (main mall), Pasay City. Landmarks would be Complink Computer Shop (across) and McDonald's (across and below on the G/F). You may reach them at +632 5560150 for reservations or inquiry, but walk-in was perfectly fine.

Oh, and Happy 11th Month to us :)
(Had this lunch 2 days ago, on the seventh.

Jay~