Dinner Alone on A Monday

I went on a date with myself last Monday. I had to buy  a few stuff (particularly makeup—since it’s been a while since I went makeup shopping) and had dinner alone at The French Baker. I wasn’t in the mood for anything heavy so I opted for Fettucini ala Carbonara and tried out their newest pastry—the Cream Puff Chocolate which was priced at 25.00 a piece. The fettucini tasted absolutely creamy and tasty! I love the bacon strips on top of it. The cream puff is absolutely THE BEST cream puff I have ever eaten!!! It’s like a heaven inside my mouth! I nomnomnomed all the way…Look at all that Parmesan cheese and strips of bacon!!!This thing is absolutely heaven.All in all I just paid PHP 165.00 for my dinner. The French Baker will always be my #1!

Oh and look what’s new in SM Department Store…

ARDELL LASHES!

Arrivederci!

Beautiful Sunday: Church, The French Baker, Supermarket, Desserts, Salon

May 29, 2011 (Sunday) Today is probably one of the best Sundays I have ever had. I woke up at 9:10AM and hurriedly made myself a cup of hot cereal drink, chugged it down, and headed to the shower for a quick 10-minute bath. I was able to put on a decent face for church in about 15 minutes (usual thing, foundation, concealer, black winged liner, no lipstick, mascara, blush and brows). I wore a lazy outfit of jeans, slippers, and a loose 3/4 black top from Forever 21. It did not flatter my shape at all! Have I mentioned how much I love fitted clothes nowadays? We left home at 10:00AM. We arrived just in time for the Gospel. My favorite priest was a guest priest today—Fr. Lino Nicasio (Linus) And our parish priest Fr. Aquino led the mass. One thing struck me most during his homily:

“Love should never be a burden.”

After hearing mass, we went to the usual places. We had brunch @ The French Baker as usual. I ordered something new. I loved our meal today, contrary to what happened last night. I just found out today that The French Baker has a restroom! And take note: a CLEAN restroom. This makes me love this restaurant 10x more! Here I am inside… Spacious and clean! Don’t you just love the paintings on their walls? I do!While waiting for the food, I managed to take photos with my beautiful Mama. Unlike me, my mom never put makeup on her face (well, except on picture days during her high school and college days) I love my Mama! She’s really the best. Have I mentioned how much she supports and loves what I do (blogging, YouTube, freelancing as a HMUA) 100%?Now let’s get on with the food! The first thing I asked was the availability of the Hot Chocolate in a Pot—I’ve been craving for two days for this already. Sadly, it wasn’t available. I wanted something new to eat, and I ended up having Quiche Lorraine, Soup and Salad (Freshly Baked Quiche Lorraine with soup of the day and honey balsamic greens)The Quiche (pronounced as “keesh”) Lorraine had ham and egg in it. It tasted so good! Not burnt, whatsoever. The soup for the day was Bacon and Potato (our favorite) and each spoonful was “Mmmmmm…” all the way!My sister lady had the STEAK SANDWICH (Tender beef sirloin marinated in fine herbs served on crusty steak roll)My sister Luzelle had the CHICKEN ALA KING (French classical voul-au-vent flaky shell stuffed with chunks of chicken in creamy “a la king” sauce and sided with buttered corn and carrots)My Mama had the CHICKEN SALAD CROISSANT (Chunky chicken salad with lettuce, tomato and cucumber on freshly baked croissant and sided with our own potato chips)My sister Iza had the BEEF LASAGNA (Layers of mozzarella cheese stuffed with Italian beef Ragu sauce and topped with creamy melted cheese)And why would we forget to order the SOUP ON A BREAD BOWL? (Creamy soup of the day stuffed in French bread bowl. Enjoy the soup and eat the bread.) The soup for today “Bacon and Potato” is our absolute favorite!The salad on my dish had no dressing on, so I asked for it to be returned and to be added with the dressing. It came back to me, I tasted it, and I honestly did not like it. I think it tasted better without the Honey Balsamic dressing. Nevertheless, I loved the little cut up cheese squares and the mango cubes on it! Iwas stuffed the moment we left the restaurant.Here’s the chef whipping up something delicious! You can actually see them cook through the glass window. And if you want to see their menu before entering, they have this huge ass menu board right outside.My sister Luzelle is scheduled to leave for GenSan tomorrow for work, so we went to the supermarket to do a little grocery shopping. If there’s a second favorite place I love whenever I’m in the mall, it would have to be the supermarket. Don’t you just love the clean smell? And the endless varieties of EVERYTHING? I can spend 10 hours by myself in the supermarket…really. It’s just too fun to be in there pour moi.Look at these little mangoes and grapefruit! These are the kind of fruits I can eat my whole life. The whole Fruits and Vegetable section looked so healthy and colorful! I can’t wait to be a mom/wife working woman and buy food for myself. Just imagine!This Lady’s Choice lady was giving out taste samples of eggs with mayonnaise. Did you know that mayo makes the eggs more fluffier? Try it! It really works. My sister Lady introduced me to it about a month ago. She read it from the newspaper.Who here loves Nutella? It’s the most evil thing in our house. It’s a controlled guilty pleasure of mine. Operative word: controlled. Who knew hazelnut and cocoa would taste so damn good?

You know how I clean the room everyday of my life. And I only need these things to do it the Lindsay Way:

1. a feather duster
2. a broom
3. a dustpan
4. a rag
5. alcohol
6. disinfectant

Give me these things and I’ll be happily cleaning all the way. #6 is very particular to me. Whenever I clean, I imagine the germs. And what do I do to get rid of them? It’s either spray alcohol all over, or spray Lysol like a madman (on knobs, handles, anything that touches the skin, tables, keyboards…etc) My favorite among all the scents is Crisp Linen!We stopped by BookSale and I searched for books that are worthy of purchase. I wanted to get this one from George Mair entitled “A Life with Purpose”, but I didn’t get it just yet. Maybe I’ll come back for it. If only I had all the time in the world, I’d buy a ton of books to read! The last book I finished reading was “Royally Jacked” and I was like 15 years old then. Hahahaha. It’s alright, you can laugh.

My sister Lady wanted to get dessert so I went to Krispy Kreme with her. She ordered a Double Chocolate Kruffin! This baby tastes sooooo good! Well, at PHP 65.00 a piece they totally should!

Caffe Ti Amo was just beside Krispy Kreme so we decided to get gelato, too! We taste-tested before ordering out usual Regolare cup. We ended up like Straciatella (Italian-style Chocolate Chip Ice Cream) and ordered it along with Cookies and Cream. Dichi (Lady) and I had fun pronouncing the word Straciatella with an Italian accent! We went like, “StRRaciateLLa!” Try it! The last stop today was Simple Life Salon. My sister and I decided to treat Mama to a haircut since she wanted one. We waited for a good 30 minutes for Mama. I was able to take photos of the nail salon that I’ll be using the services of for my 20th birthday giveaway. I’ll be posting about it soon.This day is not yet over! Dinner tonight will be in a separate blog entry. Keep your eyes peeled!

Arrivederci!

Tuna Omelette, Volleyball, Condon Bleu Gone Bad, Kung Fu Panda 2

May 28, 2011 (Saturday) I woke up at 11:00AM today. Felt kind of extra hungry so I made myself some tuna omelette for breakfast. (No poached eggs today…) I used Century Tuna’s Corned Tuna and mixed in one (1) egg. No seasoning, whatsoever. Just mix together and fry (non-stick pans are the best! I rarely use oil anymore) One of the most yummiest breakfast I’ve ever had. I had a bowl of Quaker Oats’ Oatmeal with this dish. I nomnomnom-ed all the way.I had to get ready for volleyball playing at my old high school at around 2:30PM. It has been  a longtime tradition for us (former varsity players) to play with the current team (for the sake of game-practice and reuniting as well). I’ve played for SJ for 5-8 years when I was still studying there. It was pouring rain when I left the house, and I hated the rain! Did you know that rain or the cold weather in general, does something to our muscles (I clearly forgot the scientific term for it) but that process is the one responsible for our “feeling tamad” or wanting to do nada when it’s cold. Rain and sweating don’t mesh well—so if it rains and I am working out, I make sure I stay inside a closed room. Our gym is located at the basement, so it didn’t feel that cold—which is good. It felt great to step back into the court! It’s been such a long long time since I played. When I practiced my serving, I’m pretty sure my back broke again! I still have it, but I need to sharpen my skills again! Ahhh the kids are so strong! I can’t believe I’m all rusty! We played a pretty good game. I think we managed to finish 6 sets all in all. How I missed playing… It is and will always be my #1 sport! This was a pretty awesome workout for today. Here’s a snapshot I took while waiting for the car. Malacanang always looks beautiful at night! Even in the morning, too! Perfect for jogging.We finished playing at around 6:00PM and after changing, I had dinner with Agnes, Danika and Lareina. We dined in at The French Baker. And I really must say—I hated this particular meal. (Why??? You’ll find out if you read on…) I don’t have any decent photo of myself to share since I looked so tired, my hair was being disobedient, and I had a huge zit on my forehead! I’ve been stressing myself too much lately! Lar managed to goof around despite everything! I had Chicken Cordon Bleu with Rolls. Looks delicious? Maybe for the corn and carrots, buns and mashed potato. But not the freaking Cordon Bleu!!! Would you just look at it?! It’s almost BURNT! It looks as hard as it feels!The outer breading was hard as fuck. I could barely slice it! I think I needed an ax to do it. The chicken and cheese inside tasted fine…but something tells me they re-fried the whole thing. You know what I mean? Or maybe they overdid it! Whatever it is…I am not happy.

SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT, THE FRENCH BAKER! Tsk tsk tsk. But you know I still love you! I think the best time to eat @ The French Baker is at mid-morning, lunch time, or after lunchtime. We ate at 7:00PM and all the bread were almost gone, and numerous items from the menu were unavailable anymore.

After eating, we went to get tickets to a movie. We had the 9:00PM last full show for Kung Fu Panda 2. Since I was craving for something sweet, I bought M&M’s and a lollipop before entering the movie house. This M&M’s cost PHP40.00 (holy pricey shit!) 8.50 PHP cheaper in the supermarket, too! The lolli cost PHP 10.00 which is fine… It was chocolate-vanilla. Mmm. I fell asleep in the first 15 minutes of the movie!!! I think I was just super tired from playing… couldn’t help but doze off for a bit. Well, I woke up when I saw the baby panda! So cute! I’m not going to say anything about the movie since I don’t wanna spoil it for anyone who has yet to watch it! But one thing’s for sure—it’s a good movie!

We finished at around 10:30PM. The mall was already closed by then. I dropped Lareina and Danika at their places and I got home by 11:15PM. I was greeted by a beautiful package from Neutrogena! Ta-dah! I’m sure you know what this is…By the way, I changed the mechanics for my two (2) ongoing giveaways. I spent the whole night + morning blogging about it, too! So it would be so cool if you read and understand it pour moi. Here is the link. The changes are quite necessary. I explained everything as clearly as possible, so I am hoping I don’t get a lot of “?” for it. I’m really excited for my 20th Birthday Giveaway! Just read the same post on how to join!

Arrivederci!

Sunday @ the French Baker

May 22, 2011 (Sunday) My favorite day of the week! Went to Saint Jude @10AM to hear mass with my mom and my sisters. The priest was new. I didn’t hear unusual word pronunciations, alright, but I didn’t like his homily. Tad boring and dragging. (Sorry!) Nothing beats Fr. Linus! The choir was new, too—much better, I must say. They actually sounded like angels. Fast forward to lunch time. Where else do you think we dined in? The French Baker!!! Ahhh… sometimes I wonder if The French Baker knows how much I love him (him?) So I was feeling pretty damn good since The French Baker has always been a place of solace for me. But that particular Sunday, this waitress who was serving us had a freaking frowning face drawn all over her face all throughout the time we were there! She gave us such an awful service. Nakasimangot all the fucking time we were there. She was sooooo freaking annoying! And to think it was like 11 in the morning. Anyway, enough about the bitch. Let’s talk FOOD! I didn’t want to order a meal meal per se since I wanted something new. I think I’ve already tried every meal from the menu! So I ordered a Ham and Cheese Quiche Lorraine (PHP 82.00) and a Blueberry Danish (PHP 60.00) Quite a handful? I know! Don’t worry, I didn’t finish it all. My sister Luzelle had her Chicken ala King. Looks incredibly delicious, I KNOW! Haven’t tried it yet! Such a big plate. Just look at those greens! And the sauce! I could care less about the peas and carrots, though.Every time I eat @ The French Baker, I never forget to take a snapshot of the paper placemat. They change designs occasionally and tell me, what is not to freaking love about Paris?If you love The French Baker the way I love it, you’d probably know that the Soup On A Bread Bowl is famous. The soup for that day was Potato and Bacon—ahhh perfect! It’s our family’s favorite! We love everything about it! Anchor’s butter is perfect as always. It’s just like THE perfect food ever.So I asked for my pastries to be reheated…and look how they were served to me… ALMOST BURNT but not quite. The Quiche Lorraine was exquisite! And the Blueberry Danish ought to be rewarded with an Oscar. According to Mr. Google, “Quiche Lorraine is an oven-baked dish made with eggs and milk or cream in a pastry crust. Usually, the pastry shell is blind-baked before the other ingredients are added. Other ingredients such as cooked chopped meat, vegetables, or cheese are often added to the egg mixture before the quiche is baked. Quiche is generally an open pie (i.e. it does not include a pastry covering), but may include an arrangement of tomato slices or pastry off-cuts for a decorative finish. Quiche may be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on local customs and personal tastes.” To cut it all short, it’s a freaking yummy thing made of bread, cheese and ham. I felt so stuffed after eating it—and I couldn’t even look at my BlueBerry Danish anymore. But I told myself… “Have some dessert, Say!” Hahaha and so I did. The blueberry just melts in your mouth! The bread and the cream filling was just muy bien. Exquisit. Exquisite. I had to give the rest to my Mom… I finished like half of it, and then I was done.

My sister Lady ordered Grilled Chicken with Mango Salsa. Which I’ve already tried before. The mango salsa was too vinaigrette-y! Almost too spicy! But the chicken? Ahh… perfect 10. Grilled to perfection. No blood inside, too!My mom ordered Baked Chicken Rice. Yummy chicken! I was able to taste it. All I could say was… “Mmmm!” Nothing too extraordinary but it’s something that’s worth having for brunch or dinner.I wanted an Ice Cream Shake, but I know I’m controlling portions and all that shizzle. So it was fateful that the Hot Chocolate in a Pot was available! Ahhh… I’ve been meaning to try it ever since! This “pot” costs PHP 99.00 only, and it could totally suffice for 3 persons already. Antonio Pueo cocoa blocks are used to create this fucking amazing beverage. If the word “fucking” didn’t express how good this tastes, then I don’t even know what to say anymore.My sister Iza ordered the Chicken Cordeon Bleu, but unfortunately, she took a bad shot for it hence, no photo! But you know the Cordon Bleu… I’ve tried it before. Tooooo stuffing! I’d eat it with the bun instead of the rice!

What a perfect meal.

Did I make you hungry?

Arrivederci!