Where to Eat in Alabang – Brunch at Cafe Breton

Westgate Center is a lifestyle district in Alabang where a number of casual restaurants and cafes are located – one of them is Cafe Breton.

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Serving breakfast as early as 7 in the morning, Cafe Breton is a place where expats and locals come together for their gourmet crepes, exquisite coffee, and all-day breakfast.

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The contrasting wall colors, wooden furniture, and unique accent pieces add a country rustic charm that makes the cafe look timeless and inviting.

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The focal point of this cafe is the kitchen where you can watch them prepare your food right in front of your very eyes.

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True to their claim, they do have excellent coffee! Their cappuccino is rich in flavor with a smooth, velvety foam on top. I think it’s the ultimate morning pick-me-up.

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Cafe Breton’s menu has an extensive breakfast selection that includes crepes, galettes, sandwiches, desserts, coffee and many more. Price ranges between 150 to 300 PHP per dish.

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La Primavera Veggie Scramble
A creamy omelet with a medley of tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, and gruyere cheese served with buttered toast.

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Adam and Eve
A delicate crepe stuffed with soft, stewed apples topped with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and a dash of cinnamon.

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I may not be an early bird but I do love me some great brunch!

The combination of good customer service and pleasant dining experience made love Cafe Breton instantly. We’ll definitely come back here if we can.

Sulen

Remember a few months back when I posted about a cafe that was going to open beside the lobby of Elena Tower Inn? Well, they’re finally open!

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It was rather unfortunate that I missed their opening day since I was travelling to Kalibo at that time. I’m sure it would have been a lot of fun getting first dibs on everything. But anyway…

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Welcome to Sulen, an art cafe aimed to lure the creative and brilliant minds of Iligan.

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This cafe is a perfect haven for artists, students and yuppies to huddle together for a coffee date. The chill vibe makes it an ideal spot to study or to catch up on some work.

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On one of their walls is a beautiful hand-painted mural that pays homage to Vincent van Gogh’s painting, The Starry Night.

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I feel blessed and honored to have worked closely with Sulen as they release 5 new beverages and 3 new dishes on their menu.

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Creamy Nut Frappe
Made with a shot of espresso and a hint of hazelnut flavor, topped with whipped cream and crushed nuts.

Rocky Road Frappe
A dessert smoothie made with chocolate and Irish cream syrup, finished off with some whipped cream and marshmallows on top.

Scarlet Iced Tea
Refreshingly cool tea made with strawberry syrup and agave nectar served over ice. This is a personal favorite.

Bailey’s Frappe
Blended with chocolate sauce and a splash of Bailey’s, hand-topped with whipped cream and an Oreo biscuit for good measure.

Jack Frost Frappe 
A coffee-free frappe made with white chocolate and topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup. This is also another favorite of mine.

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Tuna Casserole
Classic tuna pasta recipe baked with a blanket of cheese on top.

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French Toast
Pan-grilled eggy bread topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of maple syrup.

This is something I’d like to have for breakfast everyday.

Just look at that sexy trail of melted ice cream dripping at the edge of the toast. Make sure to ask for some cinnamon to sprinkle on top for that extra kick of flavor. 

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Baked Macaroni
Creamy baked macaroni just like how your genius aunt would make it. I’d definitely come back for more of this.

Their new menu additions are to be launched on July 27. Sulen is open daily from 8 AM to 11 PM.

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Davao-Gensan Trip Part 8: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Many moons ago, I noticed that a lot of people on my Facebook newsfeed have been raving about The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL). And being a tea-o-holic that I am (an ex-coffee addict too), I don’t wanna be left behind. 

CBTL is an American coffee chain that serves only the world’s finest coffee and tea. Born in South Califoria on 1963, CBTL has grown into one of the largest coffee and tea companies in the world with over 900 outlets in 23 countries since. And yes, of course, they have free WiFi too.

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This was taken on our first CBTL experience at Abreeza. In the photo above are Ice Blended Matcha Green Tea and White Choco Dream Latte.

Both are just a dream in a cup. Really. Definitely better than Starbucks by a mile. 

And just so you know… 
Starbucks doesn’t exactly thrill me. There. I finally spilled the beans. Please don’t roast me! (puns intended)

Oh, lemme introduce to you the greatest invention since sliced bread…

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This thingamajig! I really don’t know what it’s called. If you happen to know, you have to tell me! 

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What’s so great about this thing is (more like are):
1. It eliminates those silly table number tags.
2. I don’t have to constantly fidget as I wait for my name to be called. 
3. It vibrates and lights up once your order is ready.

Doesn’t it make life a lot easier? Whoever thought of this sorcery is a freakin’ genius! 

I still don’t understand why other restaurants or fastfood chains still don’t have this brilliant piece of technology yet. I’m sure it’s not that hard and expensive to make, right? Wishful thinking.

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Having watched too many Masterchef episodes made me feel sorry for ourselves that we haven’t tried eggs benedict yet. So we really had to give it a go! This was our second CBTL experience at SM Lanang. 

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The look on his eyes explained everything. Haha! Clearly, he’s more excited than I am.

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As my boyfriend ran the knife through the egg, the yolk didn’t run into this thick velvety sauce as I saw it should in Masterchef a thousand times over.

I then pictured Gordon Ramsey in my head like this…

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While it wasn’t close to perfect (at least to Gordon’s standard), it tasted really good. And that’s all that matters. I also happen to like my eggs to be done over medium thankyouverymuch.

For all those who have been disenchanted with overrated coffee shops, I plead that you at least give Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf a chance.

They serve high-quality, great tasting coffee, tea and food. Plus, their service and ambiance is marvelous.

Their beverages cost between 100~200 pesos… Not bad right? Know more about what they serve here.

Davao-Gensan Trip Part 2: Breakfast at Sinangag Republik

As soon as we arrived in Davao, we dropped our bags at my boyfriend’s stepmom’s place, we had a little chit chat with her and shortly after that, we traipsed around the city in search of a place to stay (Yes, we didn’t go prepared. We’re such awful travelers, I know). 

But as we were walking around, I was starting to get really cranky because I was so famished and heavy-eyed at this point already... And unless my boyfriend was going to carry me on his back or drag me along the pavement, I had no intention of budging at all.

For those who don’t know yet, it is imperative that hungry Leia must be fed immediately. Because nobody likes me when I’m hangry (hungry + angry)!

It was still around 8 o’clock in the morning and most of the restaurants within our range were closed save for…

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Sinangag Republik which is open 24/7. Very convenient. Can you see the iconic jeepney protruding through the window? 🙂

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Sinangag Republik, formerly known as Sinangag Express (SEx for short and I’m not making that up), is located at Metrolifestyle Complex, E. Jacinto Extension. 

By the way, “sinangag” is Filipino for fried rice. 

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The interior is cozy and quite fascinating. Apparently, the jeepney extends all the way inside! Really cool! I don’t know what kind of sorcery they conjured in order to pull this off considering the size of the place… But *finger snap* they worked it! 

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Plastered against the bright blue walls are colorful road signs and license plates which create a striking visual contrast. The colors blue, red and yellow mirror the colors of the Philippine national flag.

Sinangag Republik obviously serves Filipino food. But they mainly serve “silog” (breakfast with fried rice and egg). In average, price ranges from 70 to 90 pesos per meal.

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Pictured above were what we had. Left, my boyfriend’s order. Right, mine.

Hmm… How should I start?

Let’s talk about my order first. I had Beef Tapa and it is pretty different from what I’m used to. I think it was coated with flour and that’s a very unorthodox method of preparing beef tapa. It’s nothing amazing really. In fact, I was just eating it because I had to. I didn’t enjoy it but it didn’t find it revolting either…

However, my boyfriend’s order is another story. I had a taste of it and boy was I shaking my head in disgust. It was barely edible. Thank God we didn’t get sick by food poisoning or diarrhea because the meat was really bad. And by bad, I mean, SPOILED. We racked our brains for days but we couldn’t recall what he ordered at all. I think it was just too horrible for us to remember.

The place may have its charm but we don’t recommend that you eat here; unless you wanna call in sick for work, then by all means go ahead.

Some of my friends told me that their Frozen Taho is a must-try. I don’t know if we just got unlucky that day but we don’t have plans to eat here again. EVER.

But hey, on the bright side, at least I have an Instagram-worthy photo to make up for the bad experience. *smile*

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Birthday Breakfast at Fontina

For a change, I wanted to celebrate another year of my life over a hearty breakfast and so I did.

Le mustache. That is of course yours truly not acting like my age at Fontina. Can you guess how old I actually am?

My breakfast. Strips of crispy bacon topped with a sprig of weed (just kidding but seriously I have no idea what that is), three carefully piled pieces of bread, some mixed fruits (I ate the watermelon but gave the pineapple to my boyfriend because I don’t like pineapples) and a sunny-side up (of course my boyfriend ate this for me too).

The boyfriend faking a candid pose just to show off the watch I gifted him for our anniversary. I have already lost count on the number of times those decorative spikes stabbed me. No kidding.

His breakfast. Bite-sized burritos with that sprig of something again, some dips, a scoop of chili and a salad.

To start my day with a gorgeous breakfast like this was absolutely splendid. Yes to more birthday breakfasts to come please! 

Pancake House

Just last week, my boyfriend and I went to CDO just to watch Real Steel on a big screen. By the way, if you haven’t watched it yet… It’s about time you should because it’s a fun movie to watch!

So anyway, we arrived in CDO just about lunchtime and we immediately had brunch at Pancake House (Located here – Level 1, North Concourse Entrance, LimKetKai Center).

Okay… Normally, I would open a food blog with a photo of how the place looks like. But this post is an exception since I simply forgot to take some interior snapshots of Pancake House due to hunger. So instead, here’s their silverware on a piece of a napkin with their logo.

I was surprised and impressed with how fast their service is for a restaurant.

By the way, these are what we had…

Above is Pancake House’s Peach Waffle with a scoop of whipped cream on top then we drizzled it with some syrup. I honestly have no clue what syrup that was. All I know is that it was definitely not maple.

I like peaches. I like waffles. But my taste buds didn’t agree with the combination. I reckon it would have been better if it had a scoop of vanilla ice cream sitting on top rather than just plain whipped cream.

That is Seafood Gambero. Basically, it’s a marinara style pasta with mussel, shrimps, and cream dory.

I’m really torn with this dish. I kinda like it but don’t at the same time. I really wish they had more mussel. Seriously, just one piece of mussel?
And also, I absolutely wasn’t sure about the taste of fresh parsley. Fresh parsley was absolutely foreign to me until I had that pasta; I find its taste somehow distinctively odd…

Lastly, we had Salisbury Steak with some corn kernels, chopped carrots and a cup of rice on the side. We actually ordered some extra bacon strips and my boyfriend decided to put them on top of the steak.

The background story about the extra bacon:
We ordered them out of curiosity because I have this friend who said that it’s the best bacon he has ever tried.

On the other hand, it was the strangest bacon I ever had. It tasted so much like “chicharon” that I forgot I was eating bacon. I would rather buy a pack of honey-cured bacon at a supermarket and cook some for myself at home, to be honest. (But hey, if you don’t mind eating bacon tasting like “chicharon”, I swear it’s going to be totally fine.)

Then I was starting to get really disappointed until I tried the steak.
The meat was tender, cooked really nicely and I definitely enjoyed eating it sans the bacon strips.

For now, I have no final verdict about their food. They have so many items on their menu that I have yet to explore.

To know more about Pancake House and what they serve, click here.