About cagayan de oro
Whenever I go to Cagayan de Oro, I make sure to grab one of my ultimate guilty pleasures in life and that is Missy Bonbon’s freshly churned gelato!
Just look at all those sinful choices! I can hear them singing my name. If you feel overwhelmed on which one to pick, don’t be shy to ask for a free taste test.
Creamy, sweet and delicious. I simply can’t get enough of it. Goodness starts at 45 PHP only!
I KNOW. “Tarakumain sa Tadakuma” has just got to be the lamest pun title I ever came up with. And yeah, I just had to kinda force it. I bet you must have rolled your eyes. MOVING ON…
Tadakuma is a Japanese restaurant that just opened at Don Ramon Chavez Street, Cagayan de Oro City.
My best friend’s boyfriend, Miguel took my boyfriend and I there for lunch. Sadly, my best friend, Ritz was not with us because she is currently living and working in London (we miss you!).
Originally, my boyfriend and I planned to have our lunch at Kogi Bulgogi (a Korean restaurant that just opened at Lim Ket Kai). But sometimes, things just don’t go as planned. But hey, who said I was complaining?
Tadakuma is very cozy and modern. Actually, when we got there, it was REALLY busy. All the tables were full and so we had to wait for a table for a little while. By the way, the photo above was taken after everybody else already left the restaurant with happy tummies.
Nothing but a cute random bowl. If only I could take one home as a souvenir. Just kidding. Or am I really?
Oh, before I proceed to talk about what we had, can I ask you a teeny favor guys?
Umm.. can you please not hate me for forgetting the names of what we had? I was soooo hungry that everything just went completely out of my mind. I am crossing my fingers that the photos will just somehow make up for it. Here goes…
This is a bowl of plain minced raw fish on top of a bed of rice. And those two tiny blobs that you see on top are wasabi paste and pounded ginger. To eat this, you have to properly mix everything in together so to evenly distribute the flavor. It has just the right punch of heat and that zing of flavor coming from the pounded ginger. It’s like a different take on “kinilaw”. If you don’t have problems eating raw fish, you’ll definitely love this!
A bowl of ramen noodles with three thin slices of meat, a slice of fish cake, a slice of boiled egg and a few greens. It looked like it could need a little more stuff though. However, the soup is like no other.
So that’s all we had. Blurred in the background is Miguel’s Tempura Udon. For some reason, I can only remember his order. Shoot me.
Tadakuma is a tad cheaper than Ramen Tei. In average, everything costs around 200~300 PHP per dish. The servings are delicious and quite generous so you do get your money’s worth. To the last peso. Give this place a go and I’m sure you’ll love it too!
I know it’s been a long month of eerie silence here on blog. And it’s not because I’ve been lazy or I’ve completely forgotten about my blog and my readers…
It’s just because nothing much and too much has been happening at the same time. I don’t know if I’m making any sense but I’ll try to break it down for you ladies and gentlemen.
First, I honestly haven’t been going out because I’ve been so consumed by the fact that I now earn much less than before. It concerns me to not have savings anymore. I’ve been endlessly hunting for another online job since June. To my dismay, I still haven’t found any. And as much as I wanted to go out and dine, I couldn’t. I was ill and I lost most of my funds to medication. To top that off, my dad was hospitalized and I had to take care of him.
Second, I offered my wardrobe styling skills for free in exchange for an all-expense paid mini-vacation for 3 days. I might get to this soon.
But for now, I better stop my yapping and you guys better brace yourselves for some food porn RIGHT NOW!
BAM! Just like that.
Above were the bad boys my boyfriend and I had for lunch at Bourbon St. Bistro yesterday in celebration of our 14th month of togetherness.
We were lucky enough to still catch them at Rosario Arcade. I heard that they will move to a different location some time this August.
So anyway, what I like about Bourbon St. Bistro is their AMAZING service. I love it when food servers are polite and attentive, know what’s on the menu, know what’s available or not on that day and make good food suggestions. Plus, they serve food really fast too!
This was our appetizer. A plateful of Beef Quesadillas (you can have it in chicken if you wish) with two different dips. I like the green one better. I believe that’s guacamole? I’m sorry. I’ve never had guacamole before, okay? Don’t shoot. My boyfriend liked the red one more. I don’t know what that was but I know it’s not chili sauce. But if it was, then why the hell was it not spicy? Oh, I must tell you that every bite of their quesadilla is a happy burst of cheesy flavor and that the dips go very well with them. Yum!
Cajun Spicy Wings. I just recently discovered that I love anything with cajun. And no, the wings weren’t spicy to me nor to my boyfriend at all. But the wings are really tender and good. I like that the wings came with a salad because I love salads!
A closer view of the dreamy looking wings with the salad right behind it.
Their I-don’t-know-what-you-call-this seafood pasta. Well, don’t blame me. The dish sounded very French to me and I can’t speak nor spell French. And this wasn’t even in their menu. This was a food server’s suggestion. Not bad. I liked it better than the Seafood Gambero from Pancake House. It’s just the parsley that I don’t like about this dish. I can’t explain why I don’t like parsley. I just don’t. But I realllly want to love it. And I am trying.
Here is a more delicious view of the seafood pasta.
And I almost forgot to end this post with concrete evidence of us dining in the restaurant…
A candid shot.
Final verdict? NOMNOM. I highly recommend this restaurant and I want to sample all of their dishes. Bye for now!
There happens to be a cockroach lurking somewhere in the house as I write so I have to make this post as succinct as possible. I swear a cockroach invasion shall bring me to my untimely demise!
Thai Me Up, as the pun suggests, is a restaurant that serves Thai cuisine. But just recently, they have expanded and opened Fil Me Up to cater Filipino cuisine as well. Whoever came up with the names is a genius!
I like how the Fil Me Up sign is designed. I personally think it’s well thought-out.
This is definitely not how I remember the interiors to look like when I was here for the first time back a year or so. I believe they redesigned it in order to bring that Filipino ambiance.
My boyfriend and I chose to have our lunch here outdoors in a gazebo just for kicks. We could have been more comfortable eating indoors but who can say no to this? Come on, everybody knows it’s perfect for picture taking!
Scrumptious lunch for two (then three when my friend Ellen finally arrived to join with us).
From right to left that’s Garlic Spare Ribs, Chicken Chili Paste Fried Rice and Thai Me Up Chili Prawns.
When I looked up as I was eating, I saw this beautiful lamp above of me.
My gorgeous friend Ellen and I on a swing after enjoying our hefty lunch.
Random note: Such knobby knees and manly legs I’ve got. Pffft.
My boyfriend and I acting like tourists next to a calesa with an imaginary horse unicorn.
So, I should end here now before the cockroach would suddenly decide to come and attack me. Don’t miss to experience (preferably with friends and family) Thai Me Up /slash/ Fil Me Up. Awesome food. Fantastic place. Something you’ll never regret I swear.
With the insane amount of work that I still have yet to do, I felt the need to blog just to keep myself together.
So where have I left off? Oh yeah!
I just oughta randomly show you this beautiful chocolate door of the room where we spent our night together at Mallberry Suite Business Hotel as I mentioned here.
And here’s a little room sneak peek as well. Oh hello. That’s us right there having an obligatory mirror shot. I guess this was taken before we before left for SM.
Side note: Our main business in SM was to avail of their “Advantage Card” and that’s about it. We really didn’t stay there too long because we needed to be back to the hotel before 9 P.M. so we could have dinner at Cafe Laguna. Gladly, we made it back to the hotel before Cafe Laguna’s closing time with some time to spare.
Okay, here’s what we had for dinner…
Fresh and crunchy green mango slices with the perfect “bagoong” (shrimp paste) for dipping as our appetizer. Behind is the BEST fresh green mango shake that I’ve had for ages! No kidding. The last time I had green mango shake that good was in Davao back when I was still in my teens. Gosh, I feel so old already.
Here is a platter of crispy and crunchy “chicharong bulaklak”. How come I don’t remember it to be this deliciously good when I first had this years ago?? I reckon I must had a dysfunctional sense of taste back then.
I love how this “hipon na sinigang” (shrimp tamarind soup) just had the right amount of tanginess and seasoning albeit I wished it had more shrimps and vegetables.
Woah, I can’t believe that was all we had for dinner. Wish we had more.
Since there was no more Night Cafe, we took advantage of this coffee shop inside the hotel (thank goodness it was still open around 2 A.M.) and ordered smoothies and some pasta to be delivered to our room.
Sorry I completely forgot the name of the pasta… But anyway, I think the cook must have accidentally slipped chili oil instead of olive oil. It was ridiculously spicy even for someone like me who has high tolerance to heat. It really made me wonder how it would’ve rated on the Scoville scale…
After having our midnight snack and a few jump shots later, we fell to sleep.
We decided to skip breakfast the following day because we woke up around 10 A.M. and we still have yet to bathe and pack our stuff. And so after everything, we had lunch at Kagay-anon Restaurant and went malling.
And as usual, we ended our day with our fave coffee blends at Bo’s coffee (I find Starbucks is a little too overrated but I do go there every once in a while because I’m a hypocrite like that).
This beautiful solid wooden staircase directly leads up to Kagay-anon Restaurant, a restaurant that serves great and delicious Filipino dishes. It is located at Rosario Strip, Lim Ket Kai Complex, Cagayan de Oro City.
This restaurant was actually selected as one of the top ten restaurants in the Philippines with the best “Pinakbet”.
Naturally, my boyfriend and I don’t want to miss out on any of the best foods that the Philippines has to offer and so we really had to scurry on our way there to see it for ourselves.
Because of the vibrant colors of the vegetables, I can absolutely tell that only the freshest ingredients were used for this “pinakbet” .
The presentation of the “pinakbet” was definitely something new to me. I love how this dish of mixed vegetables with bits of pork meat and a decent amount of “bagoong” was carefully and uniquely presented inside of a fresh squash gourd.
And for someone who isn’t really a big fan of vegetables, I am surprised that I like it. It’s really good actually. No wonder why it’s the best!
Another item that we picked out from the menu was sizzling “sisig”.
Oh my goodness… I’ll tell you what, this is the BEST “sisig” I have ever had!
I don’t know how they managed to elevate the taste of what seems to be just an ordinary dish (popularly known as a “pulutan”) but this is certainly how “sisig” should be done!
Notice that even after we mixed the egg in, you can tell from the photo that the “sisig” still had that creamy texture even after the carryover cooking was done. Really a delight!
A plate of grilled prawns with lemon-butter sauce was another thing on our table. I was absolutely guilty of having most of the prawns. I wasn’t able to stop myself.
And finally to top off this feast for two, we had this stellar “halo-halo” for dessert. Served in a carved coconut shell, without a doubt, this monster is a head turner. This had almost everything that a “halo-halo” should have; The cherry on top was just a bonus. Absolutely irresistibly stunning!
I do recommend this place and I can’t wait to go back there to try all of the good stuff that I missed!
Remember this blog post that I once submitted as an entry for a food blog contest?
Well, I am very proud to announce that both my boyfriend and I made it through the first round of the Sooo Pinoy’s Search for the Ultimate Food Blogger Contest!
Just imagine how ecstatic and excited we were when we found out that we are actually contenders for the second round! The moment we got hold of the news, we immediately prepared our own food trip itinerary set for the weekend.
So fast forward, Friday came and off we went to Cagayan de Oro as planned. After what seemed to be an eternity in the bus (the ride was wayyy longer than usual due to road repairs), we were finally able to take a taxi from Bulu-a Bus Terminal to The Mallberry Suite Business Hotel so we could leave our bags and book us a room for the night.
FYI: Our food trip was actually a two-day thing because that’s how we roll and, also, we wanted to experience the “Night Cafe” together so that explains why we had to stay for the night because it’s more convenient that way (sadly it wasn’t until later on that night when we found out that it has actually been discontinued since Sendong which is pretty disappointing).
It was already way past lunch time by the time we were able to secure a room. Absolutely famished, we decided to put something Filipino on hold for lunch because we wanted something that would really make both of our grumbling tummies happy. Through a friend’s recommendation, we had our lunch at Ramen Tei.
Ramen Tei serves authentic (and I must add really awesome) Japanese food. The place is really consistent with the Japanese theme. Even the waiters kinda look Japanese! Insane! Bet Ramen Tei’s management screens all of their staff members aesthetically first before proceeding to hire them…
Nothing but a tray of Japanese condiments. There’s something different about their vinegar. It has some sweet notes to it. It’s the kind of vinegar that doesn’t have an overpowering taste; Instead, it complements the food perfectly. I wonder where I can get that…
A dish of assorted mind-blowing sushi. The best sushi I had ever!
A delicious battalion of mixed maki. I couldn’t stop helping myself to these! They were just really, really good!
A closer look. Gah, I am missing them right now!
I hate to abruptly end this post right here but… Surprise! This is just sort of a teaser of what we had. Expect another post within two days.
It was Day Four and we barely had any sleep from last night. All the vigor and excitement for our planned Boracay get-away quickly faded away when we heard that our hometown, Iligan City, was deeply stricken by calamity.
PAG-ASA only gave a heads-up about an upcoming storm on the eleventh hour almost literally. But both my boyfriend and I never took that warning seriously because tropical storms in the Philippines normally go up North and never bother the part of the country where we live. To top that off, Iligan has been known to be closely guarded by nature and has been dubbed “Typhoon-free”.
But on that dreadful night, this tropical storm named Sendong decided to take a strange detour. Nobody was equipped for what was going to happen that night.
Sendong came like a thief in the night. It severely hit both Iligan and our neighboring city, Cagayan de Oro. The constant heavy downpour, strong winds and power interruption during an unholy hour was the perfect blend for disaster. Over a thousand of lives were instantly lost (and some are still missing up to now) in a blink of an eye.
People were very quick to post photos of the storm’s aftermath. We not only saw that Sendong drowned both cities in muddy flood waters, but it also dragged along with it tons and tons of logs from the mountains which destroyed everything that crossed their path… It was very ugly and heartbreaking.
Obviously, we were both in shock and in sheer disbelief.
I never knew about the illegal logging activities going on in Lanao del Sur until Iligan and Cagayan de Oro felt the fury of Mother Nature. I have never hated illegal loggers this much in my entire life and I am still extremely indignant of what had happened. Their selfish acts for personal gain has stained their hands with so much blood. I believe that Karma shall slap them in the face with a mighty sledgehammer andI cannot wait for the day of their retribution.
We really wanted to go back home right there and then, to be with our families and to help out our fellow Iliganons but can’t. The soonest that we could go back home was not until three days later.
So we took solace in making long-distance phone calls to our families and friends to feel assured that they were okay… And indeed they were.
With a big sense of relief, it was easier to carry on with our vacation. However, my boyfriend decided to postpone our trip to Boracay anyway because of the bad weather that day. Instead, we went to Capiz (a little earlier than initially planned) which is just a 3-hour bus ride away from Iloilo City (but depending on traffic and weather conditions it could only be 2 hours).
Hello and welcome to the Seafood Capital of the Philippines (Roxas is the capital city of Capiz) where every mollusk, fish, crustacean and everything edible that comes from the sea here are probably mutants on steroids! Nothing is exempted from being jumbo in size. Not even shrimps! Oxymoronic, I know.
To all seafood lovers of the world, this is paradise! Fish, shrimp, squid, oysters, scallops and everything seafood are priced ridiculously rock-bottom here that they’re almost for free! Must I mention I blitzkrieg them all. Hey, it’s not everyday I could have “last supper” meals you know.
In this post, I won’t be showering you with photos of food (because it won’t suit the black and white theme too well) so just simply take my word for it.
Pedicabs are the main mode of transporation in Capiz. I bet there must be only 1 four-wheeled vehicle, be it a jeepney or a private car, for every 20 pedicabs at the very least.
La Capiz Provincial Capitol. This is located in the heart of Roxas City. In its vicinity is Colegio de la Purisma Concepcion (a school where my boyfriend finished his highschool), Parish of Immaculate Conception Metropolitan Cathedral and a plaza if I remember it correctly.
La Museo de Santa Monica. This is now located in Pan-ay, Capiz. We did not have the opportunity to take a look inside unfortunately. This is just right next to a beautiful church established in the 1500s.
Glorious isn’t it? That’s now a wrap for our Capiz trip. Up next is Alkan and Boracay!
Have I left you hanging? For bits and pieces that I missed, you can check out my fave Filipino travel blogger’s post here on his trip to Capiz. Enjoy!
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.