AN ODE TO MY YAYA

Parts lifted from an old facebook album

This is me and my Yaya Kit when I was four years old. 

        I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to someone who has a very special place in my heart. This is the woman that changed my diaper when I was a baby. She took me to school when I was a child and waited for me until the bell rang. She would cook me my favorite meal upon request. Plain and simply, she took care of me. I wouldn't be the man I am today without her unconditional love and selfless nurturing. Who is she, you ask?

          She's my Yaya.

RINA'S GREENBELT DATE WITH EDWARD, JACOB &.. FELIX!?

         Convincing Rina to leave the house without Baby Rain is next to impossible. But I can't blame her either. Rain is still just one month and five days old, and we're both first time parents, so even a trip to the bathroom that takes longer than it should can induce the feeling of panic. But even when Rain was still a little speck in her mommy's tummy, Rina was already making plans on who would take care of our daughter on the weekend of November 20. 

     Why? Because Breaking Dawn Part 1 would be showing that weekend. 

      I'm not ashamed to admit that I've read all the Twilight Books, and save for the first one, I actually enjoyed them. The movies, on the other hand, are another story. But Rina and her sister Chaikka are crazy over both, and both were asking me to reserve tickets for "Breaking Dawn" as early as the closing credits of the midnight screen of "Eclipse" in 2010.

        I bought a voucher from CashCashPinoy to the restaurant, "Felix" in Greenbelt 5 a couple of months back, hoping to use it during one of our movie trips. (After a few experiences in different cinemas, we resolved that, with its online reservation and forgive me for a lack of a better term but its "Classier" crowd, Greenbelt 3 Cinemas would always be our default choice when wanting to watch a movie). 

     So since everything just seemed to be timed so perfectly, Rina finally got to go on her date with Edward, Jacob, and Felix. 

    (Oh and yeah, I was there too.)

WELCOME TO THE PHILIPPINES, JAMBA JUICE!

Warning: Long intro up ahead

           So it's been almost a month since Rina gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Rain, who with the grace of God was delivered in good health for both Mother and baby. With no disrespect to all the other babies out there, but she is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen in my entire life (I'm biased, I know). I'll be writing about that experience soon, but this time, I wanted to share with you another story. 


      Before Baby Rain was born, the baby of our family was our little Shi Tzhu, "Schatzi". He has accompanied us in a number of our food adventures, most notably during our trip to Uncle Cheffy and most notably, during Mercato Centrale's "Doggie Love" days. Schatzi would sleep in our room with us (not in our bed though), and before we would turn the lights out, I would give him his "Denta" treat, which he anxiously waits for every night 


      The night Rain was born was only Schatzi's second time to sleep without us in the same room with him (The first time was when we were in Singapore). According to our helper, he cried the entire night.


      As soon as we got out of the hospital we stayed a couple of weeks in my parents place in Antipolo. We brought Schatzi along with us so he could play with his brother, Spike (owned by MY brother, Ryan). Our plan was to keep him busy so he doesn't feel like we're neglecting him. With Spike there, it was easy to keep Schatzi pre-occupied (The two of them would rumble around to the point where they look like just one big ball of fur). But as soon as we got back home, it was clear that Schatzi was looking for the attention that we would shower on him in the past. 


     With Baby Rain in still such a delicate stage, we don't allow Schatzi in the room anymore. In fact, we don't allow him upstairs anymore. I love Schatzi deeply but it's obvious that he's not the most hygenic creature in the world. You can tell he's feeling a little bit sad, yet he lights up the minute one of us calls out his name. 


      Last Sunday morning, Rina and I decided to take Schatzi for a change. It wasn't easy leaving Baby Rain and home, but she was sleeping so soundly, and we knew we would only be gone for an hour or so, so we headed off to one of our favorite places to take him, Bonifacio High Street.


     I realized it would be the best time to try the recently opened juice bar in the new section of High Street, the world famous "Jamba Juice".  

(warned ya it was a long intro)

THE CHIC-BOY MADNESS

           The weeks before Rina gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Renee' Amelie aka Rain, we would have to go for her check ups with her doctor in QC. Naturally, we would eat out immediately after, which is how we ended up going to "Kanzhu Hand Pulled Noodles" (I'm still craving for their Lamb Dumplings) and "Size Matters" (I still need to try their "Breakfast In Bed" with an English Muffin). We usually head out to QC by 8am so we can be at the Doc's office by around 9am. It gets really packed, so we try to make it a point to get there as early as possible, just to make sure our lunch plans don't get hassled. Unfortunately during this trip, the doctor texted Rina after we had left already, saying that it would be best for us to get to her office by 12noon instead of 9am, throwing a monkey wrench in our lunch plans. 


      Instead, to pass the time, we decided to visit my grandfather who happens to live in QC as well. We then decided to head off to the doctor's office by 11:30, to get there, "Early". Unfortunately, all her other patients were thinking the same thing, so technically we were already late. The receptionist told us we would be waiting for roughly around an hour and a half or so, and advised us to get some lunch nearby and wait for her text. 


     With my growling stomach starting to alarm the other patients in the room, we headed downstairs where we saw the huge sign directly in front of our doctor's building.. "Chic-Boy". 

BFAST & BFURIOUS: THE MYSTERIES OF THE AYALA TRIANGLE III

This is what we did the day before Rina gave birth.. Coincidence? 

Well, there's a good chance Rina stuffed herself so much, 

that there just wasn't any room for the food and a 6lb baby anymore

           Just last week I found myself alone in the office early in the morning, starving, and dreaming of a breakfast buffet. I asked some of the members of the Pickiest Eater facebook page for suggestions of places with breakfast buffets, and a few came up with some very good recommendations. It was Genevieve Emeroso's suggestion that really stuck with me. Gen simply said "Chef Laudico", and just like that, bells went ringing in my head, and I remembered been wanting to go to Chef Laudico's "BFast" at Ayala Triangle for the longest time (Thanks Gen!)!


        After seeing my post, Rina too was attacked by breakfast buffet cravings, and naturally blamed me. She said since I was the one who put the thoughts in her head, it was my responsibility to get them out. So being the dutiful husband I am, right after hearing mass in preparation for the birth of our daughter Rain, we set off on a beautiful Sunday morning to Ayala Triangle  for our long awaited assault on Chef Laudico's breakfast BFast Buffet...


 For what might be our last Pickiest Eater adventure in a long time..

AIDA'S CHICKEN: BACOLOD'S BEST AT MAKATI CINEMA SQUARE!

        As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, moving our office to Arnaiz Avenue brought along the challenge of finding decent and affordable spots to eat, after leaving the comfort of Palanca street.. Our home for Four years. Good thing there were a few of the old reliables nearby, such as Max's, Pancake House, and The Old Spaghetti House, but apart from that, I found some fantastic places out of the ordinary, such as Kitch Cafe and Ukkokei Ramen Ron. 

   What I haven't told you about, was the very first place I had lunch at during my first day at my new office, which was a restaurant at the lower floor of Makati Cinema Square, called "Aida's Chicken".

  I never told you guys about it because of two reasons: The first being I hated what I ordered, and the second is because I forgot to take pictures, mainly because my camera phone was crappy back then (Thank you Samsung for bringing to the world the Galaxy S2!).

   For my first meal there with my giant Joel and his CG team, I ordered the Adobong Pata rice meal (P145), and I didn't like it at all. In fact, I hated it so much, I ended up stepping out and ordering from one of those 25 Peso Siomai stall in front of them, and eating it with my rice instead. 

   So after that experience, everytime someone from the office would rave about Aida's Chicken, I would continue to be baffled. One time my office mate Naomi asked if I wanted to go with them to Aida's Chicken for lunch, and I politely declined, saying I didn't like the food. She said it was easily among the best Chicken Inasal she had ever tried. I told her I didn't try their inasal, I tried their Adobong Pata. 

   So she said, "Eh sira ka pala eh. Pupunta ka sa Aida's Chicken, di mo titikman yung chicken nila? Kaya nga CHICKEN nakalagay sa pangalan ng restaurant nila, di ba? Kala ko pa naman, "Blogger" ka?". (I'm sure the people who personally know Naomi can actually hear her in their heads saying this to me as they read it.)

  For those who don't speak tagalog, she basically called me an idiot for not trying their chicken inasal dish, which is why the place has the word "CHICKEN" in their name in the first place. She ended her statement with, "I thought you were supposed to be a "Blogger". 

  So there I was, standing there, humbled by my office mate who questioned my capacity as a food blogger.. but the funny part about it was, she was totally right. 

  So the next time Naomi and the rest of the gang asked if I wanted to go with them to Aida's she was pretty surprised when I simply replied, "Game". 

HELL YEAH, SIZE MATTERS!

           One day, I was at home with Rina minding my own business when my Cousin Paolo tweeted me a picture of a Sausage burger that looked pretty bad ass. He said he wasn't sure what the name of the place was, but wanted to schedule a lunch there with Rina and I. Kuya Paolo has been with me in numerous food trips, including John & Yoko, Ukkokei and most recently, Kanzhu, and we always have a blast when we go on food trips so I was really Gung Ho about going to try this place with him. 

     That following week, my friend Rain showed me an article on the net about a place that featured Pork Sausage Burgers instead of your usual 100% beef patties called "Size Matters". I looked back at all my clues, put two and two together and realized that this was the place Paolo was talking about (Watching all those episodes of "Murder She Wrote" finally paid off). Since Rina's doctor is in Quezon City, a place that I've mentioned I don't frequent anymore, I decided that every time we go, we'd try a restaurant there. The first one was Kanzhu, then next on our list would be Size Matters. Our next visit to the doctor was the following Saturday, so I accepted the fact that I wouldn't be trying the sausage patty burger until another week.

      But as it turned out, the food gods had a plan for me. 

       

     Just like it was ripped from a food version of the movie, "Serendipity", The popular group buying site "Groupon Philippines decided to unleash a "Size Matters: Flame Grilled Sausage Burgers" Promo in their site (Some things are just truly meant to be)! As you can imagine, I snapped it up immediately without a second thought. Unfortunately, the voucher for my order arrived sometime within the next day, and I wasn't able to check it right away. So by the time Rina made reservations (You need to give the voucher number to make reservations), their Saturday was already fully booked. 

     Not willing to wait another week, I told Rina to make the reservation for Sunday. By hook or by crook, I was going to try those sausage burgers (All great love stories have obstacles.. It's like "Size Matters" was the "Princess" and I was the "Stable Boy").  

THE ART OF KANZHU HAND PULLED NOODLES

        It was a rainy Saturday morning when Rina and I drove to Quezon City for her doctor's appointment. I don't go to QC very much anymore.. which is sad because I spent four years living in my grandfather's house before moving to our place in Antipolo. We lived near the Timog-Tomas Morato area, and even back then, it was lined with a number of restaurants, with the more popular ones being Mario's, Dulcinea, and Anabel's. 

     Nowadays, the area is loaded with an eclectic selection of restaurants to choose from. It's a little bit annoying knowing that there are hundreds of these wonderful restaurants for me to try, but most of them weren't there when I was living just a few blocks away from them. 

      One such restaurant, is Kanzhu Hand Pulled Noodles. I hadn't been to that area since my visit to Penpen, so I was fortunate to find out about this restaurant from the Group Buying site, CashCashPinoy. 

    Forgive me for sharing yet another adventure from a Chinese restaurant, but I wanted to use my voucher before it expired.

 Besides, I couldn't resist the allure of authentic "Hand pulled noodles".

THE PICKIEST EATER ANNOUNCEMENT

No offense to all the other babies in the world, 

but this is the most beautiful one I've ever seen in my entire life.

Meet Renee' Amelie Zamora. My Baby, "Rain". 

Good Day Picky (and not so) Picky Eaters!

   Rina is on her 39th week of pregnancy, so we're expecting the Pickiest Little Eater any day soon. The birth of my daughter Rain will undoubtedly open a brand new chapter in my life that my wife and I are looking forward to. This is more exciting than the first time I went to Spiral Buffet, or when I returned to Harbor City in Cebu. This level of excitement is in a league of its own.


   With that being said, Please do not be surprised if I would abruptly need to go on hiatus for an undetermined amount of time. I will still most probably be posting on The Pickiest Eater In The World Facebook Page from time to time, so please "Like" that page or Follow me on Twitter for Updates. 

   I honestly have no clue when or how long I'll be gone, but I wouldn't be surprised if I find ways to keep posting reviews even from the hospital (I heard there are some great restaurants within the vicinity of Medical City hehe) or something. 


   After doing this for more than a year, I can't imagine NOT blogging about food. True there are times that I get lazy to write, but the moment I get going, and when I get comments on a post or in my Facebook fan page, it just really reaffirms my love for food blogging.  


      I have great plans for this blog, which are slowly being set into motion to make it even bigger and better, with the capabilities to reach an even wider audience. I can't really divulge anything because nothing is final yet, but I honestly do hope everything me and my friends are working on pushes through. Hopefully by early next year, my little "project" shall be revealed. Please stay tuned for that :)


      Please don't get this post wrong. I know it may sound like it, but I'm not saying goodbye. In fact, I'm going to be posting a new restaurant adventure with in the next couple of days. I'm just saying that Rina is giving birth soon, and I'll be gone for awhile.. Try not to miss me so much hehe.. 


    Thanks for everything guys! Please do pray for the safe delivery of our Baby Rain, as well as the health of Rina.. and as for being first time parents.. Wish us both luck! 


    I've got a lot of eating left to do, so ya'll can't get rid of me just yet!

See ya soon! 

      

THE PICKIEST EATER VS. THE BRAZIL BRAZIL! CHURRASCO PLATTER

       Good Day. It is with much pride to annouce that this post marks a first for The Pickiest Eater In The World. This is the first time (to my recollection) that I went to a restaurant and ordered ONE dish. 

      Do NOT adjust your screens, my friends, you read that right. That's ONE DISH to SHARE with Rina, ladies and gentlemen. 

         And guess what? 

       We couldn't even finish it!  

  That's the kind of madness that happens when you enter the wonderful world of Brazil: Brazilian Churrasco!