Delicious Bangus

Lately I have discovered two delicious bangus (milkfish) dishes that I have fallen in love with, both are boneless and cooked so much differently from one another, even my daughter loves them both.

my dad introduced me to the deliciously char grilled bangus of Pixie’s sinugba. (I will upload my own pictures the next time I buy one) the cost more or less PHP 190 Pesos for one whole grilled bangus that is perfectly deboned and grilled with tomatoes and onions.

Photo Taken From: ClickTheCity

When you order the Inihaw na Bangus make sure to order the one without the “kaliskis” or Scales so that you will able to eat the dish without problems. And make sure to order the freshly grilled one, if you have to wait, wait, because the freshly cooked ones are the most delicious ones, besides if you order one that has been sitting in the store for a bit, it might not taste as good as it should. Enjoy this whole Bangus with a soysauce with calamansi (small citrus fruit) or patis (fish sauce) with calamsi, and you sure will eat a ton.

The next Bangus dish that I have recently started falling in love with is the Century Bangus Tocino which was introduced to me by my cousin who posted pictures of her daughter enjoying a hefty meal with rice and tomatoes with the fish tocino.

Photo taken from: STYLEBIBLE.PH

I have been so intrigued at how this fish will taste like after it has been made into a tocino. We are all very familiar with Pampanga’s Best’s Pork and Chicken Tocino that we have grown to love over the years, but a fish that is made into a tocino is a new concept. So I tried it and lo and behold loved it.

My daughter also loved the fish most especially with a bowl of sliced tomatoes to go with it, and it wasn’t fishy tasting at all, it tasted like any regular tocino and it was really good. It was not too sweet and it was well balanced in flavor in every way and tastes like what tocino should taste like. Although not all groceries around the metro has this in their freezer, you will have to go to bigger groceries like SM Hypermarket or Pioneer Center or other bigger groceries, because I tried puregold and they don’t carry the product - at around PHP 110 Pesos for 1 pack of 1 Kg Bangus Tocino it is definitely worth the effort.

Muchas Gracias Mary Grace

Yesterday my college friends and I decided to meet for a movie date. I met becky at around 1 PM at Red Ribbon near their house, then went on our way to Alabang Town Center. We got our Salt Tickets for the screening at 3:15 PM and decided to eat something while waiting for our other friend (Cess) to arrive. Becky said, do you like cakes? Of course I liked cakes LOL :) who doesn’t right? She said she can’t wait to show me a slice of heaven.

We walked from the Movie Ticket Concierge to the front of the Alabang Town Center. I asked her if we were eating the slice of heaven in starbucks, she said no. As we were around the starbucks area, instead of going right to starbucks we turned left and entered a wonderfully decorated and charming restaurant called Mary Grace.

We were seated at a cozy table just beside the side window and browsed the Menu, Becky already knew what she wanted to make me try, so I said we should order something else like a pasta or a sandwich just to have variety on our pallets. Then I decided on ordering the Seafood Pasta (PHP 244 per plate) - A medley of fresh clams, shrimp, squid, mussels, and cream dory which lend their flavors to a tomato based sauce which is enhanced by herbs, olives. and mushrooms. Sounds delectable right? It truly is, I only forgot to take a picture of the wonderful dish, because I got excited to eat it as soon as the plate was set on our table. The pasta is really good and the noodles is really very well prepared, my only problem with the dish is that I hoped there would be two pieces of shrimp. I guess they weren’t telling alie when they said in the description - A medley of clams, SHRIMP, SQUID, mussels, etc. It really only had one shrimp and 1 slice of squid. But the dish is really good, Becky and I were able to finish the whole dish.

After eating the plateful of pasta, Becky and I dove in to her slice of heaven that is called Chocolate Truffle Cake (PHP 194 per slice). When it was first set on the table I thought it looked like any ordinary cake. I tried a piece and it was really heaven. The Cake was served to us initially before the pasta arrived, which made a bit of sense because cake takes a shorter amount of time to slice than to prepare the whole pasta dish. We set it aside for a while to eat the pasta, so the cake was sitting on our table for a bit before we finally devoured it. But to my surprise at first bite of the cake, the slice always seemed cool on my mouth, and every bite you take will make you appreciate the goodness of the cake because it melts in your mouth. The cake is very moist and very balanced in a way that the chocolate flavor doesn’t over power the truffles and the truffles doesn’t over power the chocolate, and the sweetness of the cake is just right - not too sweet not too bland.

This is a real treat for me, being able to spend a fabulous day with my college friends, and experiencing a new and exciting restaurant that I would surely love to visit again.

Photo taken from Mary Grace Cafe Facebook Fan Page

Who's Joey Pepperoni?

Image from: Joey Pepperoni Facebook Fan Page

Today I spent the day with my daughter. We went to SM Southmall just so Nike could enjoy a full day of fun, rides and slides. I initially took her to SM Storyland, and contemplated on just buying her two tickets for two rides for PHP 80 or buying her a ride all you can ticket for PHP 250. You can guess what I chose, ofcourse I wanted my daughter to enjoy the day so I bought her the unlimited pass. When she got tired of riding the rides at Storyland I took her to Kids Village (a play and slide place) at the 3rd level of SM Southmall its like a small play gym with a wooden children’s play house a wooden slide and ball pool and a few toys and rockers. I also bought her the unlimited pass that she used to spend 2 hours full of sliding and playing, she even got bullied by a little boy who kicked her back, and threw toys at her, but Nike remained calm and composed, she just ignored the mean boy, she didn’t cry and she just continued playing.

So after a tiresome afternoon both Nike and I were HUNGRY and thirsty. While walking I saw this advertisement of Joey Pepperoni indicating that they had these 99 peso meal with drinks and a buy 1 take 1 pizza for 250 pesos so I got intrigued and the picture looked really yummy. So Nike and I made our way to Joey Pepperoni.

Nike pointed to the first thing that she saw that has rice, The Chicken Strips with Rice and it looked yummy enough so I ordered it and I ordered an 8-inch The works Pizza - It is called the works because it had mushrooms, pepporoni, olives, bacon and all the works. We were asked to wait for 20 minutes for our order, probably because thats how long it usually takes them to cook a meal to order so I agreed, I told them it was okay.

After the 20 minutes was up, we received our orders, and wow, was I disappointed. Not only was the Chicken Strips Dry-Looking it was overcooked, dry and it was not presented well. I forgot to take a picture of the food after it was delivered to us, because Nike was already hungry. But it was an ultimate disappointment. Even the rice was dry, it felt like it was heated from the microwave, it had an unnatural hotness to it. To top off the disappointing look of the dish, the garlic that was meant to be part of the chicken strips was BURNT, it wasn’t the crunchy golden brown garlic that you would expect from a restaurant. It was really burnt, giving the dish a burnt taste to it.

Image of the burnt garlic

Thats what I can say about their 99-Peso Chicken Strips with Rice meal. I do not recommend it at all. But the pizza was okay, it wasn’t the best pizza I have tasted but when you’re hungry it would be a good enough pizza to eat. It tasted normal and it was not burnt. Of course I wasn’t able to take a picture of the whole thing when it was delivered because I was really hungry, but I was able to take a picture of a slice.

The whole pizza was good enough to finish, although it wasn’t something that I would go out of my way of to buy.

We were able to quench our thirst and hunger, but it was not an experience that we are happy about, I probably would not be eating in Joey’s Pepperoni again soon, but I will definitely try them again, someday - because I remember I already ate there before probably around 2 years ago, and the experience was not as bad as this one, but their food is just average tasting. 

Evolution of I commit to change

I commit to change is a Fan Page in Facebook that I discovered the day after it was founded. The page is so unique from the other fan pages in Facebook because they encouraged people like myself to commit to change to become better people. It didn’t matter what your commitment was, they encouraged and supported their fans to post their own personal commitments to change and to keep them updated with their fans progress. They even gave daily prizes to those they feel had the most unique commitments and they also offered a huge prize to commitment stories and blogs submitted to their page.

At first I thought this page was too good to be true, but I was hooked, addicted to check their page everyday and check on my fellow fans commitments. I have seen a lot of inspiring commitments (2nd page) and some are hugely unique. I even submitted my own daily commitments and submitted my own life long commitment story. And I stuck to their page like glue, I kept them updated with my progress and I kept reading others commitments on a daily basis.

But before I got hooked, I thought to myself, who would start such a cause-conscious fan page and give this outrageous prizes. It made me wonder, but I felt good whenever I was in their page that it didn’t really matter. They helped me reach a point in my life where my daughter and myself have been able to rekindle our love for each other and we are in a good place because of the encouragement of the people of I commit to change and my fellow fans.

Now that their daily commitment promotion is almost over, I thought, what would be next? Would people stop supporting the page because they will no longer be giving out freebies, I felt sad for a short while, because I honestly did not want the fan page to die, it is like a second home to me. But lo and behold they introduce a new tab in their fan page called the 14 Day Commitment, which had this slogan:



And I thought, wow! I’m glad the fan page is continually evolving and that it is now introducing new concepts to us, and most, if not all of the page fans and supporters is getting more and more excited about what the page has in store for us.

Now we are seeing a lot more growth in the page as they introduce the Mystery Shampoo 14-Day Commitment Challenge, and I am more excited than ever. I can’t wait to be part of this amazing uncovering, and everyone can be a part of the pages’ growth too, just join us and let’s experience the growth together.

Besides joining the I commit to change fan page, we can also join the unveiling of the Mystery Shampoo, not only can we be part of something amazing, but we can also get the chance to win cool prizes by joining the movement and referring friends.

Here are the list of prizes:

• 1 Winner of Blackberry Bold


• 2 Winners of 5,000 Ayala EGC


• 2 Winners of IPod Shuffle


• 3 Winners of The Spa Gift Certificate


• 3 Winners of Enjoy Philippines Card


• 3 Winners of Moleskine

There will be a total of 14 winners after this promotion is over, and not only will you be able to win things, at the I Commit To Change Fan Page you can and will meet tons of friends that will help you become a better person and support you with your personal commitment to change, they have the done the same for me.

Meredith and Me (Grey's Anatomy)

I have recently started watching the full series of Grey’s Anatomy and I am really enjoying myself. I actually just started watching Season 1 last Tuesday (the same tuesday that I brought my dad to the hospital) and I can’t stop watching it. I stay up late at night until its almost done actually just so I can continue watching. I have already finished the full 9 episodes of season 1, the full 27 episodes of season 2 and now is currently watching Episode 15 of season 3.

This series is highly recommended to everyone, it is comedic, dramatic, traumatic, exciting, boring, exhilarating, tear-jerking, and annoying all at the same time. It is filled with gorgeous people that you would love to look at (well except George). I don’t really like George, not the character but the actor LOL, Sorry!



I initially didn’t like Cristina - The Korean Intern, because she seemed so stiff and unkind. But the moment I saw her cry non-stop during one episode in Season 2, I started liking her. Then started hated her again on Season 3 during the first few episodes because of her controlling nature (when she was controlling Burke).

I also hated The red-head wife doctor, Adison Montgomery-Shepherd, maybe out of principle. The series is after all about Meredith Grey who we discovered was a mistress of Derek Shepherd on Season 2. But I am slowly starting to not hate Adison in season 3. She finally was given a likable character.

I also wanted to hate the Nazi - Dr. Bailey but you can never hate this resident. She is strict and soft at the same time, very motherly and very smart. Even her interns (Meredith’s group) who was initially afraid of her, started to love her and respect her, as was shown in season 2 during the few episodes shown where Dr. Bailey was in Maternity leave after giving birth to his on screen son Tucker - which by the way she really did give birth in real life.

In season 3 I also started hating Izzi - the hot blonde Doctor-model who lost her Fiance Denny in Season 2 due to some heart complications. She started acting crazy when Denny was still alive and I wanted to kick her ass. She is starting to recover her character around the 10th episode onwards of Season 3.

George, I have nothing much to say about him besides the Meredith-Obsessed love sick puppy. My initial impression of him is he is not bad, but I don’t like the actor, so I don’t pay much attention to the character. But if I had to summarize, he seemed like a wimp who has no say in anything, which he later on disproved during the few episodes where his father was dying.

And the Hottie Patootie Alex - the Hunk of the group does not leave much of an impression on me, except he is the type of character that everyone would have a love-hate relationship with. One minute you are so in love with his hunky arrogance and the next minute you are hating his hunky love-ignorance.

And the two lead characters of the Series Meredith and Derek, they are not Hot in any sense of the word, but they are very magnetic. Meredith is not drop dead gorgeous but she delivers her character in such a way that you want to hear everything she has to say, and her eyes gives off this alluringly innocent look that keeps you glued to the screen. And Derek! I just love the way he brings his character to life, they are so fit for one another, Dereks stare is just melting me.

And besides the characters the stories and the flow of the series is very interesting too. LOL. In fact I can’t stop watching it. But part of the reason why I can’t stop watching is because I want to find out what will happen to all the characters love lives. The medical scene is just a background, a set, a distraction for the love story to have a different feel.

Whats Happening to Nestle?

What is really happening? Just a few weeks ago, I remember posting a problem I personally had with Nestle Chuckie being Spoiled even before it was opened or expired. I let it pass because Nestle Customer Service told me that they have not received other complaints about their products besides mine. They replaced the chuckie with a new one and I let it go.

A week after my personal experience My dad bought Two 1-Liter Nestle Premium Chocolate both of which are spoiled even before it was opened, and the expiration of the products were not until after another week. We gave it back to Rustans Supermarket in One Mercedez avenue because we thought maybe the problem was with the handling of the supermarket and not the products themselves.

I have not had personal encounters with other Nestle products since then, but remembered that when my dad returned the Nestle Premium to Rustans the Manager said they have received a lot of returns of the product due to the same problem, SPOILAGE.

Today as I was minding my own business, my Friend Gretchell kept messaging me. So I said HI! she then told me, she bought a nestle Chuckie from ROBINSONS GALLERIA a totally different grocery and guess what? It was spoiled again.

Where does the problem lie? is it the handling of these groceries? or is it from Nestle? What do you think?

Why Elianto: For beautifully protected skin

I am a Face Powder, Blush and Lip Gloss kind of girl, and I find it really hard to find a make-up that will suit my taste and will be suitable for my skin color, and discoloration for that matter.

I have had problems with my face color since I can remember, and don’t get me talking about the rest of my body. It is embarrassingly uneven in tone, there are patches of dark brown and light brown all over my body and it is also evident in some parts of my face.



When I saw the Elianto Brightening touch in the Elianto online Catalogue, I have been intrigued and excited to try it. The Brightening touch tube is a liquid cream that covers uneven spots on your face, including those dark eyebags, and the brightening touch will make your face look evenly bright and fabulous.

The next time I go to the mall, I will make sure to buy one of these lovely products because not only will it come in handy it comes with a color that I love for my skinEven though people say I have fair skin, I am most comfortable with dark colored make-ups and foundations and I’m happy to see that Elianto Brightening touch has a darker cream that is suitable for my liking.

And one more product that I would love to try is the Elianto Oil Free Liquid Foundation with SPF 15. Don’t get me started on why. Well I will tell you even if you don’t ask, First, OIL FREE - I have always had problems with having an oily face, do you know those oil films that you buy to get the oil out of your face, I can make 2 of those strips transparent in one sitting, so having an oil free foundation will be most helpful in keeping my face looking fresh. Second, LIQUID - I hate powder foundations, it seems to me that they cover your clothes even before they cover your face, its messy and spreads unevenly. Having a liquid foundation will do wonders when you are wearing that all white dress for a very special date. And last but not the least SPF 15 - The sun is the number one enemy of our skin, and having a make up that will not just make us feel pretty but protect our skin is a big plus. And one foundation that has all three is certainly a must buy.

So the next time you head out to the mall, look for Elianto, I sure will.

Nestle's Fast Recovery

After Five days of waiting, the field representative of Nestle finally was able to get the 1 Liter Nestle Chuckie that was spoiled when I opened it last April 8, 2010 (blog of it found HERE and HERE). They took the Nestle Chuckie I had so that they could do laboratory testing, and replaced it with 1 Liter of Nestle Chuckie. They also sent a letter of apology along with the replacement.

Letter of Apology



The Receipt that they took the sample from me and replaced it:



Thank you Nestle for responding this type of concerns with sincerity and seriousness. Our children’s health is a serious matter to us and I personally am a happy mother knowing that you as a childrens snack and milk provider is taking your customers seriously.

Again, Cheers! I will wait for the laboratory results within 2 - 3 days to find out what has happened.

Kudos To Nestle Philippines

Although I have had a bad experience this morning with one Nestle Product - Their 1 Liter Nestle Chuckie, I have to applaud them for taking matters seriously and taking action immediately. As I was having dinner tonight just 10 minutes ago, I received a call from one of the Customer Service Representatives of Nestle Philippines regarding my complaint about the Spoiled Nestle Chuckie that I almost gave my daughter this morning.

They said that one of their field representatives will be coming over to my house the next few days to get the product in question. They will be doing laboratory testing of the product to see why it was spoiled when I opened the carton. I believe they will also be looking at not just my purchase but all the other cartons with the same batch number to see if this is just an isolated case or a contaminated batch.

They will inform me of their finding within 2-3 days after they pick up the spoiled chuckie and of course I will be letting everyone know what the findings will be once they give me news.

Again, Kudos to Nestle for not taking these matters lightly.