Last Saturday I was very fortunate to have been part of the facilitators who gave a workshop on leadership to the QC-Marikina Grade School Consortium at the Ateneo de Manila University grade 5 assembly area.

I really missed doing these stuff. Good thing I was available that day when Sir Jake Aragon asked me if I wanted to go join them again.

There were workshops on “Discovering the Qualities of a Filipino Leader”, “Making Important Leadership Decisions”, “Leading Successful Teams”, “A Lesson on Leadership”, and some outdoor challenges.

I really enjoyed myself. I’m really happy that my group, despite some difficulty with interacting with other people within the group, faced every challenge, and conquered it all.

With us were: Louie Ignacio, Nico Ocampo, Moses Florendo, Jewel Castro, Nino Savellano, EJ Legaspi, Chewy Chua, Dolly Joya, Jojie Perocho, Hart Ang, Matthew Go, and Javi Campos, among others.

To more exhilarating and eventful workshops in the future! I’m glad I did this.

Last Wednesday I went with Tiff, Thea, Don and Hannah to the TriNoma Bloggers’ Food Tour. I am happy that I went because it turned out to be one of the best experiences ever that I had in TriNoma. There were around 150 people registered for the event. Upon registration, we were given some freebie’s in a bag (Hershey’s goodies, notebook, Yummy magazine, etc.)

After the introduction and the usual chitchat kick off. We were broken into groups, and were assigned one representative each from TriNoma and Yehey to tour us per floor.

I consider our group to be privileged to have started at the topmost floor, where the restaurants were of the better, so to speak, cluster. At first I really thought that 2:30-7pm touring these resto’s would be very long, but it turned out that we were hurrying up from one resto to another just to try everything out.

Out of the participating restaurants that day, we were successful to have sampled food from Cyma, TGIFridays, Bubba Gump, Holy Cow Chop House/ Jack’s Loft, Italianni’s, Haiku, La Maison, Bangus, Hosseins Persian Kebab, Abe, Conti’s, Mangan, Mann Hann and Marina.

So I guess I won’t keep you from knowing what I think were the best dishes served during the tour. In no particular order:

1. Roasted Leg of Lamb - Cyma

2. Chicken Souvlaki - Cyma

3. Barkada Ribs - La Maison

4. Fish and Chips - Fish & Co.

5. Baked Salmon - Conti’s

6. Creamy Wine Mussels - La Maison

7. Baked Mussels - Fish & Co.

8. Spinach and Artichoke Fondue - Cyma

9. Mango Bravo - Conti’s

10. Blueberry Cheesecake - Jack’s Loft

I guess, as Hannah said, some restaurants didn’t really prepare their signature dishes. Well, too bad for them. I really enjoyed myself tasting food from the restaurants I haven’t tried before. There was Cyma, Bubba Gump, and most especially La Maison. If my schedule frees up, I’m definitely going to these restos again.

Food pictures courtesy of Hannah Co.

Oh YEAH! I can now say I have finally met the Chicken Man! Josh from ChickenMafia.