Avril Lavigne is here in the Philippines for the 2008 “The Best Damn Tour” concert!

I won these lovely Upper A tickets from Titik Pilipino.
They arrived early this morning.

It’s okay for me to go to the concert,
but I opted to give it to Jason and Janelle instead.
I hope they enjoy! :3

So, who’s going later? :3

Dong Bei （東北水餃水） Restaurant
642 Yuchengco St (formerly Nueva) Binondo, Manila

After eating at McGeary for a late lunch in Binondo, the Foodista in me made me want to explore more, and look for some fab food finds.

When talking about Binondo, I am certain that food finds (most especially Chinese food) would not escape any conversation. There are really a lot of restaurants, which my parents are calling institutions already, that date way back (30 or more years of existence) from their high school years.

But with all of my more than 10 years of coming and going and visiting in Binondo, I have never heard of 東北 Dumplings. It was just until fellow food bloggers, like Arpee Lazaro, and others went on a Binondo food tour, did I get to hear about this restaurant. Thanks to Arpee, I was able to get directions going there a while ago.

I opted to purchase the uncooked pork and kutchay dumplings. One pack (30 pcs of dumplings) costs Php 200. I ordered 3 packs; little did I know, they have a *promo - buy a total of Php 600 dumplings, and get Php 700 worth of dumplings. (*I was able to get 105 pcs of dumplings for only Php 600. Not bad!)

Later that night, I cooked the dumplings as suggested by the very friendly serving staff of Dong Bei.

First, you have to boil water. When it’s already boiling, just put in the dumplings for five minutes. After 5 mins, you can take it out already, and you can now enjoy the tasty dumplings you’ve been wanting to devour.

I must admit, these dumplings are superb. I can’t wait to finish off these dumplings I bought. To the next food adventure!

My gua ma, grandmother in the mother’s side, recently went “down” from Dagupan and visited us here in Manila. She currently teaches Chinese in Dagupan. And since Dagupan, Pangasinan is famous for fresh seafood produce, what else could she bring home as pasalubong than Bangus (milkfish) and Hipon (shrimp) - lots and lots of it!

See photos of a big pile of shrip she brought to Manila for us to eat. If you think that’s a lot already, then you might want to reconsider. The real story behind this is that I forgot to take pictures of a bigger pile-load of shrimps (that’s why it’s that much left). We already devoured a similar pile with that plenty shrimps as well.

Aren’t they wonderful looking creatures?
Yes. Inside my stomach, that is!

Back from her recent trip, Kim, brought me back some Beijing Coke cans! They’re really nice!

Asian Dragon
together with TriNoma,

United International Pictures, and Solar Entertainment Corporation

invited people to an exclusive movie screening of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and a fashion show before the movie screening this Saturday afternoon. This is to raise awareness of the emerging Filipino-Chinese magazine about the Tsinoy community, and to promote TriNoma to the Tsinoy market.

Aaron asked me to get models for the Asian Dragon* shoot. Long story short, Adi and Kirby were asked to be in the shoot today held at the BoConcept building in Bonifacio High Street. I had fun just being a spectator while all of this was happening earlier.

Behind the Scenes:

• Aw’s now the food columnist of their magazine. I do hope I’ll be able to tag along when he does the food reviews and all. Also, I pray that writing something for the magazine will push through
• Met JJ who works for Asian Dragon and YOU magazine of Inquirer.
• Hang-out around Serendra, High Street and Market Market with Adi until we were fetched. (Thanks for bringing me home!)

*Asian Dragon is an emerging magazine for and about the Chinese Filipino community. It is one dynamic and enterprising compilation about Tsinoys, in and around the Philippines, and their businesses, fashion, lifestyle, food, culture, and a lot more!

After watching Mamma Mia with Kim, Beljo, Little Mawnster Kay and Ima Ned, we had dinner at Trinoma. (Aside: I think that Mamma Mia is a good movie. Abba music rocks! *right mawnster?* It made me laugh a lot of times, though Ima was filled with emotions because of the story.)

Since they all knew that I have already tried almost all of the restaurants there (because of the SPOT Tour a few months back), they were all pointing at me to decide where to eat.

No, we didn’t end up eating mawnster food, but instead, we finally decided to try Haiku. Kay treated us because it was her birthday! :3

We ordered the #3 Sushi-Maki Combination Platter. (I forgot the real name of the dish..) We also asked our server to put in some Crazy Maki, since Beljo and I really wanted to try it. Their Sushi-Maki platter was relatively good, though, for me, it wasn’t anything special.

I still love the salmon from Ebisu. We ordered Ebi Tempura (staple food in every Japanese restaurant?) It was big and better than a lot of Tempura I’ve eaten. Though Kim was saying that the sauce was a little bit too ginger-tasting, I liked it that way.

We also got the Ribeye Steak Teppanyaki (local) and the Scallop Teppanyaki (local). The beef was good. The scallop, on the other hand, was a little bit dry and not that fresh I guess.

This next dish wasn’t on their menu. It was a really yummy prawn and crab sticks concoction which, according to them, is their best-seller in their Makati branch.

It’s called something like Grilled Ebi-Kani. It was 5 large pieces of grilled prawns with kani and mayonnaise on top. We all enjoyed this dish. It was delicious because it was all fresh and it really melts in your mouth. One good point was that the mayo didn’t really overpower the dish.

Over-all my Haiku experience was very filling and one of the good Japanese restaurants around. One quibble though is that the prices of the food were a little bit steep.

Photos taken from Kim’s camera-phone.
Thanks a lot Kim and Beljo!

While strolling in SM Fairview yesterday afternoon, my mom saw Bodhi along the stretch of restaurants at the ground floor food court.

And since I really wanted to try Bodhi out, and I guess the same goes with my mom, we decided to buy food there for dinner.

We were really inquisitive about the food they were selling there. We asked about everything they had and what it is made of. We then decided to take out the pancit (stir-fried noodles) (Php 40 per order), the beef steak which was their best seller (according to the lady who was assisting us) (Php 60 per order), and the barbeque with sauce (Php 55 per order).

To be honest, I didn’t like it that much. I guess it goes without saying that beef and pork and chicken can’t really be replaced by any vegie substitute pretending to be the real thing. (Or what I just ate wasn’t really prepared well enough? But that’s another speculation)

Any ideas, comments, and suggestions? They’re really very welcome.