As cliché as it may sound, time indeed flies fast. Today marks our ninth anniversary together, but we are not even leaving the city. In the coming weeks, we will be on to new chapters of our professional lives, thus it is best to just celebrate here.
Frolicking in Nami Island
Today, Mon and I celebrated our 4th year and 6th month together. Six months more and half a decade will have already passed. But because we were already on leave last Monday, we just had our dinner in Ayala Triangle and tried a place, from which we have never eaten from before.
Mon wanted to eat at Wee Nam Kee, located in that strip of restaurants in Ayala Triangle. He had been itching to try their Hainanese chicken and I was also curious to see how good their dish would be. There were not a lot of people dining, though, because most of them were outside Banapple waiting for their turn to be seated. LOL
I love their interior, especially the arch on the way to the kitchen, because it reminded me of a garden I visited with Mon and Ikle in Macau in 2010.
Wonderful Wednesday and it was a perfect day for a lunch with the team. Technically, they are not my team but since I spend most of my work time with them, it did not even matter. As we were not familiar with the area, Mon and I even printed a map of the Fort area just to make sure we won’t get lost. We were already running late but fortunately, the roads were not that congested and we arrived in the venue in just about 15 minutes. The first thing I’ve noticed was this giant cutout of two chefs by the door. It was then I realized that Laudico was actually Chef Lau from the Pinoy Masterchef on TV. As I usually watch the show every morning because I wake up at around 10:00 AM, I suddenly remembered that he was extra critical of Filipino dishes prepared by the contestants. Now it made full sense.
We were the last person to arrive and everybody we’re already eating their pica-picas or appetizers, so we also immediately ordered ours. It was actually a 4-course set and I was a bit taken aback by the serving size of the appetizer but maybe I was not really used to eating course meals. LOL
Next was the soup and we ordered this Molo Binakol. It tastes almost like the traditional tinola, with the siling labuyo leaves and all.
And the part I was waiting for, the Main Course. I tried this Crispy Tilapia Cocoloco and it has the most amazing tomato curry sauce on it. It was so lovely that I did not even eat the breaded fish and just went straight away to the curry and rice.
My teammates ordered other dishes as well:
But expectedly, the part where Mon was most excited of was the desserts! Similar to the the pica-pica, we were to choose three out of the list. We chose Sans Rival Moderne, Yema Bicho-Bicho and Tsokolate Oh! They also have Halo-Halo sherbet served on little shot glasses.
While eating, we also proceeded with our little exchange gift and I got a coffee maker! ^_^ Thank you so much Rev for giving me that lovely gift! We were also planning a day in Enchanted Kingdom this January and hopefully we will push through with it because it has been years since Mon and I went there.
Surprisingly, the Mind Museum was just across the restaurant and it won’t be long before we go back to the area. Tomorrow, we will be using the tickets that my dear nephew won two months ago at a company event and I’m very excited to see the exhibit inside the museum!
Since we had to conserve our leaves for the upcoming trip and impending holidays (must reserve for the parties and, of course, UP’s Lantern Parade), Mon and I decided to just have dinner somewhere else. We tagged Faye along to Ayala Triangle and found ourselves in Amici. I was initially under the impression that it would be my first time to dine in any Amici branch, but I was reminded that some office-related dinner was done in the branch near Don Bosco.
And then the food came and we ordered just enough for the three of us. I love pesto a lot and I try to make it a point to order one from a new place and compare with other pestos that I’ve tasted. At first, I thought that I can’t properly taste my food because I had a runny nose and a sore throat, so I kept on adding salt every now and then. But when I tasted Faye’s chicken, it was fine (in fact, very delicious) that I came to the conclusion that my pasta was under-seasoned. Time to cross their pesto off my list forever. I forgot what Mon ordered but it was cream-based and also tasted good. We had to order extra garlic bread sticks though (focaccia to be exact), because apparently, some of their pasta are not automatically served with one. =/
The saving grace: dessert! We just had a single slice of the Mango Felicity cake (what a name), and our initial impression was that it was like a crema de fruta. Aside from the nice presentation, it was actually good because it wasn’t that sweet. I was more interested with the side though (I don’t know what it was properly called, the crust? Perhaps?), because it instantly reminded me of the pattern popularized by Gianni Versace usually found in the circle of the medusa.
Photo from logoblog.info
Will we go back there? Not too sure. =) We might be looking out for other choices, unless somebody else will treat us. Happy 4Y2M again Mon! <3