doubtless - this is the best tasting corned beef eva!

i just had to, had to share my sheer delight of discovering the canned corned beef brand 'palm'. i had savoured & got extensively satisfied w/ 3 of its available flavors: garlic, onion & barbecue. i believe they got chilli mixes as well. the bbq flavor's pure heaven! i actually just had a palm bbq corned beef late lunch! yummy!!! it is genuinely incomparable to purefood's corned beef which, in my opinion, is the only competitive brand for this product in the country.

palm corned beef is already out & available in most grocery stores. cost: P130

mike's a graduate!

april 7, 2009
cabalen, trinoma mall

my cousin graduated w/ a diploma on physical therapy at UST last month. the pleased parents treat the whole family at a buffet feast at the cabalen restaurant. her gf rhiann flew from macau a few days earlier to be at my cousin's side to complement the celebration. sweet!

mike & rhee

badeth w/ jared; tita ebeth (mike's mom) & tita erly

ate anna & aj; myself & our lola

nik & trish; mom, rayne & jolo

¡felicidades primo!

she craved for cpk

january 16, 2009

my staffs candidly formed the team name 'gennators', derived from my name plus the word janitors ahehe. i will not explain why ahaha!

for the 1st quarter team build for the year, we went out on the 16th for a 5k dinner at the california pizza kitchen at the glorietta mall. the resto was my barely 2 month pregnant staff abcd's preference which no one was able to argue with hehe (lakas ni abcd ah!). the original plan was to scan the bars at greenbelt, have dinner at one & get a few drinks. the idea in fact came from me when i mentioned to abcd how delicious the pasta i ate in cpk was with rye weeks earlier & i was trying frantically to recall the name of the pasta. she instantly craved for pasta & pizza & led the group to cpk glorietta ahehe. most of the guys did not thoroughly enjoy though.. well..what the heck..we still have 3 quarters for the year eh?

cpk has the most expensive alcohol so we only had a plain pizza & pasta dinner & went home after 10pm. our bill was a whopping 5K plus (wala pang alak yan a!), for 3 different pizza flavors, 2 pastas, 1 appetizer & juices for all. it was still fun nonetheless, fortunate to have comedians in my team to spice up every shift including that dinner. most of the members of my team are new so it was an excellent time to bring humor on the table so the newbies would get more comfortable w/ me & their team mates.

tokens from the big boss

january 23, 2009

our brit boss was extremely pleased with the success of our department's xmas party last month he gave away gift certs as bonus to us major contributors. i for one was in charge of the entertainment & sound system. i was able to pull in juan pablo dream effortlessly who by the way was bathed with adoration by our big boss, which i'd like to reiterate, was my mission why i chose that band & their music in the first place.

here are a few of his gifts to us:

10 coupons of P200 discounts to the Spa
outback privilege card, a P500 gift card & a P500 discount card

as added bonus, our boss planned an outback dinner for the group, w/ him, using the gift cards he gave away & pay the excess.

khaye, the lead-off person of the xmas party, & myself marked the 23rd for the dinner. i was on the morning shift so i was available 7pm onwards. most of us went ahead to the outback restaurant at the glorietta mall & our boss & other bosses arrived later. we started dinner by 9pm.

the facade

i had the beef stroganoff fettuccine dinner plus my sangria which were firsts to my taste buds. the rest ordered the resto's specialty, steaks ofcourse. but prior to everything else, which resulted to not being able to finish my pasta, was the overload of starters. there were the famous bloomin' onions, the aussie cheesy fries (voted as the worst food in america, which unfortunately i only read later, due to its exuberant calorie content), kookabura wings (spicy!), & their very own spinach artichoke chips & dips (also spicy!). when our meals came, most of us were already full haha!

we all finished off w/ coffee & went home after midnight.

total bill for 12 people at outback? P14k in cash plus the gift cards. not cheap.

eat & sing all we can

october 20, 2008

still crisp from our 12hr draining shift (crisp but draining???), i finally was able to take the team out, everyone present, for a 2nd installment.

we tried to schedule last september & twice early october but we just couldn't synch each others' attendance when one was absent or on vacation, or another needed to go straight home to tend to his kids.

the girls wanted to go to either comedy bars klownz or zirkoh at timog. couldn't complain even if comedy bars is not a popular choice for me if you'll ask where i want to spend my night outs. fair enough that we'll spend it in quezon city! my house is just a few mins drive away from there...so that ought to do it!

clocked out past 7pm, we went to west avenue first for an 'eat-all-you-can' dinner at the dad's/saisaki resto. price per plate/individual is P580 each & was actually too much for the small budget we allotted for the evening plus there were 8 of us. a budget of 5k for a team dinner-out per quarter was just recently approved by management (which we only later on realized was not enough).

we couldn't contain our hunger & agreed to spend most of the money on food instead of drinks at a bar where we'd proceed to after, so we settled in & pigged out to our hearts desire.

the resto was almost closing so there weren't really much food left so we instead ate most of the sashimis & maki from saisaki & made multiple visits to the dessert buffet table. the tiny cream puffs were so yummy!

after paying & having just a few pennies left from the budget, we discarded the comedy bar itinerary (it'll incur us entrance fees aside from the beverages) & went for videoke!!!

settling for music 21 videoke resto was just an impromptu decision. my passengers obviously wanted to show off their talents in singing!

2 pitchers of margarita & 2 pitchers of rhum coke

lahat kumanta, walanghiya hiya talaga! hahaha
we had to share the bills this time.
3 hours spent at music 21 - priceless. *:)

mangga-han sa tiendesitas

woke up unusually early in the afternoon during my 'tulog-off' (office alias of going home in the morning, sleep through out the day then go back to work really early the next day).

got giddy suddenly over shopping (haven't shopped for a month i suppose)..so i phoned alex (this gal's always available!)..so off we went to tiendesitas in pasig.

we scoured the entire fashion department & got meself gnr & led zep shirts for a reasonable price, a very red knitted vest (shown in the pic below) & a really cute dress along with several pairs of earrings.

after shopping, i binged on green mango & bagoong paired w/ 1 isaw (chicken intestines) while alex had a humongous boneless bangus & half rice. we ended up taking home half of the fish & mango hehe.

at the local delicacies section, i got a bottle of my favorite sukang iloko (vinegar from ilocos), garlic chips for dad, a box of cheese puto & flavored suman which is one of tiendesitas' best sellers. i discovered their famous mango tart as well, sold in small cups to 12" round cake sizes. it was delectable! P800+ for the biggest size..not bad.

friday the 13th at chili's

june 13, 2008, friday

this email came in from my boss days prior:

Subject: Night out on Friday

Everyone,

Along with the Sportsfest committee we would like to invite everyone to Chili’s Greenbelt for late dinner/drinks on Friday the 13th starting at 1030pm. This is to thank everyone for their efforts on organizing both the successful Sportsfest and the Charity events. Better halves are invited.

----

complimentary overpriced & overrated food & drinks! awesome!..but i, also 3 more of my other staffs who also got the invite, had really early duty the next morning....so we went straight to chili's after we clocked out at 8pm. it was a party! we ordered everything our tummies desired (or anything we couldn't possibly afford hehe). that chocolate volcano cake melted our hearts! superbly yum!

by 10pm, brigs & allan arrived. i ordered myself a 'kamikazee' whilst the whole world watched. dang these people! no mood for cocktail on a friday??

anyhow, after 11pm, our brit boss arrived w/ the rest of our office mates. as the table filled w/ the freshmen, we, w/ april, shiela & brigs, exited... then they had beer. geeeez... *:)

free breakfast, henna tattoo, body massage, milkshakes & the congress blast

november 13

the girls woke up earlier than myself. i heard them banging the door of my room several times but i just couldn't wake up! anyhow, as i got up by 9am, i headed outside to find most of them already having breakfast at the resort's restaurant. i took my free meal stub from the receptionist & got myself my first day's meal of 'longsilog' & coffee.

some of us hurriedly went back to our rooms to change. i was still wearing my pajamas when i took my breakfast.
as i got back out, i went along w/ some of my officemates for a little shopping at 'd'mall'. i got myself 2 colorful shell chimes to hang at the end corners of my room to compliment the various hues from my daughter's stuffed animals, blankets, curtain & toys. it was perfect!

right before shopping, we took snapshots at one of the man-made sand castles

after shopping, we found everybody lined up to get their henna tattoos. i went looking for another tattoo stand & fortunately found one isolated & empty & got inked. ofcourse we had to dry up our tattoos for 2 hours so we couldn't get wet yet & went back to 'd'mall' for more shopping. eventually getting hungry, we looked somewhere for a place to eat lunch. by the 2nd day, not everyone was 'all in once place' unlike the day before, so we weren't able to communicate everyone's whereabouts & had to eat in different eateries by different groups. we ate near the market stalls at a place which servers fresh hot 'bulalo'. we ordered several other viands like 'bicol express' , 'pinakbet', ' sizzling gambas' & 'mango salad'. yummy!

getting inked

right beside the 'bulalo eatery', a stall was selling delicacies for 3 pieces for a P100. i bought a few for take-home.

at the beach, allen & pope were already skim boarding & the rest were already swimming so we hurried back to our rooms, changed to our swim wears & dipped in the clear blue waters of boracay. we went out of the waters before dawn, showered up & pampered ourselves more w/ body massages right outside of the resort. we had 1 hour sessions each for P350.

by 8-9pm, we went walking towards the other end of the beach looking for another place for dinner. this time we walked & dined collectively. before we reached our destination, shiela who was walking w/ me received a text message from her boyfriend that the congress hall in quezon city was bombed & that it was all over the news. w/ no luxury of having a television at the beachfront & away from the resort, we were all second-guessing so everybody who brought their cellphones called their loved ones, especially myself. the congress building is just across our subdivision. i called home & they said the blast 'jolted' our house. i stayed on the call & made sure my daughter's in her room & checked anyone who might still be outside, or near congress. fortunately everyone was home except my dad who was somewhere still far from our area & only sent the news to me via sms as well. the bombing killed a congressman & 3 others.

calling home

after the brief stopover, we decided to get dinner at jonah's restaurant which apparently was famous for it's fruit & milk shakes. for dinner, we stuffed ourselves w/ calamares, baked shellfish, chicken & sinigang plus. we were done by 11pm.

posed with my jonah's mocha-peanut milkshake