A taste of Magnum

The Magnum Manila Pleasure Store at SM Aura, Premier was the first Magnum store in the Philippines. When the Magnum ice cream store was about to open, we were very excited to try it out. When it finally opened there were always long queue, and we were not patient enough to stand in queue.

Finally we were able to try it out. No long queues since it is a Sunday morning and the mall has just opened.

Upon entering the store, we were asked if we will order for dine in or not. There is a separate line for dine in customers and for the "make your own magnum".



Queue for dine in customers or for Magnum Café



Queue for "Make ur Own Magnum"

I was just able to try the "make ur own magnum", it costs P100.00 each, which comes with three (3) toppings of your choice.

The first step for the "Make Ur Own Magnum" is to choose for your three (3) toppings. There is a wide array of toppings to choose from, pistacchios, almonds, marsh mallows, rice crisps, dried mangoes, honeycomb, chocolate crunch, pretzels, oreo, and a lot more.
I chose pistacchios, oreo and marsh mallow.

 

The second step is to choose what flavor of your Magnum, you can choose from Vanilla, Chocolate and Chocolate-Caramel. I chose Vanilla.

The third step is to choose what dip flavor, the choices are: white chocolate, chocolate and dark chocolate. I chose chocolate for my dip for a good contrast of the vanilla magnum ice cream bar.

The fourth step is to choose the flavor of the drizzle, either chocolate or white chocolate. I chose white chocolate for my drizzle.

The fifth step is to top it with the chosen three (3) toppings and lastly, top it with the "M" chocolate coin, then its ready to eat.

Toppings: marsh mallow

For customers for the "make your own magnum", they can only stay on the couch provided behind the wall separating magnum café if you choose to stay inside the ice cream store.

The Magnum Café has a modern design and ambiance. Maybe next time I'm going to try their Savory menu at the Magnum Café.

You can eat your take - out Magnum ice cream on the couch inside and take photo ops with the famous "M" logo of Magnum, which is made of Magnum popsicle sticks. However, there is a note just below it that says, 'for your eyes only", I don't know what does it mean, does it mean that picture taking is not allowed or you cannot pull out the sticks. ;)

We enjoyed our Magnum experience at the Make your own Magnum store, we loved ice cream and what it made more special is the fun of making your own Magnum.

If you haven't tried it yet, check it out at the
MAGNUM MANILA PLEASURE STORE
5/F Sky Park, SM Aura Premier
McKinley Parkway corner 26th St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig

Lunch @ Madecca, Podium

I have lunch out with my office mates. Most of us just wanted to have a light and quick meal to avoid over breaks, so we just dined at Madeca at the 5th level of Podium Mall. 

Madeca offers a Filipino-Mexican food like Sisig and Lechon Kawali Burrito or Sisig and Lechon Kawali Soft taco, just to name a few. They also offer Mexikanin or their rice meals.

We ordered different foods so that we can share and try each of it.

For starters, we ordered chicken chicharon. It is a deep-fried chicken skin. It tasted good, but the boys preferred those bought at the streets. =)

The sisig soft taco, is yummy, the taco is soft by its name describes it. The sisig filling is also good; there are few crunchy and chewy.

The Lechon kawali soft taco and salpicao soft taco are both good too. The meat filling is tender. All Soft taco comes into 2 pieces with salsa and cream cheese dip; it also includes few pieces of tortilla. The tortilla is thin and crisp.

The sisig burrito and lechon kawali burrito is just the same with the soft taco, except that burrito of course comes with a rice. This is much heavy to eat than the soft taco. The same with the soft taco, it also paired with salsa and cream cheese dip and with tortilla.

The Mexikanin are their rice meals. It is also the same filling put in the soft taco and burrito, the rice has a little Mexican taste which I liked.  The serving is big.

Salpicao Mexikanin

Sisig Mexikanin

The dalandan juice, at first tasted good then I realized it is carbonated just like a soda fruit drink that you can buy at the supermarket.  I liked the how it was served, it is placed on mojito jar with a colorful paper straw.

For the dessert for the girls only, we ordered banana fritters. No photo of it because we just take it out and eat at the office. These are fried bananas sprinkled with cinnamon and topped with vanilla ice cream with caramel syrup. It has only 8 pieces of small bananas, just enough to take away the “umay” taste of the foods that we’ve eaten.

Madeca has a fast food service format. You order your food and pay at the counter and wait to be served at your table.

Overall, I liked the foods at Madecca and prices are affordable.

We thought of eating a light lunch but we ended up super busog and heavy feeling.

For the other branches, you may visit their website www.madeca.ph

Happy eating. =)

Cafe by the Ruins

One of the famous restaurants in Baguio is none other than "Café by the Ruins". We happened to try the restaurant during our first stop of our Baguio Trip day 1.

I included this in our itinerary to eat here, to finally try some of their menus.

We dine at their branch at Chuntug Street, this place is a busy street and the parking spaces of the restaurant was full, thus customers opt to park on the road. We were lucky to have an available parking space when we arrived. However, there was a long queue waiting to be seated and be served.

It was around 5:00 P.M and it is getting colder since it is close to night time. It was long before we were given our seats.   While waiting, I kept on looking around, the decors of the place, the type of customers dining in. The restaurant has this rustic ambiance and I found it cozy, their customers usually comes in big groups, maybe just like us who are visiting Baguio and trying out their meals. 

They have the panederia, where you can buy the bread of your choice for take outs.

 Inside the restaurant they have this open kitchen, where the food to be served is prepared.

They have a great food choices. They offer rice meals, pasta, sandwiches, breads, desserts and drinks.

 

Soon our orders were served. We ordered Forest Stream soup (120.00) to warm our empty stomachs. It has a Shitake with a gingery broth taste. Oh I don't liked it. =(

For our main dish, we ordered Baguio Bagnet at the price of 340.00, it was served with Benguet rice,and tomatoes and fish bagoong as dip for the bagnet. It was heavenly. It really tasted so good!

We also ordered the Shrimp Mango Curry for the price of P300.00, it tasted good too!
For the kids, we ordered lemon chicken nuggets for the price of P150.00, it is a thinly sliced chicken fillet topped with lemon butter sauce, the kids liked it, the chicken is tender and the sauce is tasty.

We just ordered 2 extra rice for the price of P25.00 each.For our drinks, we ordered Srawbery juice at 110.00, mango juice at 110.00, pandan lemon grass at 85.00 and for our dessert we ordered suman and tsokolate at 180.00. The suman is so yummi, and the tsokolate is also good, it has enough bittersweet taste which I liked most.

When we are about to leave the restaurant, a band is setting up. I just don't know if the band regularly plays, or it is only on weekends.

It was a nice dining experience. Too bad, Café by the Ruins can only be find at Baguio City. When we go back, I will eat there again.

The Papal Visit, January 15-19, 2015

The long wait and preparations has come to an end when Pope Francis arrived in the Philippines last January 15, 2015. It was declared Holiday from January 15- 19, due to Papal visit. 

(photo from internet)

It does not happen every day that Pope will visit the Philippines, and so I thought that I should see Pope Francis just like the last time that I saw Pope John Paul II during the World Youth Day. 

It was Sunday, and we just arrived from our short vacation, Pope Francis was scheduled to have a mass at the Quirino Grand stand. It was raining but we don’t care, with our windbreakers on, we went to Luneta.

When we are on our way to the grandstand, and we were on the road shortly after Vicente Cruz, we saw the convoy of Pope Francis, they were on the Nagtahan fly over. Seeing him from afar is already a strange feeling of happiness and excitement. It is unexplainable.

When we arrived at Luneta, as expected, there were lots of people waiting for the coming of Pope, People were everywhere, we just looked for a nice spot where we assumed that we can see him.   Finally, his convoy arrived, we saw him but its too far.

We did not stopped from there, thus the next day, we went to Villamor where he will depart going back home. We were there as early as 4:30 am so we can have a good spot to see him. Luckily, there were only few people waiting, mostly were near the gates of Villamor, but we stayed just right in front of the Bo’s Coffee shop. We waited for so many hours, and did not mind the fatigue, thirst and heat. 

Policemen were scattered to ensure tight security. 

Finally Pope Francis and his convoy arrived and we're glad that he rode on the Pope mobile and not on his service car. The effort of waking up too early, waiting for hours, the thirst and heat from the sun was all worth it in exchange of seeing Pope Francis up-close and personal.

Thank you Pope Francis for visiting the Philippines, thank you for inspiring us to embrace love, compassion and mercy.