Food Trip: Bubble Tea, Megamall

One Sunday afternoon, while running errands at Megamall, Ian and I found ourselves feeling a bit peckish. And since I heard good things about Bubble Tea from my younger sister, Eri, we decided to try the food here.

We were thinking of just having merienda so we ordered the tonkatsu yakisoba - with the idea that we'd share it. But once Ian saw the takoyaki on the menu, we had to order it as well. 

tonkatsu yakisoba - Php245

takoyaki - Php175

The takoyaki was a good choice! I really enjoyed it. The pancake batter was moist and the takoyaki themselves were piping hot. (I don't enjoy cold takoyaki - i like 'em freshly prepared). Another good thing was they didn't scrimp on the tako (octopus) inside - so it was a perfect balance of tako and batter. We finished this dish off almost immediately. The side salad was fine, some cabbage and corn drizzled with dressing. As for the tonkatsu yakisoba, it was okay. Nothing extraordinary about it. I'm afraid the takoyaki outshone it in this instance - and we just took the remainder of it home.

Of course at an establisment called Bubble Tea, we had to order bubble teas! Ian ordered Royal Milk Tea while I had the Azuki Red Bean Milkshake. Both drinks were good - but I prefer mine. XD

Royal Milk Tea - L Php125

Azuki Milkshake - L Php145

If we do eat here again, I'll definitely order the takoyaki and the azuki milkshake. And I'll probably try some other dishes. The food is moderately pricey but I think its better for lunch or dinner rather than merienda. My only comment was when we ate here (back in February), the waitstaff was less than stellar. They seem to be new or at a loss to what they were doing. They seem to forget who ordered what and even failed to bill us for some of our food (a fact that we had to bring to their attention). 

Bubble Tea is located in four branches:

SM Megamall, The Block, Greenhills and Tomas Morato.

Top Chef Mania

I was on a Top Chef marathon a while back - my interest in the show (and others of its format) was a result of my having watched Junior MasterChef Australia. I wanted to see how good the adults would have performed.

Top Chef is interesting because the cheftestants are all already chefs of their own right. They have had years of experience and most of them are chef owners or chef de cuisine of top restaurants. Its amazing how they are able to make dishes seemingly on the fly - whether it be a Quick Fire (given only 15-45 minutes to create a dish based on a theme/challenge) or an Elimination Challenge (wherein cheftestants are given hours to create and shop for their dishes).

I, of course, have a list of my favorite Top Chefs. And if I ever have the luxury of coming to the US for a vacation, I would definitely try and go to one of their restaurants. Provided, of course, that it's reasonably near and not, say, on the other side of whichever part of the country I would be in.

My favorite season would have to be Season 6 - having three of my fave Top Chefs taking part in it.. going all the way to the finals. The Voltaggio Brothers (Michael and Brian) and Jennifer Carroll. To be honest, while watching the finale, I didn't know who I was rooting for to win - Michael, the more avant-garde chef with his out-of-the-box way of cooking or Bryan, the older, calmer and intense one with his attention to detail and on the spot flavor profiles. Jennifer Carroll is just plain bad-ass. I really like her. I was really disappointed when she left early during Top Chef All-Stars.. I wanted to watch her more.

I can't wait for the next season of Top Chef. This show is highly educational, very informative - and I find that I'm usually either hungry or eating while watching it. It's that mouthwatering.


* photos of the cheftestants taken from Bravotv.com.

Reboot.

I've been neglecting my blog(s) for quite some time now.. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging. But I was struck by the writing bug today so here I am once more.

A lot has happened these past few months - some bad, some sad but overall.. mostly good. So I guess that more than makes up for anything. An example of the sad, bad things - I damaged my camera during my trip in Batanes.. so I wasn't able to take photos to my heart's content. This is definitely one of the worst things to happen on a trip. *sigh* Thankfully, my camera was still salvageable though they had to replace the lens assembly. It still cost me a pretty penny to get it fixed. 

The lesson of the day: take extra care of your camera especially if you don't have a spare. XD