Blanc & IRIE

If you're from Cebu, for sure you've heard of Blanc. It's an online magazine, basically a collision of fashion, arts and culture, from another perspective. Anyway, after a three-month long sabbatical from writing, I started again and contributed to the magazine by writing articles for them, one of which featuring Irie Gastropubliko. These are just some screenshots, the last two are of the articles I wrote. Just click the link below for the full issue!

Edge of Summer

Just a couple of pictures to give a gist of what I've been up to. Photos from Concave Skate Park, Starbucks and I.T. Park, plus, a burger patty I made, the SORTED way *wink* and a strawberry cheesecake. Because I like cheesecake. Also, I went to ArmyNavy and Sprockets but I'll do a separate post for em later. Aaaand I've also been addicted to the new HBO series, Girls (trailer and clips below) Created, written by and stars Lena Dunham who is basically the Tina Fey of my generation. The show has an awesome soundtrack as well, so, plus points!

Weekend Spirit

A peek at my favorite accessories these days and my recent adventures. Photos from last week at Dolce, had a taste of their new milk teasers. Went out for karaoke the other night with some friends and to Chicken and Beer (minus the chicken hahaha) the night after. Plus I can now conclude that when a beer tower is left untouched for 10 minutes, don't bother getting back on that wagon. *My ASOS ear cuff also arrived the other day so, yeyy! Also practically drowned in cotton candy yesterday for mother's day.

The Survival of the Buttercream

Today my friends and I made last-minute plans to hang out and ended up in Talamban. We went to a friend's place and watched Bubble Boy which was my first time to see it, and all they could say was "you've never seen bubble boy??" Hahaha if I ever say the words "500 Dollars" again in my life, I'll never say it the same as I always have. After that, I had a super late lunch/first meal of the day and ate Ngohiong near school which I haven't had at all since summer started.

Indestructible

So to keep you up to speed on what I've been up to lately, here are some photos of this week so far. Went to Ayala to do some errands with my bestfriend, Stefy, had Krispy Kremes, then went to Rick's place to help him with school stuff, played around with his Diana Lomo and the paper ring he made (yeah, not girly at all) Such a happy day, despite it being Stefy's last before leaving for Holland. Counting the days until she gets back<3 And yesterday, I went to I.T. Park with Ally and Eloi, and I applied for a job! Well, the second time. I'm hoping I get this one. Keeping my fingers crossed! Oh, and also, I had more Krispy Kremes. Teehee.

Weekend Wrap Up + Missy BonBon

This weekend was pretty mellow, and I mean reeeaaalllyyyyy mellow! Went to Rick's last saturday night to watch (or at least tried to watch) Mr. Nobody, some episodes of Adventure Time, had lots of pancit canton and brown russians. Then today, my mum got back from Cagayan and brought these yummy pastel buns from Missy Bon Bon, which also comes in these cute boxes.

Adventures In Pixels

Some photos from the past month, phone photos that I just remembered existed, and photos that I'm posting up just because. Macarons, Quiche, Carbonara, Croque Monsieur at Macaron Tango Café, night out at I.T. Park, swimming at Casa Rosita, Milk Tea Mochiko, Nirvana milk tea at Bon Appetea, Purple Kush at Handuraw and other random photos.

One Sweet Adventure

Summer has come and it feels like it's going by so quickly. Must. Make. Every. Day. Count.

The other day, my friends and I had this craving for sweets. Since it's summer, going to Fudge, which is our usual place to get a sugar-fix, seemed too far. And plus, we wanted to try out something new, hence the adventure. We went to Dolce, which is a cafe up in Lahug, a bit farther from The Outpost. It had this all-white modern chic fusion atmosphere which I loved, but it gave this really high-class snob vibe, so braced myself and was well-prepared to spend maybe more than I usually would on cake, but to my relief, the prices weren't as expensive as I thought they were going to be. We ended up ordering a S'mores Cake, a slice of Green Tea Caramel Cake, No Sin Apple Oats shake, Coffee Espresso, and Spinach & Mushroom Quiche. I also brought home a slice of Red Velvet Cheesecake which was the best action my mouth has had since Big Bucks' *which is now no longer being sold :(* Cheesecake. So now, I'm predicting Dolce will become one of my favorite cafe's and sugar fix spots. Can't wait to go back soon!

Productivity

Yesterday was a pretty productive day; I cooked (veggies and tuna & kimchi), gave my dog a bath, read a couple of pages of my pocket book on Fossils, watched the first season of Community, shortened my sidecut, took vain pictures of myself, bleached my bag (doing an ombre project that I'll post up soon *wink) Can all that be considered productive? I have no idea but for the sake of my day, let's just say it is.

Recent Foodventures

I'm baaaaaack! And it's finally summer!! I am so excited to catch loads of z's and absolutely looking forward to our excavation (i'm majoring in Archaeology) which in two days! And it'll be for about two-weeks, more or less, so I won't be posting anything in two weeks but as soon as i get back, I am going to put up photos :) So lately I've been to Sumo Sam, Spice Fusion, Á Café and Seattle's Best. Sumo Sam made me wish I had two stomachs. Spice Fusion had the best fruity tea drinks that are so summer proper.  Á Café, best Turkey sandwich ever, which I didn't order for myself but it was absolutely delicious. Seattle's Best at the moment has my vote for the best Chai Tea Latte. Also there's this upcoming tea place, near Ayala Center Cebu, called Bon Appetea. I'm not quite sure if they've opened already but it'll probably be very soon, or at least I'm hoping! haha. 

You Cook, You Eat, You Pay

These photos are from the other week. We went to Yakiniku Tajimaya at Crossroads for dinner because it was my papa's birthday! Originally, we had planned to go to this taiwanese shabu-shabu place near Ayala, but it was packed when we got there so my parents suggested we go to Yakiniku instead. It was a new experience, having to go to a restaurant and actually cook your own food. Similar to shabu-shabu places, you cook your own food too, but most of it's (shabu-shabu) already half-cooked and all you need is to let it simmer in the broth. At Yakiniku, you grill your own food-- charcoal barquettes, of course. You're probably getting this image in your mind of Larsian, where it's all smokey and foggy hahaha that's what I had originally expected too, but they used charcoal, instead of the usual "uling" which is typically used for bbqs in the Philippines. It took us a couple of orders to get the grilling thing right, so if you, dear reader, plan on going to Yakiniku, here are some tips I've thought of:

Sweet Little Things

So the other day on my way home, I passed by this Chinese restaurant and right next to it was this little shop that caught my attention, and the next day, I brought my friends with me and we went after school. Sweet Little Things is this little pastry shop, and they specialize in cupcakes! (Hahaha this is probably the ummteenth post I've had about cupcakes) We ordered Cinful Apple, Red Velvet, and my favorite, Lemon Poppyseed-- just the right amount of zest balanced out with buttery icing, so yummy, it was like my heart melted. Also bought home a Blueberry Crumble and Cookies & Cream for my mum and sissy :) *Aaaand the coffee they serve is from The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf*

End Of Hibernation

Photos from the past two weeks :)

Five-Nation Foodpocalypse

Had so much food over the weekend-- and these were only from Saturday! My papa, sister, and her boyf picked me up from class and we went to Joed's Lutong Hapon for lunch. Awesome japanese food (but they had Kimchi on the menu, which I'm pretty sure is Korean >.<) at an awesome price. We ordered so much for four people, we were so stuffed after and the bill didn't even make it to a thousand pesos. Sulit ;) For dessert, we went to Macaron Tango Café and chilled for a while, before going home. I had a Mango/Vanilla Macaron; the color's very tweety-birdish ;)  I usually get my macarons at Vanille, so when we got to the café, I felt very nostalgic about my first macaron, which I bought there about one or two summers ago. I'm definitely going back for more *wink And! they also had these necklaces with macarons as pendants-- so adorable! We also ordered Canelés de Bordeaux; the chef, Remi Lastere, who was very friendly I might add, came up to our table, and shared to us that Canelés were his specialty. My papa even wants to go back for more :)) For dinner, Ally and I went to our friend's 18th Debut Party, which was absolutely last minute, and we didn't expect it to be so fancy *we felt so under-dressed :( Had lots of Lengua and Paella; personal favorite combo. Explored Casino Español a bit, then went to I.T. Park afterwards with John. We had originally planned to go to La Marea, but of course, since it was a saturday, it was full. So plan b, McDonald's! Had coke floats, fries, made fun of John's forehead *and our friend Carlo came by too. It was such a fun day, I'm having high hopes for this weekend! ;)

Deliciousness In A Box

My dad got back from Manila (again) last night and brought Cinnabons! Yummmm. I've been munching on the cinnamonic (what?) deliciousness all dawn with so much coffee on the side, but I've finally finished my presentation for class later :D

Pluuuus, it's saturday and there's so many options on what to do and where to go; Thirsty Cup at school, Eloisa's Rugby game at CIS, crash Stefy's Phys Ed class at the Bowlingplex, or stay home and cuddle with Chilli. It's saturday, who wouldn't want to go out? Though I think the universe will most probably lead me home and tell me to stay in. *Okay universe, if you say so.

Pastry Monday

Happy Tots Tuesday! My friends and I went to Fudge yesterday after school for our proposed new tradition: Pastry Monday, previously Flame It Monday, but pastries seem to be more of our thing than burgers ;) This is my third cupcake post this week! Fist bump for cupcake binges. Hell yeah. So all the girls had cupcakes, and Rick had a cheesecake (because he's such a badass) If you've read my Giant Macaron post, we had the same cupcakes then but the ones we had yesterday were Valentine-themed! And speaking of more cupcakes, my friends and I are planning on making some and sell them on Valentine's. Can't wait for our baking party :))

CupcaKen

*This is going to be a critique on the recently opened Cupcake shop in Cebu, CupcaKen.
This post is not intended to offend anyone from CupcaKen or discourage anyone to visit CupcaKen, this is simply my opinion*

The Day We Murdered Cupcakes

Last Friday, my dad brought Cupcakes by Sonja from Manila. The icing was a bit melted already though but they still tasted so yummy! My sister went to Manila recently and kept raving about how delicious they were, but that she didn't have time to buy more and bring some; just our luck my dad also went to Manila a day or two after my sister got back so he brought a box of six cupcakes when he got back. It was like a murder scene in the box as soon as we opened it >.< *Makes me sad that they're only in Manila, though :(

PossibiliTeas

Finally, a new post! :D So an update for the other day, my friends and I went to Cobo! And obviously from the photo above, Cobo has some awesome possibiliTeas, and yes, they were indeed awesome.

I honestly thought it was really unique, I mean I kind of expected it to be like Bubble Bee, or Quickly, or Zagu (sorry if you're not from Cebu and couldn't relate to any of that teehee), but Cobo had that youthful and cartoony twist which is pretty much what made it, well, awesome. Plus, not mention their insane variety of teas! It took me so long to choose what kind to get because they had so many intriguing flavors. They had a set of milk teas, teas with floating sea salt, and bubble burst teas. I ordered a mango peach bubble burstea as soon as the lady was finished explaining to me. Bubble burst teas were fruit teas, with juice balls; the balls looked like sago, but when you bite into it, juice would burst out! Cobo's an awesome place to hang out, and prices aren't that bad either ;) Haha and I also sort of interviewed the lady at the counter and learned two things: Cobo is from Taiwan, and Milk Teas are their best-sellers >.<

McDonald's Monday & 3k Hits!

I am sooo beat! I had two midterms today which I was not so prepared for, but I'm hoping for good outcomes since I felt pretty confident about my answers. Also had a double cheeseburger at McDonald's, cookies & cream ice cream and a blueberry Pop Tart. Tomorrow, I'm not eating +.+ (a lot) I have one more midterm on saturday, two reports for my cultures class, one for sociology another for economics, photos of the university campus for brochures, all due within this week! Manic monday, indeed :(