Highway Ribbery Grille: Haven of Criminally Delicious Comfort Food

After a long and exhausting day at work, most people combat stress by stuffing their mouths full of delicious and filling food. We are guilty as charged! My sister and I are big stress eaters, and it’s  a crime we’re more than happy to repeatedly commit at restaurants that serve straightforward comfort food like Highway Ribbery Grille in Quezon City—the latest brainchild of Chef Niño Runas, who is the same chef behind El Cangrejo in Tomas Morato.

Highway Ribbery Grille Restaurant in Quezon City

 

Highway Ribbery Grille

Highway Ribbery Grille first opened its doors May of 2015 and has become one of the newest and hippest hangout place to hit La Loma, Quezon City. Its industrial-themed interior design, together with the wooden tables and chairs, delivered a rustic yet modern appeal. The restaurant is not air-conditioned, but don’t worry; they have enough cooling fans to keep the area at a tolerable and comfortable temperature. They also have more tables on the second floor, including a rentable function room that can accommodate up to 35 people.

Highway Ribbery Grille Restaurant Dining Area in Quezon City

For our refreshments, my Nanay and I ordered two glasses of their House Blend Iced Tea (PHP 125), which arrived ice-cold and had this super refreshing citrusy flavor. Mhel, on the other hand, asked for a bottle of the Belgian craft beer, Brew Kettle (PHP 55), that turned out to be incredibly light and tasty. Highway Ribbery Grille has a limited line-up of alcoholic beverages, since they want the restaurant to become more of a dining joint than an inuman spot. Aside from Brew Kettle, the other beer they offer is San Miguel Light for PHP 50 a bottle.

Beverages at Highway Ribbery Grille Restaurant Quezon City

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Marios Sunday Lunch Buffet

A few months ago, we went up to Baguio with a couple of fellow foodie friends and bloggers to celebrate Mario’s Restaurant‘s 40th year. Throughout our 2-day, 2-night stay, we enjoyed meals in their restaurant in Upper Session Road (watch out for part 2 of our feature). The whole Baguio trip concluded with a sumptuous meal at Mario’s Sunday Lunch Buffet.

Mario's Baguio, located at the Upper Session Road

Since this was an eat-all-you-can buffet, I initially thought that the dishes they’re going to serve won’t be the same as the ones on their regular menu. Most of the buffets we know only serve mediocre food compared to the items on their ala carte menu, but I was pleasantly surprised to know that Mario’s Sunday Lunch Buffet spread will give you a chance to enjoy their delicious regular menu dishes eat-all-you-can style.

Since I usually take a round of photos first before I eat, I initially planned on going to each buffet table armed with my camera. But, when I passed by the meat table, I couldn’t help, but pause my photo-taking. 😀

Cochinillo - roasted suckling pig

I went straight to get a serving of the Cochinillo, a suckling pig roasted to perfection! They serve this with lechon sauce, but the crispy, thick skin and the meat of the pig are flavorful enough on their own. I had to control myself and not get another serving of this. However, I couldn’t resist to take some from Ken’s plate when he went back for seconds. 😀

Roast Sirloin of Beef

They also have a big slab of Roast Sirloin of Beef, sliced as you order and then served with Brandied Peppercorn sauce.

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Seoul Garden in SM North Edsa : Review

We were supposed to write a year-ender post for 2011 featuring our top favorite restaurants, food products and/or recipes/dishes we prepared, but since we still had a ton more reviews we haven’t posted yet, we decided to skip it this year and will do one next year instead. One of these uber delayed reviews is of Seoul Garden in SM North Edsa Annex.

Seoul Garden at SM Annex in North Edsa - CertifiedFoodies.com

When Ken and I have time to spare or we need to relax after hours of shopping, we usually end up at buffet style or eat-all-you-can restaurants. Though we spend a lot of time together at home, sometimes, talking about tasks seem to be more effective when we do it somewhere else. That afternoon in July 2011, we had hours to spare because we were scheduled for a Harry Potter movie screening late in the evening. Ken insisted he wanted to watch on the first day so we ended up with the last screening time. 😐

We decided to check out the restaurants at the newly-renovated SM Annex building. First restaurant we considered was Seoul Garden because, at that time, it was the least busy of all the places there.

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Straightforwardly Filipino : A Satisfying Lunch at Chef Tatung Garden Cafe

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
-Harriet Van Horne

If you’re a regular follower of our blog, you may know now that I have exchanged a career in nursing for an unknown future in the culinary industry. I’ll be honest; there were times when I had doubts if I’ve made the right decision of switching careers, but I always find inspiration from people who have experienced the same things that I’ve been through and have become successful. One of them is Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou of Tatung’s Garden Cafe, who decided to brush aside writing and production work to put on a chef’s garb and start a restaurant business.

Chef Myke 'Tatung' Sarthou telling us more about his style of cooking at his garden cafe

Hidden along the residential community of Sikatuna Village in Quezon City, a home-turned-restaurant stands with a luscious menu offering a modern take on Filipino Cuisine.

It’s a rainy Saturday morning when we were invited for a lunch at Tatung’s Garden Café. The façade gives little clue that there’s actually a restaurant inside.

Outside Chef Tatung's Garden Cafe

Chef Tatung truly understands Filipino cuisine. He shared that Filipinos eat with flavors that are close to nature, and that our cooking is greatly influenced by our environment. That is the reason why in creating his dishes, he made sure that his food tastes like what they really are. A chicken dish should taste like it’s made of chicken. It’s as simple as that.

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Parvati : Your One Stop Desserts Shop

When Ken and I thought of coming up with a monthly theme for our blog, the first thing that came to mind is desserts month. And the first store we wanted to visit was, of course, Parvati in Trinoma, a one-stop desserts shop.

Parvati a pastry shop in Trinoma

With the growing number of home bakers in the country today (oh we can’t be thankful enough! :D), getting their products out there can be a challenge considering the logistics of opening their own store. This is where Parvati comes in, providing a venue for talented pastry makers to showcase their homemade creations in one roof.

It was August last year when we first went to Parvati at the Mindanao lobby of Trinoma (I know, this is a very late post that has been sitting in the drafts folder for months). Upon walking in, we were welcomed with a smile and were directed to check their selections of pastries posted on this line of chillers / refrigerators located at one corner of the store. We were in dessert heaven! 😀

Chillers at Parvati in Trinoma

Based on the information on their Facebook page, Parvati features 40 best-selling desserts from 27 different home bakers. They have various cakes, cookies, cheesecakes (love, love, love), revel bars, pudding, cupcakes, pies, brownies, etc. If you’ve got a sweet tooth like we do, I tell yah, you’d probably spend a long time choosing what to order. We wanted to try everything, but we know we HAD to limit ourselves to just three. 😀

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Unlimited Treats from Cravings Restaurant

Last October, Ken and I were invited to try out C2 Classic Cuisine Restaurant’s Signature Series featuring Pinoy Favorites like their own version of Kare-kare and Bangus Belly (our post about this is up next!). Since the closest to us was C2 in Cravings Katipunan, there we went.

Cravings Restaurant

As soon as we entered the restaurant, this display of cakes made us look forward to the end of our meal. Our invite from C2 didn’t include desserts, but we found out Cravings has an Unlimited Cakes and Coffee promo for only Php 150 per person. How can we pass that up?! 😀

How can you resist not availing of their unlimited cake promo

Their unlimited menu includes a wide selection of cakes, but you can only order their four featured cakes at the time you were dining in. When we were there though, we had five different cakes because we had to stay a bit longer as Ken prepared a list for our shopping for our birthday celebration.

Unlimited Coffee and Cakes from Cravings for only Php 150

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