We concluded my first weekend in Dubai with a dinner date by the Dubai Creek. Mark chose this restaurant because he says that the food here is good. He would usually stop by this restaurant for some gastronomic treat before heading to the camp. It is also just a few walks away from the Al Ghubaiba metro station and near the bus station to Abu Dhabi.


There's an air-conditioned part of the restaurant, where the kitchen is also situated, but we chose to have an al fresco dining experience.

Aside from the rides and shops for souvenirs and refreshments, a number of restaurants are also housed at Ocean Park Hong Kong. One of which is The Bayview Restaurant where we chose to have our lunch as we were waiting for the rain to stop.


The place was packed when we arrived. We were in the waiting queue but not for long. We got to score a table for 3 at the far end of the restaurant. It would have been more fun though if we were seated near the windows so we can indulge with the awe-inspiring view of the sea. But it was a bit foggy as it was still raining, so I didn't mind. :p
The Bayview Restaurant is a self-service type, so we immediately checked out their dishes in the ordering area situated near the entrance once we got our table settled.

I still have a couple of Hong Kong stories up on my plate but I just also don't wanna miss out on sharing with you my most recent adventures, so I thought of going ahead and write about my Dubai adventures and just inject some Hong Kong stories (as throwback posts) every once in a while. Good idea? Well I hope so. And I also hope you guys will bear with me. :D

I arrived in Dubai on a Sunday night, last August 24. Mark picked me up at the airport and we headed straight to our house in Bur Dubai. After having some rest when we had all our things settled, we went out for some late dinner.


And because I'm totally not familiar with the place, I just let Mark decide on where we'll eat. We dined at Ravi Restaurant in Al Karama, which is just a few blocks away from our house.

We had our dinner the night before at Cafe de Coral. And because I enjoyed our dinner and I already knew that we'd also be having our breakfast there, I somehow scouted the menu and took note of what I'd be having for breakfast. Haha! Apparently, they serve different sets of dishes for breakfast, just like what most restaurants do. And why haven't I thought of that? Haha!

Bun with Butter, Twisty Macaroni in Oxtail Soup, and Scrambled Egg with Milk - HK$ 22.00
with Freshly-brewed Coffee,  Tea, or Soda - additional HK$ 3.00

Our hotel accommodation in Hong Kong came with free breakfast for each guest...or so we thought. Well yeah, the breakfast wasn't totally for free unlike what usual hotel accommodations offer. We were just given HK$ 20.00 coupons per person per day which we may use in Cafe de Coral for breakfast on each morning of our stay.

We all got tired from our Disneyland adventure so we just had our dinner right after we dozed off at our hotel room.

It was already late and our feet were already begging off for another long walk, so we decided to dine at Cafe de Coral in Rambler Plaza which is just next to our hotel.


It was already nearing closing time when we got to the restaurant, but there were still a number of diners in sight.

Since Mark came home a few months back for his month-long vacation, he would tell me every now and then about how he wants us to go on an out of the country vacation, to Hong Kong specifically. I of course didn't take that seriously because 1) he has already been to Hong Kong in 2012 and 2) going out of the country entails a lot of planning and preparation and I guess you know by now that we both suck at that. Haha! I know I told you that I always want everything planned but I just don't know how to do the planning haha! Well yeah I'm weird like that! Hahaha! :p

With Mark's Mom at the Hong Kong International Airport

So the days passed and we already got to enjoy different getaways (which were all unplanned) and everything turned out to be so much fun. And although I was also hoping that we'll push through with the Hong Kong trip, we still got no specific plans so I just told myself to not entertain the thought. It was just after our Anilao getaway, barely a week before Mark gets back to UAE, when I finally knew that he was serious with the out of the country vacation.

Because we already had a pre-Mother's Day dinner at home last Saturday (will post that on the blog soon), our family celebrated Mother's Day yesterday by having some lunch out. After hearing mass at SM Marikina, we started to scout for a restaurant for our lunch. We wanted to already have a table reserved, because we know that every restaurant will be packed with families also celebrating Mother's Day.


We all agreed to celebrate it by having a boodle feast at Seafood Island. Mark and I already tried one of their boodles in their Cubao branch and we both enjoyed it so I was pretty sure that my family will also enjoy it here.

I've said in my last post that a tour in JE Camp hotel and Resort would probably take around an hour, depending on how you want to explore the place. Well I guess we were so much captivated by the beauty of the whole place that we finished our tour after almost 3 hours haha! :p


We were supposed to go to Daranak Falls and Regina Rica, both still in Tanay, but because it was already getting late, we just had to drop them off. And so right after the tour we headed to Julia Bandoma Vista Restaurant, or Halamanan as what it's well-known for, to have our lunch, a very late lunch that is. :p

Mark and I were on our way to the Antipolo FX terminal in Cubao one weekend afternoon when we passed by the Araneta Center and saw a pile of tents with different kinds of food.


And so there, we found ourselves checking out the tents in no time. Mark must have missed our food a lot, that even if we just had a feast when he arrived, we again had another food trip the day after.

If there's one thing that Mark missed a lot (aside from me of course haha) during his stay in the Middle East, it's definitely our food. Aside from the fact that he's on a diet since he needs to maintain a healthy body for his profession, Mark doesn't really know how to cook 'real' food. Well at least he knows how to cook hard boiled eggs haha!

It's been almost a year since Mark left for a job opportunity abroad, but it seems like forever already! Ugh..Well I'm overacting, I know, I guess I just miss him badly.

But whenever I miss him, just like what I'm feeling as of this writing, I just stare at this photo and just think of our happy times together and remember the beautiful quote which I saw online.

"Distance never separates two people who are truly in love."

Please forgive me for another long overdue post. I'm just trying to cross out each one of my backlogs. :D

Part of the series of the pre-birthday celebrations that I had was another lunch out with my family. It was actually an impromptu lunch out. I guess Daddy was just feeling a little lazy to cook that time that he decided to eat out.


I already knew that we will have to dine at a Chinese restaurant, as that is the only cuisine that somehow keeps up with my daddy's meticulous palates. :) Good thing the Chinese food choices within Antipolo are already expanding. We now also have North Park here in our place. Yay!

Hello dear readers! How have you all been? How was your Valentine's day? Hope you all had a love-filled day. As for me, I was busy with a lot of things for the past couple of weeks and unfortunately wasn't able to update this blog. Sorry for that. But I'll try to make it up to you guys.


Got another invite for the grand opening of Bay Leaves Steak House last January 28. Another late post, I know, but I hope you guys will still read on. :p

We were supposed to have some ice cream and snacks at the ice cream house in Robinsons Magnolia after our lunch and a little shopping, but we'd still have to endure a long queue so we decided to just dine elsewhere. We decided to leave the mall and dine somewhere that's already near Antipolo so we won't have to worry about braving the traffic anymore.

Mommy and I wanted some burgers so we suggested to dine at Army Navy in Cainta.


I first got to try Army Navy when I was still working in Makati. My first time didn't leave a good impression though because the burger tasted bland and was a bit try. But I enjoyed their Freedom Fries and Libertea on my first try!

My older brother, Chino, just turned 30 last Monday, January 13. I already posted about the birthday cake that I made for him, now let me share with you what we had for his birthday dinner. :)


Daddy had to go to work so we had Chino's birthday celebration over dinner. And because Daddy was out during the day and got no time to cook, he just had us order some Shakey's pizza and sushi.

I mentioned in my previous post that even weeks before my actual birthday, we already had a series of pre-birthday celebrations/lunch-outs with my family. Here's the first of 'em.

It's the weekend after Christmas when daddy decided to go out and stroll. He wanted to go to malls other than where we would usually go. SM Mall of Asia and Robinsons Magnolia were the choices, but because MOA's too far from where we are, Robinsons Magnolia got the most votes.

We arrived at the mall just in time for lunch. We always have to consider Jaoey whenever we dine out, and because he loves fried chicken, Classic Savory was were we had our lunch.

Savory Chicken Combo C4 - Php 385.00

I've tried Classic Savory countless of times already, and whenever I'm with my family, we always get the same orders, the Savory Chicken Combo C meals. I guess that's just how it goes for my family. Whenever we loved something in a certain restaurant, we can come back as many times and order the same dish over and over! :p

The renewal center in Farmers Plaza has already transferred, so after our merienda, we headed to SM Megamall because we will be having dinner there and there's also a renewal center there.


We got to the mall a little after 4pm only to find out that the renewal center has also transferred. And because we were still too early for our dinner reservation, and as per Jaoey's suggestion, we decided to kill time in the arcade.

Our initial plan was to just have a little family dinner out during my birthday since Daddy's still not sure if he'd have to go to work. But because Daddy was allowed to be on leave during my birthday, I got to celebrate the whole day of my birthday with my family! Yay!


After having breakfast at home, we started our celebration with thanksgiving at Monasterio de Sta. Clara in Quezon City.

It's my 28th birthday yesterday and it was such a fun day!


Actually, even weeks before my actual birthday, I already had a couple of pre-birthday lunch-outs with my loves. I'd go to the details in my next posts, but for now here's a sneak peek of how I celebrated my 28th birthday!

I know I haven't been that active in updating this blog as often, and it's been a while since I last got invited over to a food event, so I was more than delighted when I got an email of an invite to another food launch a couple of weeks back.


Our family loves to eat and although we do not usually dine out, we've been to a lot of buffets already. Our most recent buffet dining experience was the best for all of us except for my dad. Knowing my dad who has palates that are very hard to please, he only raves about one buffet restaurant, DADS buffet, that is.