White guy cooks chicken adobo

Hilarious!

Fabulous Finds: Cafe Ysabel

"Soooo san tayo kakaen?" the missus asked.

"Basta ako bahala." I replied.

It was our 4th year wedding anniversary last Thursday. I was running out of excuses that day since the missus was 99% certain that I was taking her to Cafe Ysabel. When she guessed it, I just gave out a hard laugh and said, "Mali! So stop guessing until we're there sa kakainan naten."

Of course, I knew that she was 100% right but to keep her in suspense, I had to keep her guessing.

The trip from the office to Cafe Ysabel in P. Guevarra Street in San Juan was not far. So when we parked up front the resto, I had to reveal to the missus that she was right after all. Well, I still get credit for the good acting skill of telling her she was wrong earlier that day.

Inside Cafe Ysabel, the setup looked purposely old which was somehow the theme. The waiters were well-versed with the menu which was a good sign.

So, we proceeded to order. But then two chef-trainees walked to our table presenting a complementary appetizer, with one of the ladies seemed nervously describing their latest food project. Surprisingly, the lady was Ms. Judy Ann Santos.

"It's part of their apprenticeship, sir." the waiter said.

Well, it's good to know that the Asian Cuisine Cooking school downstairs of the restaurant is doing a good job to Ms. Judy Ann for the appetizer she gave us was quite ok.

So on with our orders.

We started with the Bilbao Style Chorizo with Roasted Peppers and Balsamic Glaze which was quite nice. Then, Lobster Crustacean Bisque for our soup (great as well).

For the main course, the missus ordered Chateaubriand which tasted like beef tenderloin with fettucini while I got the Halibut Amandine which is a Chilean fish neatly topped with finely slivered almonds and leek sauce. Since I was going to eat fish and it was anyway our anniversary, I took the liberty of ordering a glass of the house's white wine.

The missus wanted as well so to match her beef, she ordered red wine.

I just have to say that the Halibut Amandine is heavenly delicious, especially when followed by a sip of white wine. RAPSA!

The Chateaubriand was well, ok lang naman.

For dessert, we ordered Crepes Ysabel which was the house's version of crepe. I found it to be ok as well.

Dining at Cafe Ysabel is an amazing experience all by itself. A laid-back setting coupled with good food, I highly recommend it.

Fabulous Finds: Spiral

To celebrate my mom-in-law's birthday, the missus and I took her to Sofitel Philippine Plaza for dinner buffet at The Spiral.

With its assortment of Chinese, Korean, BBQ, Japanese, Vegetarian, Indian, Seafood, and Italian food, the Spiral has, by far, become THE ultimate buffet experience for me.

Of course, the ultimate experience has to come with an eherm, ultimate price of P1788++ per head.

But as I've mentioned to the missus, it's not bad to pamper yourself to such luxuries every once in a while.

22 in 2

Early Saturday morning of the long weekend I found myself driving to St.Luke's hospital. I was going there to have a doc look at my cholesterol levels and possibly give me a prescription to normalize it.

I arrived just about 10mins before 8am so I thought I was just in time. When I finally reached the Medicard office about 10 people were already waiting in line. It took me only about 10 minutes to wait until one of the doctors by the name of Dr. Bumatay called me in.

He looked at my test-results and after a few "aahhs" he said, "Since 34 ka pa naman daanin na muna naten sa diet and exercise."

What? No prescription?

Yup, no drugs. I was still young as the doctor said. So he asked me to seriously look into dieting and exercise for about 2 months. Afterwhich, I'll see him again and have my blood taken for another cholesterol reading. Hopefully it will be all normal by then.

"So fish, fruits, and vegetables ka muna," he said.

"Doc pwede ba yung baboy na may sabaw, gaya nung sinigang?"

He shook his head, "Aahhh, hindi."

Well I guess this had to happen to motivate me in getting back in shape. I need to lose 22lbs to get back to my normal BMI level ---in TWO months.

Oh man, this is gonna be tough. Well, we will all find out the outcome when I meet the good doctor on June 5th.

Major Alarm

Working with different telco systems most of my career, I can say that the alarm monitoring features of these systems often fall in 3 categories:

Minor

Major

Critical

This week I was able to get a Major Alarm. No, not of any of the systems I'm handling. But that of my body. Yesterday morning I was able to grab hold of the results for my Annual Physical Exams. Most of the tests were normal except for the blood test which yielded the following results:

A major alarm indeed. I guess if I want something to "inspire" my weight-loss goal, THIS should be it. No more dilly-dallying. I'd better do something ---and NOW.

My next step would be to make a follow-up session with a doctor on these readings. At least he can guide me on how to normalize the HDLs and LDLs.

At the side of all this worry is the missus. She too received her APE results. Thankfully, all her readings are normal. It even made me wonder if the examiner had mistakenly swapped her blood sample with mine, producing interchanged readings on both of our APEs in the process.

She obviously was grateful for the test results so much so that she munched a lot of lechon manok, lechon baboy, siomai, rice, and ensaymada earlier at the dinner table.

Palagay ko nagkapalit talaga eh.