Wild Safari Grill for Lunch

 Last Sunday was the christening of my friend's daughter, Yssay. It was also the birthday of her son, so it was a double celebration. We dined at Safari Grill at Torres st. . Safari Grill is one of the cheapest buffets you can go to here in Davao City. You can have a lunch buffet for only P268 and dinner buffet for P280. The buffet boasts it's fair selection of grilled food. Pork, gizzard, liver, beef, and chicken, was available at their grill table that time. I'm not sure if they have grilled seafood's because it was my first time to dine there, hopefully they have, cause I'll surely be a loyal customer once they add grilled squid on the table.

Aside from grilled food, Safari Grill also offers other types of viand and side dishes. They have sweet and sour fish, pork adobo, buttered chicken, chop suey, spaghetti (which wasn't refilled. I just noticed scraps of pasta and tomato sauce on that container)and more (wasn't really drooling over their food's presentation so I can't remember everything that's on their buffet). For their dessert, you can make yourself your own halo-halo or maybe mais con yelo. They have little slices of cake which wasn't alluring. haha They have fruits, pineapple and watermelon. Safari Grill even has mangga't bagoong! Last but not the least, they have different flavors of ice-cream which you can scoop for yourself. You can even add an ample amount of chocolate syrup and marshmallows to go with it. Thumbs up for that! haha

All-in-all, the food was okay. I highly recommend their chicken barbeque! It was really good, the sauce tasted awesome and the chicken wasn't over-cooked. Their pork barbecue was too hard, I don't know why. It really looked good because it wasn't a typical pork barbeque that you can actually see small chops of pork skewed on a stick. It was chunky so I grabbed two sticks, but was really disappointed afterwards. Their drinks rather, was surprisingly unlimited as well. As expected in most buffets, you'll get unlimited food but have to pay for drinks which are doubled in price. At Safari Grill you can drink bottomless softdrinks, iced tea, and of course water.

To end this post, Safari Grill is a good buffet considering it's low price. I'll be back! 

Quick Mexican Snack

Every time I go to Gaisano mall's super market I never miss a chance to get me some of these fried tacos! Taco Boy's fried tacos has been my favorite pick-up snack since 2010. They're really good. Especially if you drench the inside of the taco with their hot sauce, or white sauce (I'm not sure if they still allow it to be bought for a taco's dip. Before, they let you pay P5 if you want white sauce on your taco).

Taco Boy's fried taco is sold for only P17 pesos. Great, right? It's 3.5-4 inches, based on my estimation. Though it's coating looks like a lumpia, and I bet you'll be thinking it might be crispy and oily, but it's not. It's soft, and has the right amount of greasiness. I don't even think it's greasy at all. LOL. The fried taco is stuffed with cheese, julienne cut cabbage, and some ground beefs - YUM!

When you buy one, it will be handed inside a clear plastic. This will keep the taco from being messy and the hot sauce from dripping on your hands. This food is very "on-the-go-ish", and whenever I have one for a quick snack, It always ends in two or even three. Really satisfying. lalo na sa nagtitipid haha

Their stall is located at the ground floor of Gaisano mall, Davao City. Fronting Gonuts Donuts.
Other Taco Boy food stalls can be found at SM-Eco and at NCCC mall.

Taco Boy Logo from www.facebook.com

Mandarin Tea Garden SM-Eco

After a long day of helping out a friend redo his room, we had a mouthful of appetite that needed to be satisfied. The closest place that we can go to that has a wide array of different food establishments was SM Ecoland. I'm sorry to say this, but I'm not really a big fan of Mandarin. My friend wanted to have chinese food that night and I was not in the mood to argue, so i said okay.
When it comes to Chinese food, I usually prefer those restaurants that achieve Chinese authenticity. I know Mandarin shouldn't be compared with the ones I'm fantasizing about(hint: behind the oldest mall)because we all know that this restaurant is somewhat like a "fastfood-type" of joint - crowded, affordable meals, different society class mash-ups, and quite accessible due to it's branch outs around the metro. Not exactly the on-the-go "fastfood", but yeah you get my drift.

The only food that I usually order at Mandarin is their Wonton Ball noodles. The only time I started to like their wonton ball was when my family had our business put-up beside a Mandarin restaurant. That was about 3years ago. Even though we have the privilege of just ordering and eating at our convenience, Mandarin still didn't became one of my favorite places to get food.

Anyway, back to Mandarin at SM-Eco.
The service was quite okay, I give it a 7/10. I had a hard time getting the attention of the waitress to have an additional order. I had to raise my hand several times and luckily a cook noticed me. Take note, not a waitress. After a minute a waitress then came to our table.

Their food, 6/10. I had Japanese Siomai, Dumplings, and Corned beef toppings.

The Siomai tasted okay, I'll give it a 6.

8 for the Dumplings cause I ate a lot of it. Which means it's good.

3/10 for the Corned beef. I've eaten different kinds of corned beef in my life but what they serve was just crappy. It was too wet that resembles mushy baby food. It looks like bagoong(shrimp paste). The taste was a bit bearable. It goes with a soft, wet, mushy bowl of rice as well. The pair was a bit yucky for me so I only ate 1/4 of it.

Total : 30/50 

 

Photo from OpenRice.com 
 http://ph.openrice.com/other/restaurant/mandarin-tea-garden/14941/

I recommend: Wonton Ball Noodles, Any type of Noodle Soup, Somai(not the beef), Dumplings

Delightful Evening

Last night my friend and I suddenly decided to watch Breaking Dawn, Twilight's Sequel. The movie starts at 10pm and of course we should have our dinner first because the movie will end as expected, 2 hours after?. yeah. We first bought our ticket so that we wouldn't be rushing afterwards, though we still have two and a half hours to eat we need to be sure.

Penong's, a famous unli-rice restaurant is the nearest place we could eat so we immediately went there. It is located in front of NCCC mall, the mall wherein we watched the movie.
We ate there a couple of times already, like I said it is a famous unli-rice restaurant and what do we pinoy's love? UNLIMITED RICE haha! I usually order their main specialty the chicken barbeque because from all the Penong's in Davao(they have I think 5 branches) their chicken barbeque in Penong's Matina is really good. I know you're bugged by what I wrote, but yeah.. I noticed the chicken in that branch is more juicy and tasty than in some other Penong's branches. Really, im not kidding.

My friend ordered their new Babyback Ribs, which you can tell that it is a new addition to their menu cause of the repeating radio ad that keeps on playing every after each song in that restaurant.
After a couple of minutes, the waiter who took our order went back to our table and said the only available Rib size is large. My friend said to cancel my order (booooo! chicken down the toilet) and we'll take the large one and two unli-rice of course ^_^ haha.
When the Ribs came, wow! it really looked good! The ribs was hot and the meat was cooked perfectly. At first glance I said, no sauce?? Thinking it would be like other baby back ribs from Coco's or Racks and I won't name more, (lol) wherein the meat is good but the sauce makes it better. Surprisingly It was very delicious without a sauce! amazing.. Their annoying ad that kept on repeating was justified, it's really tender and tasty !! Totally a must try .It's good for about two to three persons. For P230, you'll get 3 rib bones with a good serving size of meat as well. They have a single order too if you're alone, P120 only.
My unli-rice was worth it! I had 3 cups of rice! Thank you Penong's , now I won't be ordering the usual chicken or pork barbeque anymore! Kudos to your new Baby Back Ribs, and to the cooks in Penong's Matina for keeping the satisfactory taste of your food. I'll be coming back for more Baby Back Ribs and unlimited rice :D

Photo from www.penongs.com.ph

Penong's Matina
(lowest 1, highest 10)

Food: 10
Ambiance: 7
Hospitality: 8
Affordability: 9

Sesame Seeds

My mom asked me if I already ate this tiny snack my sister brought for us. I said, huh? no, where is it?.. She handed me this tiny candy like wrapper. I immediately ran to my room, took a picture of the candy so that I can write a critic about it.
Hmmm..
I don't know what this is called cause the name is written in Chinese. The wrapper says it's made in Macau. I'm just gonna show you a picture.

There it is! The candy like snack is covered with black sesame seeds. It's very interesting, I had no hesitations -  I have to taste it. The inside of it is composed of nuts and, I think caramel and milk. Sadly I'm not into nuts especially when it is placed into something sweet like chocolates and candies. I feel like I'm going to get tooth decay with those stuffs. So I don't like it. I'm going to give it 1 for taste. I'm sorry

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My friend brought me chocolate chip cookies from Cebu City!

I don't know where he bought this specifically all I know is he got it from Cebu. The cookies are fairly good - not too sweet, not too crumbly. I think each bag contains about 50 bite size cookies so I recommend it for a quick pick-up snack. It tastes more of a buttery type of cookie so you should have a glass of water or warm milk when you're eating this (gaah I'm thirsty while blogging bout it, I'm eating it now). I can't taste the chocolate so much, but hey! it still works for me. The Nutrition Facts is hard to understand because It's printed in both english and I think Spanish? I'm not sure though. It says it's distributed by Unified Western Grocers, Inc. Commerce, CA 90040 , USA. So clearly this wasn't made here.  I guess It says 140 calories amount per serving LOL. :) which sounds really high if you're on a strict diet. Anyway, a cookie a day won't hurt. Right?

I give this cookie a 5 (I still prefer Keebler Cookies)

Calda Pizza

Last Wednesday my friend and I was craving for pizza but we were on a tight budget. We were arguing if we should just forget about eating pizza and divert our cravings for more cheaper food like affordable rice meals at local fast food chains or not. I said, how about Calda? we could order their smallest size pizza just so our cravings be fulfilled.
To stop the painless arguing he immediately agreed.

Calda has 2 branches here in Davao City located at the left side of Gaisano Mall and at MTS in Matina, my friend and I ate at MTS which was very convenient at that time.
It wasn't my first time to eat at Calda Pizza, actually it's my second  haha The first time didn't impress me at all. The second time however really brighten my day. We ordered a regular size pizza and a very simple one - Hawaiian Delight. It was only 170 pesos! Very affordable ei? The size was not bad at all! Considering the need of fulfilling our craving even though we are not that hungry, 8 slices ain't that bad. The ambiance was perfect, they played 90's hit tracks which i am fond of. The place was not too crowded too, depends on the time of day perhaps? (we were there at around 9pm). They also serve their pizza the original way, unlike other pizza parlors wherein they encourage customers to use a knife and a fork? To my Readers, Pizza is a finger food. It should be eaten with fingers. You won't lose your image of being Sosyal if you use your fingers on pizza cause it was made to be eaten that way. Kudos to Calda for keeping the original sense of pizza dining. This is a very helpful tip if you visit the US or other countries, try not to ask for a knife and a fork if they didn't give you one(if you badly need to eat it with utensils visit Chicago).

Down side of the store is that their employees don't mind their customers that much. When we asked for a waiter to jot down our order the lady crew just pointed at the counter. Okay, so we have to order at the counter? that's what it meant right? . . After a while a family came, when the mother said "order" the crew went to their table immediately and took their order!!! WHAT THE F?.. Is it because we're guys so it's okay to treat us raggedly? haha It wasn't a big of a deal for my friend and I, but still it wasn't something to be applauded about.
Second, If you're an OC you better bring your own drink. If you ask water in Calda MTS they give you a pitcher of water and a tiny plastic cup. The cups came straight out from their refrigerator(located behind us), heck no! Sanitary is one of the most important things when you're running a food business. It wouldn't worry me that much if the cups were hidden at the back of their counter wherein the customers won't see where it came from, but in the refrigerator?? bacteria thrives in moisture whether it's cold or warm. From the way I see it, customers may also suspect that they recycle their cups! GAAAH

Calda should be really careful with sanitation and they should monitor their employees more often.

Aside from the negative comments I gave Calda, still I enjoyed dining there! The pizza was satisfying and their tracks was awesome! be coming back for more!

(lowest 1, highest 10)
Food: 8
Ambiance: 7
Hospitality: 4
Affordability: 9

Photos from Facebook.com

Try this Cracker

I applied for Blog Catalog so that i could get more viewers. Too bad, they rejected my application. They said I should write at least 10 posts so that I could get an approval from their site. Bummer! I only have two, and now three..

So I thought of blogging about this local cracker I just ate. Here's a photo:

I've known Magic Flakes for years already. They've been one of my favorite local biscuit brands since I was a kid. They have different varieties if you're looking for different tastes of sandwiched biscuits - chocolate, butter, cheese, and plain.
The one I ate is cheese flavor. The pack contains 4 pieces of crackers which I can say are really good and I can name a few who also agrees with me. The crackers are always crispy (good storage pack), the flavor is not that cheesy though - good ( I give it a 7), and addictiveness 8 . If you'll be munching these crackers after reading my blog or better yet munching while reading, be sure not to do it on the bed. I made lots of crumbs and cracker bits for me to clean up afterwards.

So the next time you think of buying a pick-a or a snack, try this one. Overall I give it a 7.