Battle of the Xiao Long Baos: Shi Lin and Peace & Happiness

This is a comparison between Shi Lin and PEACE & HAPPINESS Dumpling House

For part 2, Lugang Cafe review will be coming soon. :) :) :) :)

I first came addicted to Xiao Long Bao when I, together with my friends dined in Shi Lin (士林) located at Bonifacio Global City. There is also a branch in The Podium located at Ortigas.

My friends introduced me to this delicacy while listening to Teresa Teng's songs being played in the restaurant.

Since I saw spot.ph's article about the Top 10 Xiao Long bao in Manila after many months from my first Xiao Long bao, I decided to write this post so you can see the delicacy based on a commoner's experience.

I don't know if Shi Lin refers to one of the districts in Taipei, Taiwan or if it means a Stone forest. Since I am currently taking Japanese classes, there are 3 japanese writing systems, those are hiragana, katakana and kanji. Kanji came from chinese characters and whether it is used by the Chinese or Japanese, the meaning are the same even when they were saying it differently to the point that you can write these characters and show it to them even if you don't know the literal translation of these words.

Let's go back to Shi Lin, 士 means earth, ground or soil while 林 means woods. 

Here's my Shi Lin experience for the nth time: (I can't remember the number of times since I'm a frequent customer)

The waiters are courteous and they respond quickly. The place is clean. They are still playing Teresa Teng's songs which I really like. My order came at the nick of time.

There's a second floor but too shy to capture it

Left side where the cooks are making dumplings

Sorry ^^, forgot to include vinegar on this photo. The vinegar looks like a soy sauce because of its color

                                               

                                

                                      Here's the actual amount of soup and it's really tasty

The ground pork with some onions and green veggies

                                               

6 pieces costs Php 148 while 10 pieces costs Php 246

Shi Lin has 5% service charge.

The only problem is the dumplings were easy to fall off unlike in Lugang Cafe's. ( part 2 soon :) )

Overall, Shi Lin is really tasty and worth to try for fine dining at a high end place and not too expensive price.

Prices ranges from Php 150 - 300, here's the menu.

 

Let's talk about, PEACE & HAPPINESS Dumpling House.
It is the cheapest that I've tried. It is located at SM Makati foodcourt.

                     

This is my third time here so I tried the slightly spicy sauce which is normally a dip in eating siomai instead of the real sauce like in Shi Lin.

I have drank the soup and  eaten 1/4 of the meat already

Not bad for Php 115 but I think the dough's too thick for my liking and it's too oily. Nevertheless, it is still delicious and worth craving for.

What is the delicious xiao long bao for you? Comments will be deeply appreciated. :)

Before this post ends, I wanted to share this video about the proper way of eating Xiao Long bao:

Update as of August 16, 2013:

Part 2 of this post is ready to be read!

Alliance Française de Manille review

Bonjour à tous!

I am now reviewing for My French DELF A1 exam which will be held on March next year.

I took French classes for A1 not because I have passion for the French culture and especially not because I am a rich kid or a social climber, although I like the Adventures of Tintin, it is because I am working in a department where we serve French clients. We do emails, documents and other clerical tasks for them.

I and my teammates who didn't take the French course must enroll on our free French classes paid by our company. Luckily, the schedule of classes is within our office hours so it's a relief that we can have a little fun except if one's busy and must reach deadlines to submit documents to clients.

We had our first set of classes for 3 hours 3 times a week for about three months as long as I remember from April to June and the second set from October to November.

Personally, I like the professors. The first one is a Filipina who lived in France for so many years. The second is a French who can speak Chinese but he taught only for a short time and the last professor is also a French who can speak Tagalog and he lived here in the Philippines for ten years.

I have a hard time learning French because of the pronunciations and the spelling. Remembering the gender of things and accents such as á, ç, é and many more makes me confuse. Even I am experiencing this difficulties, the professors are fun especially the last one.

Inside our company's training room, we discuss lessons, answer activities on textbooks and online (obviously) educational french games, listen to audios, watch french movies on the last 1 1/2 hours of our class.

Since we miss our professors, we often eat at a fine dining restaurant to have a despedida.

I searched for French lesson apps and downloaded these on my ipod touch. I like the most is the free French - English dictionary app.

I hope I can take and pass the exam. After getting the A1 DELF certification. I hope I can get A2 French classes for free.

Tony and Jackey SM Fairview

Overall, this is my fourth time to have my hair rebonded so I decided to search for a salon with good quality service and cheap prices.

I will be having a L'Oreal Extenso again at Tony and Jackey because of their 18 Days Promo. I went there at SM Fairview, November 15, the last day of their promo.

This is cheaper than their last year's promo. I had my first L'Oreal Extenso at T&J SM The Block.

I visited T&J Fairview years ago to have my haircut. Now, their location inside the mall is now on the third level where cinemas are located. (Someone said there are two T&Js in SM Fairview) They also now have digital mirrors.

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Barre 3 DVD and fit core ball Philippines

I enrolled last 3 weeks ago at Barre3 in Trinoma. Since I have the Belle De Jour planner coupon, the Php 1500 for 3 classes within 2 weeks became 4 classes. I saved P700. Sadly, I didn't took a photo of the card they gave me to attend classes.

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Celina's cafe and restaurant

Hi again everybody! I didn't update my blog for so long because of my vacation in Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen (China) and Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia). Also, I procrastinated in doing posts about my vacation. You can also inquire/comment for these countries' tourist information such as transpo, places to visit, etc.

Since you are curious about the deals in TCAT and Metrodeal, now, here is our experience in Celina's Cafe and Restaurant in Tagaytay using our metrodeal vouchers.

We expected that the place will be like an eatery style. When we reached there,  Celina's is really a restaurant and a decent place despite it's cheap buffet.

It's dinner time and the wind's really cold like a Baguio breeze.

I know that my iPod's camera sucked and I used this anyway to capture the supposedly beautiful orange moon

Now back to the resto, the con for the metrodeal voucher promo is.......

 The actual price of the buffet is also P299 not P600. I knew it already when I searched blogs about this but since food is delicious and cheap according to them, we decided to buy this deal.
An additional con for this is, the signage on the highway near Gerry's Grill isn't big, isn't bright and hardly read/seen.

The pros...
I enjoyed their food because it's really delicious and worth for its price. The staff are approachable and courteous. Their specialties are bulalo and the salads.

Looks mediocre, right! But when you taste these, it's really yummy :)

The other one's Kare Kare

Sisig and burger mushroom with gravy

Papaitan and the delicious/almost meat not bones bulalo

The resto has also a water dispenser. Despite the inclusion of cafe on it's name, coffee isn't included in the buffet and you have to order it on an expensive price of P75 and I will rather buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Celina's is located near (not inside) Summit Ridge and within restaurants of Gerry's Grill.