Review: Azure Salon Brazilian Blowout

After 4 consecutive years of having a hair rebond treatment, I decided to try something new. I want to control my frizzy hair without totally eliminating the natural waviness. Here's a brief description of Brazilian Blowout:

Smoothing treatments remove up to 95% of the frizz, add reflective shine, seal in color, fight humidity, and decrease blow dry time (if you even choose to blow dry after having this treatment). Additionally, hair can be curled or set on rollers for those days you want curls and more bounce.
                                    - Perfect Hair Duo MODERNMOM website

Read more »

Battle of the Xiao Long Baos part 2: Lugang Cafe

This is the continuation of my last week's post:

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

After 4 hours of studying Japanese, I often craved for Xiao Long bao so upon returning home, from Trinoma, I'll have to cross the mall bridge and pass through a lot of people on my way to satisfy my cravings at SM North the Block.

At last! I have reached this restaurant. Yey! Even though I am a frequent customer here.

The restaurant's name is somewhat disgusting for some but it is really clean. I wonder why they chose Lugang Cafe instead of Lukang Cafe. Lukang 鹿港 is one of the places in northwestern Taiwan.

Read more »

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.

Read more »