breakfast

All posts tagged breakfast

City Staycation at Novotel Araneta Center

Posted by imogenkin on April 8, 2018
Posted in: Daily Life, Food, Travel. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Whether you are out for business, an event or just plainly trying to break your daily routine, staying at Novotel is a great choice! Located just beside Araneta Coliseum, this is the perfect place to come home to after a concert. 😊

Managed by Accor Hotels, the same hotel group that operates Sofitel and Raffles, you can expect the same great hospitality at Novotel. It’s a 4-star hotel with 401 rooms all designed with a modern vibe while still keeping its classy style.

The hotel lobby was bright and welcoming. Check-in process was also a swift. I booked for a Superior Room but they upgraded it to the next category which is a Deluxe Room, for free! 🤗 Aside from that, we were also able to check out late without extra charge. 👍

What we got in the Deluxe Room:

  • Flatscreen LED TV
  • City view – Araneta Coliseum entrance which is perfect so I can monitor the volume of people at the concert 😁
  • 2 Twin Live N Dream Beds – super comfortable!
  • Smart pillows!
  • Daybed couch and a work desk
  • Complimentary bottled water and coffee / tea making facilities
  • Mini bar with set of candies
  • Glass wall separates the bathroom with electronic privacy curtain
  • Fair Trade bathroom amenities
  • Has both handheld and rainshower! 😊
  • Safety deposit box, slippers, bathrobes, iron, hairdryer were provided
  • Free in-room and hotel wide wifi connection
  • Almost floor-to-ceiling window for natural light
  • But I don’t understand why the bathroom door doesn’t have locks? 🤔Novotel, pls enlighten me.

The room was also well lit with different switches so you can choose which lights/lamps to use and combine them to your preference. Let me also highlight the abundance of power outlets! I swear, you will not run out of sockets to charge your gadgets all at the same time. Both sides of the bed has them plus some more at the front wall and bathroom. Plus they have included a panel with all the connecting ports that you might need; from hdmi, usb, audio/video ports for the tv and more!

The hotel also has an in-house restaurant and ice cream store. But if you want to eat out, there’s Gateway Mall just few meters away and different restaurants at the other side of the road (Army Navy, Pizza Hut, Bonchon, J.Co, Buddy’s, etc).

Amenities

There’s a kid play area, gym and swimming pool at the 6th Floor. The Premiere Lounge is at the 24th floor which can be accessed by guests staying at least in an Executive Suite.

There is a kids pool and an adult pool with lounge chairs and lifeguard.

Breakfast

Our accomodation comes with free buffet breakfast at the Food Exchange at the ground floor. They have a wide variety of food choices from usual Filipino breakfast to Middle Eastern dishes. There are different kinds of breads, pizza, cereal, salad with dressing of your choice, cold cuts, pastries, arabic condiments, a pickle station, eggs cooked your style, make your own taho!, congee station, freshly pressed juices, and most importantly 2 kinds of bacon! 🤗

As if traditional bacon is not enough, they added Canadian Bacon to the selection! It is a low fat version of the usual bacon but equally good! 🥓

For me though, the star of the breakfast would be the Stromboli. It’s like a turnover filled with thick slice of meat, almost like bacon. Super tasty and a perfect combination of meaty and starchy. It’s like a pizza but not really. 😋

In all, this hotel has by-far provided one of the best staycations I’ve had. Staff are nice, always all smiles and willing to help. The price? I suggest that you check their website or FB page from time to time for available promos and perks. I got this stay for P4,500 from their summer promo which is a much lower rate than an already discounted price from other 3rd party booking sites.

Let me end this post with the main reason why I chose this hotel. I attended day 2 of Lany’s Manila concert and didn’t want to stress myself commuting with the surge of crowd coming from the show. Since Novotel is just next door to Araneta, it was perfect. So here’s Lany with their hit ILYSB as their closing song of the night. ❤️🌹

It’s a (c)Hatch22!

Posted by imogenkin on November 25, 2013
Posted in: Daily Life, Food, Friends, Photography, Travel. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Nov.23,2013.

No work today but I am up early for a 5AM trip from Cavite City to Makati to meet up with my friends, Ria and Liyan. We’re going to Hatch22 for breakfast! 🙂

I am the mastermind of this activity. Knowing these 2 are based in Makati, I set up a morning with them to try this newly opened bakery/cafe. We were in Rockwell before 8 am, got a table for 3 and skimmed through the menu. We basically knew what we are going to order though, coz we did our research! Hehe

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Interiors are modern with natural light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Wait staff are prompt as
well and food was served in about 15 minutes. I started off with a cappucino, Liyan got a banana shake and iced tea for Ria. Hatch iced tea was really bitter so if you are not a fan of such, opt for the sweetened one.

Now, the star of our breakfast: the food! 🙂

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Liyan and I both had the Crispy Delimondo Corned Beef. They used spicy Delimondo corned beef cooked to a crisp, served with garlic rice, crunchy egg and seared tomatoes. This is the reason why I wanted to eat here and I am very satisfied! Serving is big enough to keep you full til noon. (P340)

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Ria tried Tapsilog 2.0 (P345) It’s a serving of beef sirlion chunks topped over garlic rice and crunchy egg. Comes with seared tomatoes and picked veggies too. Honestly, beef was a bit bland. Visual stimulation did the trick on this one. 🙂

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For dessert, we shared over Hot Fudge and Toffee Ice Cream Puff (P190) and English Trifle (P210). The first one is basically cream puff stuffed with toffee ice cream, simple dessert nothing amazing. 😦 The other is a glass full of sponge cake, custard, banana, cream and topped with blueberry jelly. This one is better. Not too sweet and suprising flavors layered together. 🙂

Service: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5
Food: 3.5/5
No wifi by the way hehe but in total it was worth waking up early for. 🙂

PS: one of the owners, Erwan Heussaf came in at around 9.30am you might want to drop by around that time 😀

Hatch22
Ground Floor
Power Plant Mall
Rockwell, Makati
(just below Draft)
Opens 7AM til late night
Prices include VAT but exclusive of service charge

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Antiques

Posted by imogenkin on July 11, 2012
Posted in: Cavite, Daily Life, Food, Photography. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

For a first timer in Cafe Antix, I must be quite impressed and immediately blogged. They have opened for some months now but I have just tried it for breakfast today.

First off: the interiors look very nice. I suddenly realized why it was named Cafe Antix, it means antiques! or perhaps I assumed hehe. The colors play from brown to black, and has a very homey feel.. or make that very ancestral home feel. They had vintage fans, capiz windows, and even am old tv cabinet. But the most exciting of all is their old-style phone that actually works. so cute! hehe

They also have an array of drinks. From lattes to frappes to sodas and milk teas. There are also choices of cakes and pasta to munch on.

I had the Hashed Beef Penne Pasta (P110). This is corned beef in tomato-based sauce with garlic and onions that I, of course, had to pick out hehe. It has a generous serving and enough to keep you full for hours.

We also had a slice of an Oreo Cookie Cake (P95). Oreo. Cookie. Cake. Need I say more? 🙂 Let me just also commend them for not serving us the Blueberry Cheesecake, which is our original order since according to them their cakes only have 3-days shelf life. That’s 1 pogi point for Cafe Antix! 🙂

Another pasta we tried is their Spicy Tuna Spinach Pasta (P95). This is spicy tuna chunks tossed in vegetable oil with spinach leaves and olives. This isn’t too spicy which is a good thing.

Left is a Mocha Frappe (P120) and right is a Strawberry Italian Soda (P55). Both very refreshing. 🙂

Servers there are also accommodating and prompt. Aircon and music was on as soon as we sat down and food was served within 15 minutes. All in all, my first bite of Cafe Antix was a good one. And I will definitely come back again. 🙂

Cafe Antix is located at 5125 P. Burgos Ave. Cor. Cabuco St. Caridad, Cavite City.

Going North For Breakfast.

Posted by imogenkin on November 25, 2011
Posted in: Daily Life, Food, GudVibes. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

“‘When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,’ said Piglet at last, ‘what’s the first thing you say to yourself?’ ‘What’s for breakfast?’ said Pooh. ‘What do you say, Piglet?’ ‘I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?’ said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s the same thing,’ he said.”
A. A. Milne,  ‘The House at Pooh Corner’

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I am not a breakfast person. I hated it as a child and would skip it as much as possible. Even when I went to school, first thing I eat is lunch. I have sort of developed an upset in my stomach whenever I eat anything in the morning, di kasi nasanay hehe. But now, being someone who works in graveyard shift, I’m always hungry in the morning and learned to appreciate breakfast food. Always, have to get something to eat after work.

And then here came Milky & Sunny. 🙂  They serve breakfast food whole day. I have been asking Chino for weeks that we go there before it gets popular hehe. And since we our celebrating our 26th month, we decided to finally go. Straight from shift, I waited for him in Makati. We arrived in Kapitolyo, Pasig at around 10AM.

The set-up is really cute. It is just how I have seen it in pictures, it’s like I have been there before hehe. They serve traditional Pinoy breakfast (tapsilog, tocilog, etc), pancakes, waffles, some pasta, cereals and of course, milk and juices.. and more! 🙂

We started with the Bacon and Spam Pasta (P180). Pasta, bacon and spam – how could you go wrong? The only thing wrong about this are the onions. Acckk..I don’t eat onions. I guess they were not minced enough and it blended with the sauce so I cannot pick them out.  I hate onion surprises pa naman. But that’s just me, I bet this is perfect for those that enjoys onions.

He had tapa rice meal, comes with garlic rice and egg (P160). Heard it is one of the bestseller, but it tasted usual.Meat can be more tender. 🙂

I had tocino (P120). Tasty and sweeter than usual (in a good way). Only complaint is the garlic on the rice. I think I chewed on a half clove.. 😦 Too big of a chunk on a rice, in my opinion.

All in all, the experience was good, though. Water is served as soon as we sat, which is really nice since we came from a long commute hehe And of course, I have to show the really cute and fresh decors there. It would be really nice to wake up in the morning and eat somewhere like this:

Did you notice our meal was milky and sunny as well? Pasta = milky. Rice meal = sunny, (side up egg) nyaha Right? Right?  I should try the waffles and pancakes next time. That’s it for now. Good morning friends! 🙂