Wandering 7.1: BE Resort

Review Disclaimer:

This is a review post. The reviews I post on my blog are from my personal, unbiased opinion; I try the food I review so I will be basing my review on the experience I had with the food. Again, the review will be based on my experience, which may differ from yours. I will, however, welcome any comments on my reviews. I was not paid by any entity or organization to make a review on any product. I paid for the food I review using my own money. If there are any inconsistencies on my review, please leave a comment below.

BE Resort

Summer is here again! It's that time of the year again when we have our summer parties. woot woot! This year, I'm the head of the party committee so I had to help out with the preparations for the party. Choosing the venue would be one of my responsibilities, so I decided to help out with the ocular inspection. I was completely beat by the time we were done. My head and feet were killing me and I was full to the brim! Anyway, the following would be my review for the places we visited. The rating after every venue would be for its compatibility for large events, not for personal preferences. By the way, this is a 3-part review, so this will be the first of 3 reviews I will be doing on the 3 resorts we visited for the inspection.

Review:

BE resort is located in Punta Engaño, right next door to Abaca and a little bit farther than Shangri-La Mactan. It was such a long ride going there! I think we spent an hour and a half in the cab, simply because we took the wrong route. haha. Instead of heading to Punta Engaño, we headed to Cordoba, which was on the other side. Good thing Mactan is relatively small, and the driver was smart enough to know the other route going to the place.

Their restaurant/viewing area?

Anyway, when we got there, you would not believe how hot it already was! Let me explain. BE's color scheme is white and green. The beach sand is completely white. I think you know where this is going. Haha.



They do have ceiling fans, but they are not adequate enough to quell the intense heat. So I felt like I was in a convection oven.  The corridors weren't air conditioned, either. :(

The place is quite aesthetically appealing; it looked really neat and minimal. They accentuated the color scheme by adding minimalist designs and stylish pieces. It really looked modern, yet relaxing.

The beach was really cute and inviting. They had these little couches that had covers in place of the normal beach tent, and let me tell you, it really added a touch of sophistication to the place. But that's it.

It's really cute; when I say cute, I mean small. Very, very small. For a party venue, where you would obviously need to set up a stage and do a couple of games here and there, you would need bigger space. BE didn't have that. I find BE a good place to chill and relax, but not to hold a large corporate event. The rooms are, well, cute too. We were able to view their suite, and it was disappointingly small. You would think that, for a suite, it would at least be able to accommodate 2 queen size beds. But no, it barely had room for one!  As for the food, we weren't able to taste any :(. No food tasting. The hotel staff seemed to have been a little bit off that day. I don't know. They didn't seem welcoming and they looked really haggard. They answered the questions we had very briefly, and that's it.

Rating: 5/10 -- because it doesn't have enough space to accommodate a large crowd, and they have the guts to charge you 900 PHP/pax. Staff isn't too accommodating either.

Location: Punta Engaño Rd., Lapu-Lapu City, 6015

Price: 6175 PHP/pax (regular stay)

How to get there: ride any jeepney going to Punta Engaño

Wandering 7: Team Kyrie Heads to: Lantaw in Busay, Hello Hans Movie House, and Tonyo's!

Review Disclaimer:

This is a review post. The reviews I post on my blog are from my personal, unbiased opinion; I try the food I review so I will be basing my review on the experience I had with the food. Again, the review will be based on my experience, which may differ from yours. I will, however, welcome any comments on my reviews. I was not paid by any entity or organization to make a review on any product. I paid for the food I review using my own money. If there are any inconsistencies on my review, please leave a comment below.

Team Kyrie Heads to: Lantaw in Busay, Hello Hans Movie House, and Tonyo's!

My agents have been pestering me for months now. They wanted me to take them out. I'd have loved to, if I'd had time then. The past few months have been incredibly hectic. I haven't even had the chance to pursue my interests. However, since its the holidays, it hasn't been too busy, so I finally took my agents out for our Team Socialization.

Lantaw Native Restaurant - Busay

Lantaw was the first restaurant I ever reviewed here on my blog. However, they have expanded to 3 restaurants since then. We headed off to their Busay resto because my babies here really wanted to try them out, after reading my blog, and hearing great reviews of the place; not to mention its sooo close to the city (and to the office, ha!). So, riding a habal-habal at 75/pax, we headed to Busay. 

We've really gotten a whole lot fatter and older over the years, haven't we, BFF?

As you can see, the view is amazing! It's even better at night!

A few of my babies. Only these guys showed up so I'm stuck with them (hehe.. joke)

May future!

Food there was amazing, as expected. However, what really won me over was the view the place offered. You could really see the city from there, as well as the nearby Mactan Island. It even got better when the sun set. The place is really worth visiting, even for just the view.

Buttered Garlic Prawns FTW!

Calamares are good and crunchy

Didn't get to try this. My PG agents ate all before I got to it!>.<

Before the food Holocaust happened.

Price: Reasonable (at 150 - 300 rates)

Place: Wonderful, the view is fantastic

How to get there: Just take any habal-habal (local motorcycle transport) from JY Discovery Mall and have them take you to Lantaw. If you're not comfortable with that, taxi's should still be able to take you up, though I won't guarantee that all of them will. The road is steep!

Our satisfied faces:

Kung maka pose si Brit! Mura lang ug wala gi demolish and lamisa!

nyam nyam

See how dirty we eat? Hahaha.. Finger licking good!

Hello Hans Movie House

After getting our fill, we moved on to movies! Wee! I suggested we watch a horror movie to get our hearts pumping (I was afraid that the fat from too much seafood would have killed us, haha). We headed to Hello Hans at IT Park, right beside Skyrise 1. I love this place. I am such a loyal customer here. My husband and I would come here often to just watch horror movies. I know, I know. We can do that at home, but believe me when I tell you  that the ambiance here is great! It's clean, it smells good, the price is reasonable, and the people are great!

At the lobby

It's sooo cozy!

..and clean!

They have a great selection of movies, and their staff helps you choose the best movie to watch too. They also have promos and this loyalty card thingy that allows you to get discounts and watch free movies. You can bring your own food in too (but they do sell their own snacks, if, for any reason, you didn't bring any.).

Price: 300 for the first 2 people, 50 for each succeeding person admitted

Place: Great! Clean! You have to see for yourself really.

How to get there: Ride any jeepney that goes to IT Park. 

Tonyo's!

So the kids still wanted some fun. I promised them karaoke, and a few drinks, so we went directly to Tonyo's after our movie. I don't like the place, but it was close by, and relatively affordable, so ok. We ordered a few beers, and some food, which was good. What usually miffs me about the place is that it always smells. I don't know what it is, piss, stale food, vomit, I don't know. It just smells so damn terrible. Another thing is that they don't offer another microphone! We should really have headed to Songhits. Damn it.

Don't care where, basta karaoke!

Isog kaayo si Madam.

Ang kinuptan ni Sean, di ika limod. ^^ Labyu geng.

Our beautiful Tanggera.

Isn't the chandelier a bit off??

Price: Reasonable (100 - 300 - food / room at 250/hour)

Place: Don't get me started on this again. 

How to get there: Any jeepney that goes to IT Park should pass by Tonyo's.

Overall, out Team Socialization was a great success! Looking forward to the next one!

Update Post: SLT (Sweet Little Things)

This is an update on the old post I made for SLT.

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I recently went back to SLT to get a few more of their delectable cupcakes. I just could not resist! My hubby really loves me sooo much; he doesn't really object to anything I ask him to do. So anyway, I tried another box with a couple new flavors, and I greatly enjoyed eating all of them, well, technically, not all of them, but, anyway...

My 6-piece heaven..^^

I went to get some of the cuppies I wasn't able to try the last time and I also got 2 of the new seasonal flavors that they had. 

Aren't they pretty?

I got the following:

Cinful Apple -- I really love the cinnamon sugar topping. It's soooo good, plus you could really taste the apple-y bits in the cupcake itself.

Really sinfully Cinful Apple.

BlueBerry Crumble -- This one's pretty good too! Something you would wanna eat after eating too many chocolates. Haha.

Blueberry Crumble.

Lemon PoppySeed -- This is my all-time favorite! I love this over and over again. I cannot completely describe how wonderfully delicious this is.  Di man ka lud-on ani gud inig human nimo'g kaon. 

Lemon Poppyseed.  DOn't eat too much poppyseed. Mythbusters said so.

Strawberries n Cream -- This is refreshingly good too! I really love their light and fluffy cake; it really goes well with the light whipped topping.

Strawberries n Cream

Since I got these around Christmas, I decided to also try out their seasonal offerings, the Krisp Kringles Premium Cupcakes.  The premium cupcakes come in 2 variants, the Mint Chocolate and the Red Chocolate. Both are made of chocolate cakes with either vanilla or mint frosting and topped with chocolate crisps reminiscent of the old Nestle Crunch. Then both are topped with either a red or green chocolate ball. I really can't give a faithful description of the taste since I really wasn't able to try them out. huhu. My baby ate both of them because they were so pretty and he just said they tasted good. 

Krisp Kringles -- Red Chocolate

Krisp Kringles -- Mint Chocolate

I'ma try out the rest soon. I'll keep you guys posted!

Ja ne!

Wandering 6: I'm cold at Lanipao

Travel Post

Lanipao Rainforest Resort

We love swimming. The thing is, there aren't places close by for us to take a dip in. When we learned that there was a place close by we could swim at, we immediately packed our stuff and got ready! The place I'm talking about is Lanipao Rainforest Resort. This is located at Brgy Sapangdaku, Guadalupe, Cebu City, which is a mountain baranggay near our baranggay.

A bit blurry.. ^^ Go, NoBrea! ^^

It takes about less than 30 minutes to get there from where we are living at. My dad got the old cab out again and we were off to Lanipao!

We brought the kids along for a quick dip (as if.. ahaha), along with some food to get us by till we go home.

Hot day!

Isn't he cure? My favorite  nephew, Noodles!^^

We didn't expect that there would be a lot of people atthat day.. Duh.. It was a Sunday! Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun swimming!

Look at how much fun my baby is having!

I was heavily pregnant, but laag gihapon!

They have, surprisingly, a lot of cottages you can choose from. They have ones nestled in the terraces that they made, they also have ones at the lowest part of the resort. The places is really nice, and its really quiet and isolated. Kinda gives you the feeling that you're really far from the city, but you're not.

Ate Pia, with Lola.

They have about 4 pools. They have 1 kiddie pool, and 3 adult pools. 1 of the pools has a slide.

The water comes from a cold spring somewhere up the mountain. It actually flows through all of the pools and exits out to a little stream.

The water may look murky, but it's really clean.

My strong baby eating his Corn on the Cob.. ^^

Is it cold, Caroline?

After a bit more of splashing, we finally went home tired and spent. It was completely fun!

Wandering 5: I think I'm going Japanese -- Mickey's Japanese Cakes

Review Disclaimer:

 

This is a review post. The reviews I post on my blog are from my personal, unbiased opinion; I try the food I review so I will be basing my review on the experience I had with the food. Again, the review will be based on my experience, which may differ from yours. I will, however, welcome any comments on my reviews. I was not paid by any entity or organization to make a review on any product. I paid for the food I review using my own money. If there are any inconsistencies on my review, please leave a comment below.

 Mickey's Japanese Cakes

Mi Amigas and I were looking for something to do on a boring Thursday afternoon. We just usually go home after shift since we have to come in early the next day, but we decided to be such bad-asses (exag??) and just ditch the idea of going home early to hang out at some place. Mi Amigang Christina, being so organized and OC when it comes to virtually everything, made a list of all the places we could go to to eat and hang out. We first decided to go to Banilad to try out Phoebe's Cupcakery, but it seemed to far from where we were and the traffic going home would kill us. We instead chose a nearer place, somewhere we can just eat, then head somewhere else after filling our empty food sacks. We decided to dine at Mickey's Japanese cakes. 

I've always wanted to try their cakes, but I just passed the chance off every time. There was always another place I could go to, or I didn't have anybody with me. Now, I can finally make a blog post out of you!

The Place:

 

Mickey's is located at #7 Unit B Escario Bldg., Escario St. You really can't miss it. There is a very big sign painted on their roof with their cafe name. 

How can you miss something this big??

It's a very quaint little place, probably only big enough to serve about 15 people at a given time. I think if all of the 15 people sat there at the same time, there would be no elbow room at all.

I can't keep myself from thinking how weirdly put together the place is. You have a number of knick-knacks from the Philippines, coffee barrels from South America, and a number of things from other countries. 

I have no idea what there frogs are for. They have some sort of wooden sticks in their mouths.

I really can't tell what design motif they are trying to achieve, but the place is hardly relaxing; not that I went there to do that. Hahaha. Anyway, there are couch-type seats and simple tables and chairs covered with a generic red and white checkered cloth. 

I really need to polish my Hiragana reading skills. I can only read some of the characters. Damn it.

Al Fresco seats for smokers

They also have al-fresco tables outside for smokers.

I kinda love how helpful and patient their staff are. They are really knowledgeable on the food they serve; which really let's you know that they were not merely hired on the spot to sell the cakes. Plus, they are really pro-active --  serves you water without asking if you want one, gives you some glossy magazines to read through while waiting for your order, kind enough to answer all your queries. +1 for that, Mickey's!

The Food:

Mickey's serves different cakes and pastries along with coffee. They also serve different dishes like pasta, burgers, lasagnas and the like.

Menu Board -- On the left side the is the international coffee menu

Assorted knickknacks on the counter. We first thought that the things inside the vertical boxes were oats.. They were in fact Coffee Beans.. Coffee Bean, Y U Not Black?

 Upon entering, you can immediately see the cake stand filled with different gorgeous cakes. I wanted to stare, and stare at them the whole time.

I wasn't able to try everything, but one of their best sellers is the White Snow Cheese Cake.

Aren't they pwetty?

We merely went there for a light snack that aftie, so we ordered the best sellers for us to try and taste. 

Our delectable orders..^^

I immediately ordered the Rare Chocolate Cake and Christina took their Tiramisu. Amigang Erika, being very weight conscious (echos! >.<), decided to skip the desserts and just be the photographer of the day.

I was shaking with anticipation when this photo was taken. Amigang Erika took too long!

My goodness. Just posting this photo is making me want to lick the screen.

A view from the top.

I felt like the cake slice was too small. Hmpf.

I fancied the Rare Chocolate Cake, so I had to get it. I heard a lot of raves about this cake from some blogs so of course, I was not gonna let this chance pass me by! When I first saw my cake slice, I was like, "What the heck!". I was expecting a bigger slice since I paid a hefty 125 PHP for just one slice. But I understood later on that it wasn't the size I was paying for, it was actually the quality of the cake. It was amazingly soft and creamy and smooth! It was like all the layers and textures of the cake blended together to make a perfect slice of heaven. You can definitely taste the body of the cake, and it was as soft as Angel Food Cake. The ganache of the cake was heavenly, too! I cannot describe how velvety and creamy and delightfully heavenly it is!

Christina with her very delicious Tiramisu

Isn't it perfect? I love the chocolate powder on top. OMG.

 Me, being the brat that I am, quickly dug into Christina's Tiramisu (95 PHP), which she generously shared with me (hehehe.. I'm spoiled by everybody..). It was completely new! I mean, yeah, I've tried a lot of Tiramisu in my lifetime, and I can tell you that I am really not a big fan. But, the Tiramisu I tried before were all Pinoy Tiramisu, meaning, they were made out of Graham Crackers and Nestle Cream (Guilty?). The ones they serve at Mickey's seem to really stay true to the original Italian dessert. I'm not sure if they used Mascarpone Cheese, since I've never tried it before, or just Cream Cheese, but dang, was it different! It was tangy, with a little sweetness. They also really used Lady Fingers dipped in Espresso for the base. It was amazing. The tang  of the cream, plus the sweet-bitterness of the base made a perfect couple. I am now a convert. ^^

My Almond Ball..

I wasn't contented with my Rare Chocolate Cake, so I ordered another mini-dessert: Almond Ball/s (10 PHP). It's a ball shaped candy/cookie made out of ground almonds. I don't know what binding agent they used, but it ends up being pretty hard and it's rolled in powdered sugar. I can tell you, it may not look much, but it packs in a lot of flavor. It's really good!

After a bit of picture taking, Erika finally gave in and ordered a slice of the same chocolate cake.

Hehe.. So where's your diet now, huh?

 Here are some of the cakes we couldn't have.. =(

Top: Mango Short Cake; Rare Chocolate Cake -- Bottom: White Snow Cheesecake; Cherry Cheesecake; New York Cheesecake

Banana Cream Pie

I want it!

Isn't it gorgeous? I want to eat the whole thing!

The Price:

The cakes here are a bit pricey. You may spend about 80 PHP up to about 120 PHP per slice. Whole cakes range from 800 to 1000++ PHP. I don't recommend coming here if you have very limited budget as you will really need to spend much for each slice. But it every penny you spend is really worth it. The food is that good.

The Verdict:

4 stars out of 5 because of the look of the place.

I definitely will keep coming back to this shop. The cakes are top notch and the prices are reasonable. I can't find any reason not to like Mickeys!

Directions:

From the South:

Take any Jeepney going to Ayala Center -- 06H, 14D, 04L, 03M.

From the North:

Take any Jeepney going to Ayala Center -- 06H(from SM), 04L(from SM), 14D(from Ayala) & 12L(from Ayala)