Jellybeans in the City

European lunch at Vanderlust Bistro, Tomas Morato

Europe’s rich and diverse culture is made manifest in its cuisines. While I wouldn’t mind traveling across The Continent to sample its gustatory pleasures, the expedition would surely be costly. Luckily, with Vanderlust Bistro, I can get a taste of the cuisines of various European countries all in one place.

And that is exactly what I did for lunch together with my officemates one fine day. Armed with our Zomato Gold memberships, we set about discovering what Vanderlust Bistro has to offer.

The place is cozy with limited seating at the ground floor but more tables available upstairs. The interiors are sparsely decorated, other than the wallpaper with miniature Eiffel Towers, approximating the simplicity of European bistros.

Its food offerings are focused on German, Italian and Spanish cuisines, giving us varied flavors to explore and satisfy our cravings. These include:

Fish and Wedges (Php238). Beer-battered fish and potato wedges served with aoili.

Catalan Baked Fish with Potatoes and Asparagus (Php458). Baked white fish with herb crust served with olives, sauteed potatoes, asparagus and roasted tomatoes.

Mon Cheri Poulet (Php458). Honey and red wine-glazed chicken thigh placed on top of a spinach omelette and a strip of smoked bacon.

Cacio E Pepe Mushroom Truffle (Php398). A classic Italian pasta dish of cheese and pepper with mushroom and truffle sauce.

Espaguetis con Chorizo (Php278). Pasta noodles tossed in a sauce made from simmered tomatoes and Spanish sausages with a bit of paprika.

Tuscan Chicken Spinach Pasta (Php348). Herbed chicken tops a pasta dish with sauce made from spinach and sun-dried tomatoes.

Gianduiotto (Php195). A chocolate dessert originating from Piedmont, northern Italy, which got its name from gianduja, a chocolate spread containing hazelnut paste.

Spanish Churros (Php98). Six pieces of freshly fried churros which we requested to be served with a chocolate dip (Php50).

I used to find European restaurants intimidating; I thought that menu items would be staggeringly expensive. At Vanderlust Bistro, however, European food is packaged more affordably and made more accessible to the Filipino diner.

This Vanderlust Bistro branch is located at 100 Scout De Guia corner Tomas Morato Avenue, Quezon City, open Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 11am to 11pm, Fridays from 11am to 2am, and Saturdays from 11am to 1am. For inquiries and reservations, call +63 2 9540401.

Another branch is located at Fifth Floor, The Podium, ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City.

Since Vanderlust Bistro is a Zomato Gold partner establishment, our group got some of our food orders for free!

Zomato Gold provides members with 1+1 (Buy 1 Get 1) deals on food or 2+2 (Buy 2 Get 2) deals on drinks. All you have to do is sign up for a Zomato Gold membership here. Use my code JELLYB to get 20% off the membership fee.

You can also book your table at Vanderlust Bistro using Eatigo to get up to 50% off your food bill. Sign up using my referral link to get additional perks.

Take a sip of summer at Jack’s Lemonade, Ayala Malls Feliz

If the sweltering heat outside is any indication, then we are all caught in the claws of midsummer.

That’s no reason to let your body (and your temper) overheat, however.

Oh, what to do?

Cool your body and your spirit with the refreshing and invigorating drinks from Jack’s Lemonade. Fortunately, there’s a stall nearby at Ayala Malls Feliz which features the store’s newest Rose Blossom flavors which are based on rose tea.

Rose tea is brewed from dried whole rose blossoms or rose petals. This tea variant has Middle Eastern origins but has grown in popularity in many parts of the world. Its known health benefits include its use as a treatment for menstrual discomfort and sleep disorders, improving mood, digestion and respiration, as well as bolstering the immune system.

Add it to the freshly squeezed lemon juice at Jack’s Lemonade and you’ve got yourself a tasty and healthy drink!

I got myself a nice big cup of Creamy Rose Lemonade (Php150), whipped up by adding rose tea and lemon juice to condensed milk and powdered milk in a blender then pouring the mixture into ice with some fruit-flavored poppers. There are bursts of tangy fruitiness and rich sweetness in every refreshing sip!

So cool your jets and take time off for a well-deserved lemonade break by checking out your nearest Jack’s Lemonade branch.

This Jack’s Lemonade stall is located at Food Choices, Fourth Floor, Ayala Malls Feliz, Dela Paz, Pasig City.

Other branches may be found at:

Ground Floor, Trinoma Mall, Bagong Pag-Asa, Quezon City
Cinema Area, Third Floor, UP Town Center, Katipunan Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City
Level 6, Shangri-La Plaza, Ortigas, Mandaluyong City
Third Floor, Glorietta 2, Ayala Center, Glorietta Complex, Makati City
Fourth Floor, Market! Market!, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City

Second Floor, Market! Market!, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City

Disclosure: This drink is sponsored by Jack’s Lemonade through gift certificates I received prior to the visit.

Check out my previous posts about Jack’s Lemonade and its sister store Jelly G Milk Tea:

Refreshing lemon drinks at Jack’s Lemonade, UP Town Center Healthy Thai Milk Tea at Jelly G, UP Town Center

Tasting sweet dreams at Le Reve Patisserie, Ugong

Darling, if you ever feel the stress of city living bringing you down, why don’t you take a break and treat yourself to a bit of the sweet life?

How?

Head off to this lovely dessert shop hidden at the Ortigas Technopoint block along Julia Vargas Avenue. Called Le Reve (“The Dream” in French), it offers savory dishes and sweet desserts that combine the elegance and sophistication of French culinary techniques with homegrown flavors.

Owner Angeli Nasser started baking as a hobby but eventually pursued it as a craft and a passion. Now a certified Paris-trained chef, she applies the precise and exacting preparation styles of French cuisine to bring out the wonderful tastes and textures of local ingredients.

This marriage of French cuisine with Filipino ingredients is brought to sweet life for myself and my foodie friends from #SaanSaPH through these delectable dishes:

Longganisa Capellini (Php220). A sauce made with bits of longganisa (sausages) from Laoag, Ilocos adds a lot of savory flavors and a bit of spice to the thin-strand capellini pasta.

French Apple Crumble (Crumble aux Pommes – Php730 for 8 inches | Php150 for 4 inches | Php180 ala mode). Delicate apple slices sweetened with coco sugar and cinnamon spice topped with a crisp and buttery streusel crust. I will come back here just to taste this again ala mode. 🙂

70% Chocolate Lava Cake (Mi-cuit aux Chocolat – Php110 for 4 inches | Php140 ala mode). A molten chocolate cake prepared mi-cuit (“half-cooked” in French). Rich chocolate made from single-origin beans supplied by our very own Cacao de Davao is prepared souffle-style, making the resulting cake feel light and creamy but still rich with chocolate goodness.

Calamansi Tart (Tart au Calamansi – Php125 for 4 inches). A bright and tangy taste of summer in a dessert. A delicate but creamy citrus-flavored custard set on a thin layer of graham cracker crust will have you reaching out for more.

Dalandan Madeleines (Madeleines aux Dalandan – Php32 per piece | Php380 for 12 pieces in a tin can). Cute, little shell-shaped sponge cakes flavored with dalandan rinds, you can enjoy it with your coffee at the store or bring a can home to enjoy at your leisure.

https://flic.kr/p/2eiDazH

Cafe Americano (Php100). Freshly ground and brewed coffee made with Sagada French Roast, great on its own but also a perfect companion to Le Reve’s desserts.

Le Reve Patisserie brings a bit of the pleasures of Paris here in Pasig. Hang out for a bit to bask in patisserie’s elegant surroundings for a leisurely coffee break, or some photo opps (because, who’s judging?) 🙂

So leave your troubles behind for a bit and taste your sweetest dreams, my dear. You deserve it.

Le Reve Patisserie is located at Ground Floor, Ortigas Technopoint One, Dive Pool Block, Ugong, Pasig City, open Mondays to Saturdays from 11.30am to 8pm and Sundays from 12.30pm to 6pm. For inquiries and reservations, call +63 977 7153267.

Disclosure: Together with other foodies from #SaanSaPH, I was invited to join a foodie meetup held at this restaurant. Food items mentioned here were served to allow us to sample the fare and were not paid for by the attendees, including myself.

Five-part miniseries CHERNOBYL premieres on HBO and HBO Go on May 7

Premiering the same time as the U.S. on HBO GO and HBO on Tuesday 7 May 9am, CHERNOBYL dramatizes the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst human-made catastrophes in history, and tells the story of the brave men and women who made incredible sacrifices to save Europe from unimaginable disaster, all the while battling a culture of disinformation.

Airing every Tuesday at 9am, with a same day encore at 10pm, the five-part miniseries stars Jared Harris (“The Crown”; Emmy nominee for “Mad Men”), Stellan Skarsgård (“Melancholia,” “Good Will Hunting”) and Emily Watson (Oscar nominee for “Hilary and Jackie” and “Breaking the Waves”).

CHERNOBYL, was written, created and executive produced by Craig Mazin (“The Huntsman: Winter’s War”) and directed by Johan Renck (“Breaking Bad”); produced by Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint and Word Games as an HBO/Sky co-production. Carolyn Strauss (Emmy winner for “Game of Thrones”) and Jane Featherstone (“Broadchurch”) executive produce; Johan Renck and Chris Fry (“Humans”) co-executive produce; Sanne Wohlenberg (“Black Mirror”) produces.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, Soviet Union suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and as far as Scandinavia and western Europe.

Jared Harris portrays Valery Legasov, a leading Soviet nuclear physicist. As part of the response team, he is one of the first to grasp the scope of the unparalleled disaster that has occurred.

Stellan Skarsgård plays Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Boris Shcherbina, who is assigned by the Kremlin to lead the government commission on Chernobyl in the hours immediately following the accident.

Emily Watson portrays Ulana Khomyuk, a Soviet nuclear physicist committed to solving the mystery of what led to the Chernobyl disaster.

The miniseries also stars: Paul Ritter (“Lovesick”) as Chernobyl deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov; Jessie Buckley (“Beast”) as Lyudmilla Ignatenko, a Pripyat resident married to a firefighter on the first response team; Adrian Rawlins (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”) as Chernobyl chief engineer Nikolai Fomin; and Con O’Neill (“Harlots”) as plant director Viktor Bryukhanov.

The cast also includes: Sam Troughton (“The Ritual”), Adam Nagaitis (“The Terror”), Barry Keoghan (“Dunkirk”), Ralph Ineson (“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”), Mark Lewis Jones (“Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi”), Fares Fares (HBO’s “Westworld”) and David Dencik (“McMafia”).

Writer, creator and executive producer Craig Mazin began researching the Chernobyl disaster in 2014, using a wide variety of materials, including several books and government reports from inside and outside of the Soviet Union. He spoke to nuclear scientists to learn how a reactor works, and interviewed former Soviet citizens to gain a better sense of the culture in 1986.

Mazin also read a great number of first-person accounts, which helped bring an additional layer of authenticity and humanity to the story. He explains, “When you’re reading the personal stories of people who were there – people who lived near the plant, people who worked at the plant, people who were sent to Chernobyl as part of the effort to clean it up – in those individual accounts, that’s really where the story came alive.”

Principal photography for CHERNOBYL took place in Lithuania and Ukraine, with a creative team including: director of photography Jakob Ihre (“Thelma”); production designer Luke Hull (“Howards End”); editors, Jinx Godfrey (“The Theory of Everything”) and Simon Smith (“Endeavor”); costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux (“Brooklyn”); casting directors Nina Gold and Robert Sterne (both two-time Emmy^® winners for HBO’s “Game of Thrones”); and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Trapped”).

Episodes include:

Episode 1: “1:23:45”

Premiere date: Tuesday, 7 May at 9am on HBO GO and HBO

April 26, 1986, Ukrainian SSR. Plant workers and firefighters put their lives on the line to control a catastrophic 1986 explosion at a Soviet nuclear power plant.