Power Lunch II

As my cousin, friends and I are planning to put up a business, power lunches are to be expected. This time, we had it at Cucina Victoria at Power Plant Mall, Makati. Known for their pastas, we, naturally, ordered a variety of pasta for lunch: pesto (my favourite), lasagna, and pomodoro. Everything was simply delicious, even the pomodoro, and that's saying a whole lot as I'm not that into the basic tomato sauce for my spaghetti. And the lasagna was the creamiest I ever came across. You have to be wary about your budget though, because it is a bit costly. The dishes are good to share when you're a couple; but as there were four of us, we had to order more.

I haven't been to Power Plant Mall in decades. Coincidentally, a Baker's Fair was being held when we went there; as expected, my cousin and friends tried to sample every baked goodies they could sample. They ended up buying a box of brazo de mercedes (creme-filled log cake) from Vargas' Kitchen. The cake was a delight to our palates, except for my one friend who's not a fan.

Then it was off to her place, where we planned menus and stuff. I didn't realize deciding on menus could be so tiring. By the end of the afternoon, my head was aching. Last week, I had to cram numerous pleadings; hence, I was looking forward to a restful weekend. Apparently, this weekend was tiring as well.

P.S. For more Power Plant Mall pictures, click here.

My West Side Story

I'm no stranger to West Side Story, having watched it countless times on film and stage. My first taste of this wonderful musical was when I was in high school, with my schoolmates as casts. I fell in love with it since. So when my cousin informed me that a friend of hers got me a ticket to STAGES' West Side Story (yesterday's show), I was thrilled. It's no Broadway, but I know I'll be getting performances equal to it.

The musical is to be shown at the Meralco Theatre, running from September to October of this year. Tony, the main man, is played by Filipino balladeer Christian Bautista, while Maria, the lead actress, is played alternately by local singer-actress Karylle, and London West End's Joanna Ampil (a Filipina who has starred in musicals in London). The theatre-going public won't know who plays Maria until the start of the show. Mine had Karylle on it.

The STAGES production of this awesome musical was breath-taking. They really placed a lot of effort into the set, everything was just spectacular. The play does not require a big stage; the charm of it is its being performed beautifully in a compact setting, and this the production was able to magnificently do. They utilized each prop to its fullest extent. Music was superb; lighting was phenomenal; even the costumes were patterned as closely as possible to the movie.

And now, the casts. There was amazing dancing like never before seen on stage, and impressive performances from all concerned. I'm not that blown away by the singing of Karylle and Christian Bautista, though. The songs may be challenging for them, with high notes and all, but well, they were tapped to perform this musical, weren't they? I mean, they should have known the vocal prowess and range that the songs entailed. At any rate, it was a wondrous experience for me.

P.S. The picture is courtesy of Clickthecity.

Power Lunch

Unknown to me, a friend and my cousin planned Sunday's lunch with an agendum in mind: putting up our business. I will not talk about our business plans on this blog, not yet, anyway. When our plans have been realized, then that will be the only time I will write about it...everything about it. What I'll ramble about though is the lunch.

Lunch was at Som's, a small cafeteria-like establishment, located in Makati. I'm not really sure of the location of the other branches, but since my friend lives at Gloria Street, somewhere near Rockwell, we went to the one located quite near her place, a walking distance, in fact. Surprisingly, the place is famous for its authentic Thai cuisine, but it is far from those high-end restaurants one sees at the heart of the Business District. For one, as mentioned earlier, it looks like a cafeteria. Second, it's quite small, although they've set up tables and tents outside for that refreshing outdoor dining. Third, it's cheap. Seriously. For exquisite Thai dishes, and hefty servings, the price is waaay satisfactory.

We had Tom Yam, said to be the most famous soup dish;

Pad Thai, a dish of stir-fried rice noodles, garnished with various other goodies ;

Red Chicken Curry, and rice topped with beef. For drinks, both had Thai tea, and I had the usual, water.

Everything was delightfully delicious. I'm not a fan of Thai dishes, as I know them to be heavy on the chili, but the ones at Som's are alright, spicy-wise. I really enjoyed the Red Chicken Curry, and the Pad Thai. I loved the creamy sauce of the Curry dish, and I liked the way the sweet-sour blend of the Pad Thai tickled my palate. I'm not quite sure about the Tom Yam, but then one has to consider that I'm not that into soup recipes anyway. Although I've got to say that it's my cousin's favourite and that's saying a lot about the dish, as my cousin usually is hard to please when it comes to food.

Som's is definitely a place worth visiting again and again, and again.

P.S. The pictures are courtesy of Wikipedia, as I forgot my camera so could have done the pictures myself.

Camera Frenzy

Finally, I got my very own pocket digital camera: a Canon IXUS 90 IS.

My aunt sent it through her colleague from the UK. It costs 199£, which is fairly cheap because I got a free 4-gig memory card. Good deal, I say. Compact and light, the 90 IS measures 91.6 x 56.8 x20.9 mm (3.61 x 2.24 x 0.82 in.) and weighs approximately 155 g (5.47 oz.). Sleek designs it has too. The LCD monitor is a 3.0-inch type, low-temperature polycrystalline silicon TFT color LCD (wide viewing angle type), approximately 230,000 dots (picture coverage rate 100%). What blew me away though was the approximately 10.0 million camera effective pixels, which guarantee quality pictures. After looking through the camera the night before, I was thrilled to find that there are numerous shooting modes built inside it, like Sunset, Foliage, Snow, and even Underwater...I just need to buy myself the waterproof case. There's a Stitch Assist, which will help you come up with panoramic shots. And Color Accent, which is great for those close-up shots of nature's wonderful works. Plus, there's a feature that lets you shoot moving images without the blur, which is great because you don't expect your subject to stay still for you, not when it's a jumping kangaroo. There are a lot more features that I can't utilize in one go, but I'll be sure to find uses for them.

I've always wanted to have my own camera, as I want to travel and splendidly document my travel. Or simply click on whatever will catch my fancy. I really saved up for this and I can't wait to try it out. I will be posting some of the pictures I get through the 90 IS as I blog along...

Till then.