Annabel Lee

It was a holiday in the Philippines. Because of the new law signed by GMA, all holidays are celebrated on the Monday closest to the holiday to give the filipinos, a long weekend to be with their families and explore the countryside. The holiday we celebrated today is Ninoy Aquino Day, which generally falls every August 21st, but was commerated instead today, August 20th (as it is a Monday before the actual holiday). There are exceptions to this shifting to Mondays law on holidays.

One bad about working with the World Bank is that the employees in the Manila Office are limited to 11 holidays per year (to follow the same number that the US HQ has) and the Ninoy Aquino day is not one of the holidays that World Bank Manila Office honors. That's unpatriotic, huh!

So,even though it is a holiday, my wife has to go to work. I decided to see and hang-out with Allan instead. We planned out to sell my extra phones in Greenhills, before these units become worthless and obsolete.

I sold my P910i, a Sony-Ericsson unit, that's both a phone and a PDA hybrid. I also had an earlier model of the Nokia 6600, a camera phone. You really can't bargain much in Greenhills as the shops there would take your camera at really low,low prices. Anyways, better to convert it at a loss than not recover at all.

Me and Allan decided to eat at Annabel Lee restaurant in the Prominade at Greenhills. The restaurant is known for gourmet and the finest cheesecakes in town. This is my first time at Annabels and I have no inkling what their food would be like. I ordered the Scallop and Pomelo Salad for starters. We had pasta for our main course, mine was the beef stroganoff with shitaki mushroom while Allan ordered the seafood pasta in crab fat. As dessert, we ordered the best selling cheesecake of the shop, the baked double dutch pecan cheesecake. I also had my Coke light fix for this lunch.

The salad was great. I never thought, scallops would be great additions to romaine lettuce and pomelo. Scallops were sauteed in oyster sauce and quite tasted good and tender. Scallops are harder to come by, as they tend to be rubbery and chewy if it's cooked too long. I would rate this salad four spoons out of five.

The seafood pasta was served next. It was spicy and colored orange because of the crab fat. I thought I did not like it much, althought the prawns were extraordinarily large and quite tasty. I think, I was not expecting an orange colored-pasta, hence, my apprehension. But the more I get some servings, the taste kinda grown on me and was liking it at the end of the meal. The stroganoff came at a much later time. The beef was mild and tender but I thought, it tasted bland. I asked for more parmesan cheese and it lifted the flavor a little. It didn't fit well the pasta, I thought it was more viand material, than a pasta dish. I would have ordered a cup of rice to go with the beef instead of the pasta. Allan though, preferred the stroganoff over the crab fat pasta. He isn't a fan of spicy dishes, I guess, that was the tipping point.

We were so expectant of the cheesecake. You see, Allan does some baking as a hobby and just like me, he can opinionated about his desserts. The double dutch pecan cheesecake was a choco cheesecake. Hefty chocolate shavings can be found as toppings. Crushed pecans were peppered on the sides of the cheesecake. It tasted heavenly and almost light. The choco flavor wasn't as strong, I thought, I can finish another slice in an instant. As a baked one, it didn't have the something like soury taste thingy when eaten, which is a good thing. I loved this cheesecake, and I think, I will come back to Annabels' without hesitation.

As a gourmet restaurant, Annabels' menu include steaks which are price mid-high and am not willing to spend at this time, hence, I opted for their pasta dishes. I paid Php1,043.00 (US$23.18) for this meal or close to US$12 per person. This is a bit steep.

Sumo Sam

We felt like adventurous today, in terms of food and the place to dine. Gentley was excited too, to drive us to where ever we intend to eat.

I suggested we take a look at the new resto in the Rockwell Mall called Sumo Sam. I saw this foodie place weeks back when I was window shopping for some baby things. I thought the place was interesting, and its japanese cuisine, so, nothing could go wrong.

Mimi, Rene, Gentley were all thumbs up for this lunch adventure. The 3 of them went down ahead to fetch Gentley's car while I stayed in my office to fix that check that I needed Jimmy to present to HDMF for my usual monthly amortization. It was going to fall due the following day and Jimmy wanted to make sure I'm not gonna miss it. Interesting enough, while I was rushing out to the elevator lobby to catch the next lift, Mimi gave me a ring. Apparently, Gentley forgot to bring his car keys with him and its lying somewhere in his desk. So to save on time, I fetched the keys while they waited for me in the main lobby.

Gentley drove us to the mall and feeling excited on what to order in this new resto. We reached the 3rd level of Rockwell a little past 12:30 in the afternoon and the place was packed. We decided to wait while we browsed through the menu. Gentley could not decide between getting the group sampler bento or ordering a la carte. When we had our table after about 15 minutes, we decided to pick our own individual orders instead.

Sumo Sam's specialty are steaks and sushi. The menu includes wagyu beef as specialty, but the prices are a bit prohibitive to try out today. Appetizers are quite extensive, and so are the sushi, sashimi and the yakitori fares. Other than the wagyu beef, the a la carte orders are reasonably priced at mid-range. Its price is relatively comparable with Teriaki Boy.

I ordered the set menu of beef with japanese fried rice, a cup of miso soup, a lettuce salad, california maki and teriaki salmon. The miso soup was quite good and hearty I emptied my cup in no time. Mimi seemed to fancy the salad, so I offered her the lettuce instead. I tackled the california maki and it was so fresh and the mango tasted sweet, I just cannot complain. Gentley had the privilege of tasting the fried rice first, and he approved of its taste he's recommending Mimi and Rene to try and taste it. I ordered my steak medium-well while Gentley fancied a really well-done beef. Gentley was not satisfied with his beef as he saw some pink flesh, he asked his beef to be cooked further.

I was happy with the beef. I thought it tasted good and tender. However, the steak sauce of gravy with mushroom tasted burnt and that's my only bad review of my food.

My lunch meal was a bit pricey as it was a bento meal. I paid Php575.00 for this meal but I'm not complaining as it was so worth it.

We strolled the mall after our lunch and I had this chance of looking at what Rene has called the Rolls Royce of baby strollers. You see, it was the first time I ever saw a baby stroller priced beyond US$1,000.00, I thought, it was rediculous. Rene mentioned that I must be too lucky as Hobbes, the shop that carried the brand, is the exclusive distributor in the Philippines. I told him, I wasn't filfthy rich to waste my money on that brand of stroller.

Gentley drove us back to the office thereafter.