Harbour City Dimsum House – SM Cebu

I had a lunch date with mom one time and we decided to try Harbour City Dimsum House located below Red Ribbon and Jollibee in SM City Cebu. Mom thought that the place looked expensive but I said that their dimsum meals cost only around 50 pesos each so she became at peace then after hearing that. As for me, I crave dimsum every now and then and I love harbour not only for their food and services but their interior decors as well. They actually use Chinese Abacus as dividers. Cool eh?

Anyway, on to our orders. I had steam fried rice and mushroom shaomai. I would have been happy with these two only even without any drinks at all but mom loves to order MORE foods so that she will know what NOT to order next time. Nyahaha.

Mushroom Shaomai for only 50.89 pesos excluding tax

Steam Fried Rice at 53.57 pesos excluding tax

Milk Tea at 40.18 pesos excluding tax

Tofu Mushroom Rolls at 53.57 pesos excluding tax

I have never been a fan of Tofu so I know that I will not order Tofu Mushroom Rolls ever again. Milk Tea is okay but at 40 pesos, I’m NOT going to buy this one also ever again. Nothing beats “TUBIG na lang” (Water only)!

Our total bill was 327 pesos or around 6 Euro. The price is reasonable I suppose but it could have been cheaper if mom didn’t order the foods that I consider junk.

I Chose Nikon D3100

Ahem..

After years and years of debating with myself and asking questions from photographers I knew all over the world, I finally bought a single-lens reflex camera last night in just a matter of minutes at Camera Haus, SM City Cebu.

There were only two options for me to choose from – Canon 1100D and Nikon D3100 – and I chose the latter.

Both cameras are suitable for beginners like me and although Canon 1100D was way cheaper at 29,000 pesos, comes in different beautiful colors (red is just sexy, haha), and offers 3-years warranty but according to my French photographer friend, Jacky, Nikon is the choice if I really want to learn photography. Also, my sister believed in the powers of Nikon.

So, after shelling out 32,000 pesos and signing the warranty card with a coverage of 2 years, I’m now a proud owner of Nikon D3100. Yay!

Now, it would be pretty stupid of me to spend this huge amount of money but not make the most out of this camera so I’ve been on youtube for hours now trying to learn the fundamentals of photography.  I find the guy behind FontanaKnowledge a bit “unique” but he sure is a fine and interesting teacher. And this guy is telling me that I need to read the manual first. Oh-oh! Just one look at this thick book makes me want to start snoring already.

P.S.
If within Avion, France and looking for a photographer, you might want to get hold of Jacky via his site: http://www.jpip.site90.net/ I heard he will have a studio somewhere in Thailand soon so check out his site for any new updates.

Laguna Cafe in SM NorthWing Cebu

After our bentusa massage at Langkawi Discovery Spa, we took a jeepney from ParkMall to SM City Cebu for our lunch at Laguna Café. It’s part of our post valentine itinerary in celebration of womanhood, singlehood and lifehood. Oh yeah!

I’ve always thought that Laguna Café is ridiculously expensive but I was wrong. For 8 people, our total bill was only 3540 and since this is a KKB event (kanya-kanyang bayad or Dutch style), my wallet only bled 442.50 pesos. One foreigner guy informed me that he would love to join us 8 women but I frankly told him that unless he is ready to pay the entire bill, this is NEVER a good idea because unfortunately, a lot of Filipinos will always expect to have a white guy pay for EVERYTHING.

So about our lunch, my favorite food was paella and the seafood platter. Paella is one of my sister’s favorite dishes and she kept telling me about this that I became curious. I wanted to be able to relate to her so I suggested that we order paella. I don’t know if paella in Laguna Café is different from what my sister had in Belgium or Spain but the paella that I’ve tried sure was lovely.

Below is our order and the bill receipt…

Lumpia Shanghai 196.43 pesos

Laguna Fried Chicken 191.96 pesos

Crispy Pata 294.64 pesos

Nilagang Baka 218.75 pesos

Pandan Chicken 191.96

Seafood Platter 531.25 pesos

Paella Large 513.40 pesos

Cebu’s Chorizo Dance

Chorizo is one of my favorite sausage and since I like going out with mom on most weekends when she visit her casket customers, I was happy to meet one of them who sells Chorizo. What is Chorizo?

It uses the skin of a pork’s large intestines. They remove all the TA-E (feces), clean it thoroughly and then dry it. I think this is the reason why chorizo tastes so delicious.

And then they stuffed the skin with meat. To make a special chorizo, for a 20 kilo of meat, it must have an 8 kilo of lean meat and then 12 kilos of fat. Meat can be a combination of beef and pork. The 20 kilo of meat is then mixed with 6 kilo of sugar, salt, vetsin, onion, pepper. I only learned about the amount of sugar and the proportion of the rest of the spices were probably a trade secret.

After stuffing the skin, it is then tied with a thread to make it look like an intestine again but instead of TA-E, it’s now stuffed with delicious and edible goodies.

How they tie the thread fascinates me the first time I saw it in carbon market. It’s as if they were dancing. You’ll have to see the video below to see it for yourself.

Their chorizo costs 25 pesos per 12 round pieces and if you don’t know which stall to buy chorizo from in the chaotic carbon market, check out their Stall #51. I was told that even the late Fernando Poe, Jr ordered from them and they also supply to the different foodcourt stalls in SM City Cebu.

Dinosaurs Alive – A Forest Themed Exhibit Experience

It has been advertised for months in SM City City and although I was very curious, I don’t care to pay 450 pesos (8 Euro) for the adult fee entrance. Luckily, a colleague has 5 FREE extra tickets and I was one of the lucky persons to be invited at its last day of showing. Yippee!

There were about 10 dinosaurs being showcased only and it starts and ends with the most impressive ones – Apatosaurs and Tyrannosaurus. All of the dinosaurs looked and sounded real too – they blink, they open their mouths, their tails wag and their wings flap.

Did you know…
Scientists aren’t sure what colours dinosaurs were?

 Apatosaurus

 Triceratops

 Tyrannosaurus

Did you know…
the dinosaur with the longest name is Micropachycephalosaurus.

Other than tyrannosaurus and the trivia bits everywhere, I love the boards being displayed that shows a wealth of information about the Climate Change and Extinction Theories which made me think of the possibility that homo sapiens like the dinosaurs will one day become extinct too to give way to a new era of a different kind of species that can adopt with the environmental change.

We are just passing through this world people so please be kind to animals that is sitting / standing beside you!  :)