Love Chic

Facelifts, that is. Last Friday, Topman/Topshop SM Mall of Asia invited the press for a preview of its summer collection and recently refashioned store.

Our fellow bloggers Vern, Lissa, Bjorn, Verniece and Ira. We ogled a lot at the items so we weren’t able to take photos of everyone before they left, except for these two cuties.

Bjorn’s turquoise sneakers matched with nudes and florals is a bold choice for menswear, but he pulls it off and how.

Fresh-faced Vern looks effortlessly cute with the dress and bag. Her penchant for simplicity is perfect for the summer.

In celebration of the season, the store has a couple of ongoing promos. Check them out on Facebook for details.

Meanwhile, some of our favorites from the collection. This season, Topman and Topshop are big on colorful graphic prints, tribal-inspired patterns, sweet pastels and playful styles, each piece exuding their trademark carefree rock-chic vibe.

For lunch, we mall-hopped to SM Megamall to satisfy our craving for katsu.

If you follow us on Twitter or Instagram, you could probably tell from the amount of Yabu photos we post how much we love this place. Good food, good service and good vibes. Our only complaint was the long wait for a table, especially during peak hours. Not anymore!

Originally, this was all of Yabu. If you wanted to get a good seat, you’d have to be there early or late, avoiding lunch and dinner hours.

Sometime in late March, Yabu was temporarily closed for renovations and expanded to the space right beside them. Now, the seating capacity is twice as big!

If you haven’t tried it out, you might be wondering what the hype is all about. First, being “Yabu, House of Katsu,” it goes without saying that this is their specialty. And you know how we Pinoys love our deep-fried comfort food.

Second, the bento meals. For a very reasonable price, the big portions ensure that you get busog. Shai’s pick: 90 g Rosu a.k.a. Pork. The meals come with rice, unlimited cabbage, miso soup, and fresh fruit slices for dessert. You can choose from 90, 120 and 180 grams of meat to suit your level of hunger.

Seph’s pick: 120 g Cream Dory Fish Fillet.

Third, the sauces. Oh, those sauces.

You’re given sesame seeds to grind…

…and then you pour the sweet katsu sauce on it and mix together. Dip your katsu slice and taste the awesomeness.

And then there’s the mixture of Japanese mayo and sesame for the cabbage side dish.

This you really have got to taste. We’ve reached a point where the Yabu staff keep coming by our table to make sure our plates never run out of cabbage.

Yup. That was one full-filling day.

Sparks flew—literally, when we had our Valentines dinner at Torch Restaurant in Greenhills. The dinner comprised of a sumptuous four-course meal for two, exclusively offered just for February 14th. The owner, Mike Chua, invited us for a taste.

This cozy setting for two was waiting for us when we arrived, after which we were asked to choose our dishes.

The menu definitely made us smile—it was as if Mike had known us since forever! The choices were actually some of our favorites, as friends and family would attest. Then again, who doesn’t love steak or salmon or mushroom soup or chocolate?

Photo by Marj, who also had dinner in Torch that night with Val and a date (see her own blog post about it here). We were excited to take a bite, but it would’ve been a crime not to take photos of the lovely plates before us and so we did.

Pepperoni Panizza for the amuse bouche. The term literally means “amuse the mouth” in French. It’s kind of like an appetizer, except it’s more like the way in which a chef greets the diners—by presenting them with a small bite before the actual meal begins. This panizza did more than amuse our mouths or greet us a warm welcome; each bite was a combination of comfort-food pizza and fancy-dining hors d’œuvre.

Whether at home or eating out, we love to start our meals with soup, usually cream of mushroom or pumpkin. We were delighted by the Wild Mushroom Bisque with White Truffle Oil. It tasted exquisite, every sip bursting with tangy creaminess. It was a tad filling to the tummy though, so that we had to ease up a bit to leave room for the main course.

Seph had the Flaming Mignon with mashed potatoes and buttered beans. It was served on a slab of what looked like flooring tiles, and we thought it was a novel approach. The melt-in-your-mouth angus beef tenderloin was as juicy and well-done as we had hoped. We’d say we were “floored,” but that would be too much, heh.

Shai had the Salmon Puttanesca Amore. The menu described the puttanesca as “moden deconstructed,” and it was essentially that. A cute cherry tomato topped the pasta, partnered with a strip and a bangle of garlic parsley bread. Of course, the star of the meal was the Cajun spiced Norwegian Salmon—if you follow us on Instagram, you’ve probably balked at the sheer amount of salmon we consume (and take photos of).

After we’ve had our fill, the kindly waiter who has been serving us with a bright smile all evening dimmed the lights. Dessert, he told us, would soon be served.

He went back with a small heart-shaped cake on a chocolate-brown tile. We thought it was the cutest thing—until the waiter lighted it up. It looked as lovely as it tasted. Not too sweet, not too fudgy, just the way we like chocolate. Sweetest way to cap off a wonderful evening.
  
Happy Valentines, everyone! We hope you enjoy today’s celebrations, or lack thereof :)
  
Torch Restaurant is at 63 Connecticut, Greenhills. The Valentines dinner costs P1,250 net per person. For reservations, their number is (02) 477-3771. They also welcome walk-ins. Tweet @TorchResto for more.

We thought we’d spend our last day in Thailand just chilling and not being on any schedule. After all, we’ve already gotten what we came here for, and the recent flooding in surrounding areas has kept us from maximizing the trip. We headed back to Central World for some “picture-picture,” riding on one of these.

Bangkok’s answer to our tricycles. We first saw these on that old Citibank commercial starring Pierce Brosnan, and being fans of James Bond’s rides, it almost felt like getting to ride in an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish. (Almost.) Our driver, named Odd, was really nice but also really shy, so he hid while we took this picture on his tuktuk.

On Seph: Topman shirt, Human jeans, Sperry Topsiders, Ice watch. Sporty jacket, satchel and Power On/Off ring shopped in Bangkok. Hype this on Lookbook!

On Shai: lacy long-sleeved mini dress with Peter Pan collar, own watch pendant, satchel, cotton socks and studded clogs all shopped in Bangkok. Hype this on Lookbook!

Spotted: two cool cats that look like they took a whole bottle of chill pills. Right on.

On the vast Central World grounds, there’s an area where Buddhists can kneel, offer prayers and light incense sticks, even offer a religious dance. This is where we took our outfit posts.

And this is who took all shots of us together. Seph took over the cam this time so we could have a picture of Shai’s mom on the “Aston Martin” too, heh. Thanks Mama!

***

We landed in Manila at 3:30 in the morning, exhausted, sleep-deprived, and shaken from a four-hour plane ride, but all three of us had these chill-cat smiles on our faces (see above). Bangkok may not be such a big deal to most people since it’s so similar to Manila and there aren’t a lot of things to see, but to us, this trip was more than just a touristy thing. We brought home with us not photos, and suitcases full of gawk-worthy fashion finds and souvenirs and pasalubong, but more importantly, many things we discovered about ourselves and each other. Things that no amount of words or photos could describe, and so we are keeping for ourselves to cherish. Cheesy, we know, but as it turns out, what they keep saying about traveling is true. The farther outward you explore, the deeper inward your self you can see. For this, we’re praying and wishing for lots more stamps on our passports!

Hehe, just an illustration of one of those days when the both of us are on totally different yet weirdly parallel wavelengths. And, well, it could also be about how it might be sweeter if guys stayed real and avoided pickup lines, while girls paid more attention when guys try their darndest. 

Peanut butter latte and Purple potato latte in Subspace Coffee, on a super impromptu and happy rainy date with Tricia (who snapped the shots of us) and her brother Calel (who played Tiny Tower on the iPad). We came from a shoot and they were just hanging at home and a few texts later we were here having exponentially awesome lattes.

The mighty fine tuna wasabi sandwich, behind which are Tricia’s hot purple potato latte and Calel’s good ol’ milk tea with coffee jelly bits. We’re definitely going back there for more food, fun and photos.