Pagliacci

The name of the restaurant is distinctly Italian, and that immediately conjures up images of pasta and pizza. True enough, featured below is their Margherita pizza.

But first, my curiosity demanded to know why a woman's name should be used to call a pizza. Wikipedia was, of course, very helpful. Tomatoes are red, basil is green, and mozzarella cheese is white - and there you have the colors of the Italian flag. Somewhere in Italy, in some bygone era, a woman named Margherita lived, and since she was royalty, she got the privilege of having a dish named after her. Enough of the historical trivia, let's take a peek at the food.

Margherita pizza (P 330.00)
Tomatoes, mozzarella and basilico on pizza dough. This is big enough for two people but I was really hungry (yeah, right) so I ate all of it. That's another way of saying it was good.

The resto has an old-world feel to it. It doesn't get crowded so this would make a great date place.

Pagliacci is at the 5th level of The Podium.

Kimono Ken

Kimono Ken is one of the affordable Japanese restaurants in metro that offer value for money. A serving of California maki goes for PhP 125, and 3-pc ebi temura is only PhP 190.

Kimono Ken has a branch in Shangri-La mall.

Burgoo

Burgoo has a lot of pesco-vegetarian options on the menu, but if you're looking for veggies only without the swimmers, you'd have to settle for the salads. But if you eat seafood, here's something you might want to try:

Seafood Caesar Supreme (P 295.00)
Caesar salad topped with calamari, grilled shrimps, crabmeat and parmesan cheese.

Tuna sandwich (P 195.00)
Tuna with light dressing, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and red onions in a sesame seed bun, served with potato wedges or fries.

I didn't realize that Burgoo has a lot of branches now until I looked at the back of their menu.  They have branches at the Podium, Tomas Morato, Rockwell, Greenhills Promenade, Gateway, MOA, Robinson's Galleria, The Block, and SM Marikina.

Secret Recipes, Megamall

The cakes! That's what you immediately see when you enter their branch at the Atrium of Megamall. It turns out they serve some fish dishes, nothing purely vegetarian.

For P 299.50, you get a main course, soup, rice, drinks, and dessert. Not a bad deal.

Pan grilled dory with lobster sauce

Free dessert when you order the complete package for P 299.50

Their branch in Megamall is at the Atrium. They also have a branch in Shangri-La Mall.

Tender Bob's

Here we go again, looking for pesco-vegetarian options in a steak place. Here's what we found:

Potato Skins (170.00)
The good news is that they don't put bacon on their potato skins. Comes with sour cream and cheese dips.

Clam chowder (P 145.00)
Served on a bread bowl.

Seaburger (P 175.00)
Served with onion rings. The fish patty tastes almost like meat. Its the closest thing to eating the real thing without eating beef.

Took the pics from their Greenhills branch. They also have a branch at Shang Mall.

Carte Blanche, AIM Conference Center in Makati

There's not a lot of pesco-vegetarian options in the menu other than the usual salad and fish, but the fish tastes good so I'm not complaining.

Ceasar salad (P 150.00)
Now what do we do with the bacon? We can rationalize that it's probably not real bacon anyway, maybe it's bacos ... or you can just ask the waiter to skip the bacon altogether.

Grilled blue marlin (P 275.00)

Carte Blanche is at the 5th floor of the AIM Conference Center located at Benavidez corner Trasierra St. The old Duets is gone and this is the new resto at the 5th floor.

Eating Healthy...in HK

Even if you're out of the country doesn't mean that you should forgo eating healthy food. In Hong Kong, Pizza Hut (akin to our Pizza Hut Bistro) offers green salad plate (HK$40) and Bordeaux pizza (cheeses, mushrooms and olives, HK$86 for a regular size).