Botejyu: Premium Moonlight Okonomiyaki

New restaurant alert! Botejyu at SM MOA offers okonomiyaki, okosoba, ramen, takoyaki, and donburi. For today, my friend and I had one of must-try dishes - the Premium Moonlight Okonomiyaki.

Food is prepared freshly in an open kitchen. We waited for around fifteen minutes for our order. House tea wasn't available though.

Premium Moonlight Okonomiyaki (Php 360)

Our main dish was served on a sizzling plate to keep it warm whereas other restaurants have a teppan installed per table. But the taste is notable! It was really packed with pork, squid, plump shrimp, and I guess there was some kind of ginger in there. The two of us had a filling lunch with this! And the egg on top is a runny egg. Watch us slice the okonomiyaki and release the runny yolk at a video in our Instagram account: @thegastronomersdiary.

Another thing I liked about it was it wasn't too salty nor savory. You can adjust the taste by adding more bonito flakes, nori, and special soy sauce which was readily available on the table. I particularly like the semi-spicy sauce. It's not the chili type of spice, rather it has a hint of wasabi, the type that of spice that you feel through your nose.



Matcha Ice Cream (Php 80)

As for dessert, we had a rich creamy scoop of matcha ice cream. It doesn't have a strong green tea flavor, but it wasn't too sweet either. What we loved about it was its creaminess. P.S., the nori flakes on the side isn't exactly meant to be sprinkles, but well, you can try.

Going to try the okosoba and ramen next time!

For another okonomiyaki place in the MOA area, check out this restaurant


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McDo: Matcha McFlurry

Very hot weather calls for cool desserts. McDonalds released their dessert line inspired by Angry Birds characters. And they finally have something that is matcha flavored, inspired by the green piggies of the popular game turned into a movie.

You can see the usual sweet ice cream of McDo with Oreo bits. The green specs constitute the matcha flavor of the dessert. It is like a matcha shell coating that was blended into the ice cream. Also like the chocolate counterpart of the shell syrup, the matcha bits are solid until you eat it up and melt in your mouth.

This is definitely cool and sweet like the usual ice cream of McDonalds. But does not have an earthy taste that you get in other matcha or green tea ice cream. It is more like an Oreo McFlurry with matcha bits.


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Hattendo: Chilled Cream Buns

A few months back, Hattendo had a promo on their cream buns: 150 for two buns of any flavor. I got 2 of my favorite azuki red bean, a piece of matcha, and another piece for chocolate.

Azuki Red Bean

This is my favorite among the three flavors I tried. Flavored chilled cream plus actual azuki beans add texture to the filling. I also don't see a lot of azuki flavored desserts around the country so I consider this a little different from the usual dessert offered by other stores.



Matcha

It's actually not sweet, but not too strong on the tea taste either. Of course it was still creamy. Perfect for those who prefer the less sweet desserts.


Chocolate

A classic flavor, chocolate always fulfills my comfort food needs. It was like having the goodness of a fresh milk chocolate shake in cream form within a soft bun.


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Caffe Bene: Holiday Drinks Part 4

Off to the last part of our holiday drinks series! But first, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone! We were around the Paranaque area and tried a holiday drink offered at Caffe Bene. The commute was a little tiring and we needed a little something to put us back on track.

Iced Green Tea Macchiato

Earth-y toned, the brown caramel and the green matcha created a very needed thrist quencher. Ice and cream laced the top view of this cup. The sweetness from the caramel blended well with the strong herb taste of matcha. It's like being exciting while still being serious.

They also offered some holiday mini cakes. Tempted to try one but we opted to head over to our next stop where we will actually have our lunch. Watch out for our sushi place visit soon *guess where*!

There we go, our last post for 2015. Thank you everyone for a food-filled 2015! See you all again next year! Stay tuned for 2015 recap series this January 2016.


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Seikyo: Japanese Convenience Store - Matcha Edition

My daydreams of a Japan trip brought us to Little Tokyo, Makati. We arrived a little early to get a good parking spot. While waiting for the restaurants to open, we first checked Seikyo for some Japanese goodies. The store features many Japanese items. Most of which are priced at 80 pesos each. Also saw a number of Japanese people visit the shop. For my first post about this, here are the matcha-based items I got.


Glico - Matcha Milk Drink
The sweetest among the three items for me. The straw that came with this was extendable and bendable. I was not able to take a solo photo of this one - it was a hot day and I was really thirsty. :)

Dars - Uji Matcha Dark Chocolate

This one has the strongest matcha taste among the three. Thick matcha filling wrapped in chocolate - you can clearly see that the filling is thicker than the coating.

Alfort - Matcha

My favorite in the matcha goodies I bought. We actually found this item at the other store, Yamazaki Bento, which also serves ramen and meals.

It has the right matcha and sweetness. It looks like a normal piece of matcha flavored chocolate but that's just what you see at top view. It actually is a chocolate biscuit covered with an herby-milky-matcha. The biscuit itself is not sweet, yet very chocolate-y to mix with the milky sweet matcha on top.

I'm not sure what happened to my phone camera since almost all of the photos I took that day were quite blurry. :|


Items bought at: Seikyo, Little Tokyo, Makati and Yamazaki Bento, Little Tokyo, Makati



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