Having a feast at TriNoma

When it comes to eating out, which is the Filipinos’ favorite pastime, we’re  spoiled for choice. Foreigners and balikbayans agree we have some of the best restaurants this side of the Pacific. And now, there’s a new dining destination north of Manila that’s drawing hordes of food lovers. Why, it’s TriNoma, of course!

The mall’s six levels are strategically dotted with restaurants, cafes, and stalls, each with its own unique atmosphere, guaranteed to satisfy every occasion, craving, and budget.

Indeed, having a feast is an everyday activity at the bustling TriNoma mall on North Avenue, Quezon City.

Bubba Gump: Life is a box of delicious surprises

Forrest Gump’s mother passed on this gem of wisdom to her son, “Life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

But at Bubba Gump — the first themed restaurant inspired by a movie — you know exactly what you’re gonna get: good all-American food served in a fun, family-style casual setting, made warmer by lots of memorabilia and photographs from the movie Forrest Gump courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

And since Forrest Gump said that if you see a line, it won’t hurt to stand in it, we joined a lunchtime queue at the door of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant & Market at its new outlet at the 4th Level TriNoma Park one frenetic Monday.

As in all Bubba Gumps all over the world, Bubba Gump at TriNoma (in the Philippines, there’s another one at Greenbelt 3, Makati) does not disappoint. According to Bubba Blue (Forrest’s “best good friend”), his family knew everything there was to know about the “shrimpin’ bidness.” Only a passionate shrimp lover like Bubba could have dreamed up a thousand and one ways to eat shrimp, the “fruit of the sea” — dey’s, uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp Creole, shrimp gumbo, chipotle shrimp, pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp stew, popcorn shrimp in a popcorn box, ping-pong shrimp in a dimsum tray — the list is as long as the Missouri River.

But if you’re no avowed shrimp lover, Bubba’s got something for meat lovers, too: tender fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs and the most juicy steaks. But again, if you’re no beef eater or your taste buds lean toward the lean but mean, you can always go for the BBQ chicken salad with chipotle dressing and the Run Chicken Run salad or the fish dishes like the salmon or mahi mahi and veggie skillet that’s good for the heart and the soul this meatless Lenten season.

And didn’t Forrest also say, “Try to eat somethin’ bitter every day, just so’s you don’t lose your taste for it”? On the contrary, at Bubba Gump, try to eat somethin’ sweet. Like the lip-smackin’ good Alabama Mud Pie (a five-inch ice cream cake with Oreo crust and Snickers bits smothered with chocolate sauce and peanuts — never say diet!). Or Bubba Gump’s Apple Cobbler with its own delicious sauce that you pour yourself.

Cooking up more fun, Bubba also caters parties for all occasions at your venue and offers 0% Paylite for Citibank credit card holders.

Here’s more: According to restaurant manager Michael John Martinez and VP — planning & development Ma. Luisita Suarez, currently running is a promo where you get a free dish if you order one of Forrest’s favorites. For instance, if you order Steak New Orleans worth P655, you get a free Grilled Skewered Shrimp worth P195.The deal’s a steal!

Now you know where smart people eat. And certainly, it pays to be smart because as Forrest Gump was clever enough to warn us, “Bein’ an idiot is no box of chocolates.”

Red Box: An out-of-the-box karaoke experience

Since it hit town, karaoke has never been the same again. Red Box has hit a high note by offering an out-of-the-box karaoke experience. Whenever I hear some of my neighbors singing their lungs out with their own karaokes at home at night, just when I’m about to go to sleep, I’m sorely tempted to holler, “Why don’t you get a room!”

Yes, now you can have your own private room and sing all you want — and be a good neighbor by not inflicting your voice or venting your frustrations on anyone. The newly-opened Red Box at the 4th Level TriNoma Park has five well-appointed rooms that boast unparalleled acoustic and lighting technologies. Room 30 can seat seven to 10 persons amid style and comfort. Room 80, good for 10 to 14 guests, looks real hot with its warm colors, broad C-shaped sofa, and wide flatscreen TV. Room 38, which can also accommodate up to 14 persons, has a curving sofa, curvilinear walls, and a massive flatscreen TV. Room 3 is pretty cool with its muted ambience of blue walls and two wide flatscreen TVs set into the wall to provide a seamless karaoke experience for 15 to 25 guests. Finally, there’s Room 8, where a group of 25 can sing, drink, party, and play billliards. There’s a low divider that separates the room into the singing, drinking (there’s a mini bar), and billiards areas, where you’ll find a full-sized pool table. A pool’s paradise, don’t you think?

Singing (or making music — or is it noise?) is inarguably a favorite Pinoy pastime. As early as opening time at 3 p.m., we saw a kilometric line at the Red Box in TriNoma.

“We give P100 off the regular price of P199 per student from 3 to 7 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 12 midnight,” says Mark Laviña. “So they only have to pay P99 and they also get one drink each for free.”

Of course, not just students troop to the Red Box. There are the corporate people who go there to unwind and de-stress after a hard day’s work. There are families and barkadas who bond over their fave music and tons of chips and peanuts, and some hearty fare. Believe it or not, Red Box serves good food, too.

Who says you can’t have the best things in life for a song?

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For more information and inquiries, call 757-6188 or visit www.redbox.com.ph.

Starbucks: Five-star coffee, tea, and more

Since Starbucks came to town, everybody’s been hooked on Starbucks’ great selection of coffee drinks and beverages, learning the words short, tall, grande, and venti by heart. Where there’s a long line, there must be a Starbucks in the area. I know for a fact that the Starbucks on 6750 Ayala Ave., Makati is packed to the hilt that even as late (or early?) as 2:30 a.m. on a weekend, you can’t get in. Where do all these incurable java hounds/insomniacs come from?

So you can imagine how warmly the assorted coffee lovers of Quezon City welcomed Starbucks when it opened not just one but three branches at the TriNoma Mall. One of these is refreshingly located at the 4th Level TriNoma Park.

What’s there to love about Starbucks? A lot! I’m not a coffee buff and I like my coffee with more milk than coffee, which is why I just love Starbucks’ frappuccino (trademark of a Starbucks blended ice beverage that combines milkshake with coffee). I like my frap with a  generous drizzle of chocolate or caramel sauce. And I just loved it when Starbucks came out with its Chocolate Chip Frappuccino.

But there’s more brewing at Starbucks. Now a  certified bestseller is its green tea latte (freshly steamed milk flavored with matcha or powdered green tea, and a splash of melon-flavored syrup).

Assorted chocoholics go to Starbucks for its cakes and other sweet offerings. I just go bananas over its Banoffee pie that’s generously loaded with banana chunks and topped with chocolate-glazed, melt-in-your-mouth whipped cream. A real chocolatey treat is the Chocolate Dom Cake made of uber-rich chocolate. For something lighter, try the caramel panna cotta.

A lot of people go to Starbucks simply for their healthy dose of caffeine (with its catechin polyphenols, moderate coffee drinking is associated by recent studies with a reduced risk of colon cancer). But if you want something to go with your coffee, Starbucks has a great sandwich selection, too. Take your time and enjoy your sandwich.

And yes, smell the coffee!

Mangan: Delicious down-home cooking

As far as I’m concerned, nothing beats my mother’s cooking. But next to my mom’s homecooking, I love Mangan. There’s nothing like delicious homecooked food to fill the heart and the belly on a stressful day — like Managan’s glorious native food served amid stylish interiors. Owners Maritel Nievera-Shani, Ricco Ocampo, and Rikki Dee have certainly come up with a toothsome recipe for success.

Mangan habitues will be delighted to know that Mangan can now also be found at TriNoma (in addition to five other branches in the metro plus one in Pampanga).

But of course, expect the same good Mangan food — at the same very affordable prices — you will want to reward yourself with after a shopping marathon at TriNoma. Whichever Mangan I go to, I never fail to order its seafood pancit luglog with camias (only P90), that comes with condiments like garlic flakes, squeezed calamansi, and patis. When I’m really hungry, I also order fried vegetable lumpia that comes in a big fat twin pair. But that’s just for merienda or snack.

For lunch or dinner, the menu list is quite awesome, you’re spoiled for choice. The choices fall under such interesting headings as: Ispesyal Ning Bale (bibingka, puto bumbong); Sari-Saring Merienda (varied snack fare like goto espesyal, arrozcaldo espesyal, tokwa’t baboy, etc.); Gourmet Pandesal; Mga Lutong Bangus; Patingapun (longanisa chicken, tocino, etc.); Ispesyal na Handa (lengua, beef caldereta, kare-kare, crispy pata, Sisig ni Mely, etc.); Im-Bento (grilled eggplant with burong hipon, gatang sitaw at kalabasa, asadong manok, pusit adobo, etc.); Mapaling Sabo (sinigang ulo ng salmon sa miso, bulalong baka with mais, etc.); Sari-Saring Kakanin (a must-try is the turon saguin); Mga Pampalamig (halo-halo, guinomis, gulaman at sago, etc.).

If you’re dining in a group, try the Mangan Platter, like the Inihaw Pyesta and Pritong Paborito. There’s a platter for the fruits in season, too. Share it with family or friends, and cherish the memories forever.

Truly, at Mangan, home is where the stomach is.

Vive le Cafe Breton!

Whenever we have a crepe craving at the office, we know there’s only one place to go to: Cafe Breton. It’s easily one of our favorite places to bond over fine coffee and lots and lots of crepes enough to last us a lifetime. Lucky for the staff of the Lifestyle section of the STAR, we have the most generous editor, Millet Mananquil, to always pick up the tab.

We’d always go to Cafe Breton in Malate because it’s a mere half an hour’s drive from our Port Area office. But if you don’t live or work in the Malate area, there’s a Cafe Breton at Greenbelt 3, Makati and now,  there’s a new one at the 4th Level TriNoma Park.

Crepes for the main course and crepes for dessert? At Cafe Breton, you can never have enough of crepes. Much like the Bretons who eat crepes instead of bread. In Brittany in the northwest region of France, you can probably catch the aroma of freshly baked crepe wafting from the kitchen of many a home.

At Cafe Breton, the savoury crepes served as a main course are usually made of buckwheat flour and are called galettes or galette sarracines while the dessert crepes are made of white wheat flour. Here, you can choose from some 40 fillings and create your own savoury crepe — meat, seafood, vegetables, cheeses, creams, sauces. For your dessert crepe, you have a choice of more than 20 fillings — fruits, preserves and spreads, sauces and syrups, dairy, spirits, and toppings.

But for those who can’t make up their minds or don’t have the patience to sift through the menu, there are delicious safe choices like the all-time savoury faves: Vesuve (ham, cheese, tomato, garlic, and chili); and Excalibur (ham, Emmenthal cheese, asparagus spears, sauteed with onions and mushrooms).

Of course, Cafe Breton owners Mariella Luna and Antonio Cancio made sure there’s always fine coffee in the house with which to down all that crepe and all the day’s blah.

But expect more than crepes at Cafe Breton. It’s also got its famous mozzarella burger done from scratch (Cafe Breton bakes its own breads, too). Then there’s the Chicken Run (chicken breast filled with asparagus and cheese sauce on whole wheat toast). For meatless, meaty treats, try Go Fish (smoked salmon on a bed of scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast) or the Tuna Melt sandwich (creamy tuna spread with melted cheese).

Hmmmm! Oui!

North Park: Your fave comfort food in a cozy setting

After a long, hard day, a hot and nice bowl of congee or noodles is a balm to frazzled nerves — it’s surely everyone’s comfort food. Good thing there’s a North Park right in your neighborhood. In July last year, North Park opened its 18th branch at the lower level of the Mindanao Avenue wing of the TriNoma Mall (the fourth North Park branch in an Ayala mall).

Through the years (14 years and counting), North Park has been providing its loyal patrons with authentic and affordable Chinese meals served hot and fast. For a quick, filling meal, you can’t go wrong with a big bowl of noodle soup with your favorite dumplings. It’s big enough for sharing, but then, if you’really hungry or you have a big appetite, you don’t really care to share, do you?

But some dishes are really meant for sharing, like the famous North Park Special Toast Noodles (picture a nest of noodles fried and topped with a sumptuous sauce of lapu-lapu, prawns, vegetables, all mixed in a special presentation). It’s so special we like to call it North Park’s birthday noodles.

For Holy Week, North Park has whipped up great Lenten specials. Also, ongoing until April 15 is North Park’s “Savor the flavor of China Chicken” promo, where you get a free order of China Chicken for a minimum single-receipt purchase of P800 if you use your Union Bank credit card,

Italianni’s: A slice of Italy

Imagine a picture-pretty family villa in Florence. Now, imagine classic Italian food cooked only with the finest and freshest ingredients and served amid a heartwarming ambience. These images come to life at Italianni’s, which is as close to Italy as you can get.

In Italy, eating is a family art and important occasions are marked by good food and fine wine. At Italianni’s, every day may as well be a special occasion. In all its restos (including the new one at the 4th Level TriNoma Park), Italianni’s aims to please. Fact is,  its mission statement is: To be a premier Italian restaurant company worldwide, providing an authentic dining experience where Guest Requests Are Never Denied (GRAND).

Now, what could be grander than that? Have you heard about this Italianni offer you may find hard to resist? Ongoing until June 3 is Italianni’s promo where a minimum order of P1,500 gets you a P500 gift certificate. You get 20 percent off your bill with a minimum purchase of P1,000. Or you get a free Grilled Pepper Fish Fillet (served with linguine pasta over a rich seafood cream sauce) with a minimum purchase of P1,000. Offered only at Italianni’s 4th Level TriNoma Park.

There’s more: According to general manager Jewel Moquite, Italianni’s TriNoma also offers a 40 percent discount on salads, appetizers, pizzas, and pastas Sunday to Thursday, 9 to 11 p.m.

Italianni’s is also one of the 3rd and 4th Level TriNoma Park restaurants participating in TriNoma’s Dessert Haven promo from March 13 to 16, where every P1,500 single-receipt purchase entitles guests to a free dessert.

What’s doubly nice about Italianni’s TriNoma is that it’s got an outdoor seating surrounded by water and is all lit-up at night for a real cool alfresco dining.

Buon giorno!

TGI Friday’s: Thank God, there’s now a TGIF in TriNoma

Thank God, it’s payday! And where to go for a little fun after a lot of work?  TGI Friday’s, of course!

Now, TriNoma’s growing horde of shoppers can only be thankful that there’s a Friday’s right in their favorite 4th Level TriNoma Park.

Friday’s is as American as apple pie. An icon in American casual dining, TGIF has come up with a cozy environment, made homey by the friendly staff and more fun by the bottle-flipping, entertaining bartenders.

In case you didn’t notice, TGIF recently had a makeover, updating its look and ambience from vintage Americana to modern-classic. The fabled memorabilia of icons from the ’40s to the ’60s were replaced by modern-classic decor from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.

What has not changed though are the good old Friday’s favorites served in bountiful portions.  To triple the fun, Friday’s has introduced its Triple Barrel Combos. For instance, howdya like Half Ribs, Filet Mignon, and Dusted White Fish (half a slab of tender savory pork ribs chargrilled and glazed with Jack Daniel’s sauce, bacon-wrapped filet seasoned and chargrilled with horseradish sauce, and lightly dusted white fish filet with lime-cilantro sauce)? This comes with corn-on-the-cob and side Caesar sallad. All for only P1,675.

If there’s just two of you, try the “2 can eat for P888 (VAT inclusive),” which includes one appetizer, two entrees, and two drinks, according to Doris Santos, general manager of TGI Friday’s in TriNoma.

Doris adds, “We also have the frequency card for kids, running until April 30, where kids can avail themselves of any kiddie meal daily at TGIF TriNoma and get a chance to win an exciting prize (like an MP3 player) upon completing 10 visits.

And because it’s graduation time, too, TGIF honors the graduating batch of 2008 by treating them to a 20 percent discount (good until April 30). “We’re sending these discount coupons to some schools in Quezon City,” Doris tells us.

We can almost hear the Class of 2008 exclaiming in unison, “Thank God for Friday’s!”