Inggo Noms...

Beloved, myself, and a couple of friends ate at Botejyu a few weeks ago. This Japanese place is one of the few places open at Vertis Ginza, the Japanese “section” of Vertis North. The restaurant features Osaka specialties, which I honestly don’t know much about. The place seemed intimidating which is why we haven’t tried this place before, but after a recommendation from another common friend, we decided to try it out.

Beloved, myself, and Const had a late lunch or early dinner at Zaan Japanese Tea House. This was a month ago, when we went to Papa Diddi’s, and, yes, this is the “new place” I talked about in that review. We found this place in one of the popular review aggregators and noticed that it had favorable reviews. Since we wanted to try something new, especially around the Tomas Morato area, we decided to try it out, inviting Const along the way.

After going to Kureji, Beloved and I passed by Hokkaido Takoyaki. Just a couple of steps away from the aforementioned restaurant is this small stall on the Vertis Ginza. From the name and the size of the stall, it’s easy to deduce that they serve takoyaki or Japanese octopus balls. The open stall made it easy for them to attract customers as they cook the balls non-stop for passersby to smell. We were among the passersby that they managed to hook in.

Beloved and I had a late lunch at Kureji. This ramen-specializing place is one of the only few opened stores in relatively new Vertis North. Outside, there’s a television that plays their menu items. What grabbed my attention was the fact that the ramen is served boiling, or, in their terms, sizzling. Yes—apparently, they specialize in sizzling ramen. I guess that’s why they called it kureji, which essentially means “crazy” as spelled in katakana. It might also mean “courage”, which sounds similar, and, in retrospect, it really is couragous to try serving something like sizzling ramen.

As our last stop on the day we went to Tsuta and Wrong Ramen, we went to Kissako Uji Matcha Cafe. While this was no longer in Taguig, it was near Const’s workplace at Kapitolyo that he needed to pass by to. Beloved was the one who recommended this place as she’s been here before. Also, some sort of coffee or tea seemed nice, especially after the monstrosities we consumed in the previous post.

After going to Tsuta with Beloved and Const, we went to Wrong Ramen since we were obviously unfulfilled on both stomach fullness and savory ramen cravings. We chose to go here because, like Tsuta, this place was unique in that there’s no other branches in the Metro. Also, the last place just made us want real ramen, and we hoped this place would fulfill that need.

Beloved and I, together with Const, ate at Tsuta yesterday. This famous Michelin-Starred soba place recently opened its doors at Taguig’s Bonifacio High Street. We watched BuzzFeed’s Worth It feature this place in Japan as their mid-range option for their Ramen special a few weeks back and the experience they had seemed divine. That, along with the fact that it’s original branch was granted one Michelin Star, gave us pretty high expectations of this place.

On the first day of our 9th anniversary staycation, we discovered that Century City Mall is only a 5-minute walk away from our hotel. On the second day, we decided to try out the interesting restaurants there. ♥ Based on online reviews, Le Petit Soufflé is the #1 restaurant in Century City Mall.

For our first dinner during our 9th anniversary staycation at Makati, we wanted to try the Wagyu cube buffet at Little Tokyo. This place features a group of restaurants which specializes in Japanese cuisine. We’ve been here a lot of times before (check out our old food blog!). But we didn’t get to try the wagyu buffet at Urameshi-ya before since they only offer this during Monday to Wednesday. But this time, we did!

For dinner, after wandering around the Subic Freeport Zone, searching for one of our favorite places here, we finally made it to Sakura. This was our second time visiting this place, but the first time was with family and we had easy transportation. Getting here without navigation and just walking was quite a hassle. Still, since the Freeport Zone wasn’t that big, it’s still walkable from our hotel which was at the bay area.