When my high school friends and I gather to celebrate one of our birthdays, we usually have dinner at Mitch's house. Recently though, we flipped the script a bit because Iona got a room in Aruga for the weekend. We decided instead to have dinner at Rambla. I had eaten at this restaurant a couple of times before but it had been a while since I last ate there so it was nice to dine there again. Rambla serves Spanish food and we ordered a lot of dishes, including Pulpo Asado...
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Pulpo Asado from Rambla
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...and Tuna Cones (this was an interesting dish).
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Tuna Cones from Rambla
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Of course, dinner at a Spanish restaurant isn't really complete without Paella. We decided to go fancy and get the Chochinillo Paella. After dinner, we headed over to Iona's room to enjoy some coffee, dessert, and wine before heading home. It wasn't our usual celebration but it was just as fun.
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Chochinillo Paella from Rambla
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That wasn't the only gathering or visit to Aruga I had. I had a reunion with some ex-colleagues (we worked together on one of the biggest accounts we had in my previous company) and we decided to get a room in Aruga for game night. There were supposed to be seven of us but some folks had to cancel last minute. There were still four of us - Marco, Jeoff, Mark, and myelf - who made it that night. I think the last time that we were all together in the same place was during Marco's wedding many years ago so was great seeing everyone again. Aruga is right next to Powerplant mall and Jeoff said he really wanted to try a certain restaurant at The Grid, which is kinda like a high-end food court. It was there that I spotted Pilya's Kitchen which serves hand-pulled noodles. I love hand-pulled noodes and it's been ages since I had some so I decided to get their Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. I also ordered Pork and Shrimp Dumplings. I do have to say that it was pretty expensive but really good! I definitely enjoyed my food.
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Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup and Pork and Shrimp Dumplings from Pilya's Kitchen
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The last month seems to have been a Rockwell month for me because I also met up with my friends for lunch at Pizzulu, a relatively new restaurant in the Proscenium area. I really do like the pizza and pasta here and in fact, I suggested some the same dishes I had in their BGH branch last year with a different set of friends. While we could have had dessert there, my friends suggested we move to one of the other restaurants in the Proscenium area so we could get to try another new place. We ended up having dessert at Brunch Bureau. I ordered the Nutty French Toast, which I think has peanut butter (as its name suggests), giving it a unique taste. I got it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make it extra special.
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Nutty French Toast ala Mode at Brunch Bureau
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I also had dinner with another set of colleagues at Mama Lou's at the Venice Grand Canal Mall. Mama Lou's was one of my favorite restaurants during the pandemic because I would often order their family-size truffle mac and cheese or truffle pasta which was only available for take-out or delivery. When my friends and I were deciding which dishes to get, I told them that we should get the Truffle Mac and Cheese (of course) and they could choose whatever other dishes they wanted to go with that. I actually arrived early so before I met up with them, I went around the mall to take photos. It really does look quite beautiful in the evening with all the lights!
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Venice Grand Canal Mall at night
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My friends and I were still on a high from
Rona's sensational 80s theme party so we all agreed to have dinner shortly after that. We agreed to meet up for dinner at Locavore in Estancia. We all shared stories about how much fun we had dancing and how badly our bodies hurt after hahaha. I also hadn't eaten at Locavore in a while and I really missed their Sizzling Sinigang and their Lechon and Oyster Sisig. I never eat at this restaurant without ordering these two dishes.
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Lechon and Oyster Sisig and Sizzling Sinigang at Locavore
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To round out a month of gatherings, my dear High School friend Ezra was in town and shortly before she left, Iona hosted an after-dinner High School reunion at her house. We met up on a Friday night and because there was no work the next day, we weren't in a rush to go home. Which was great because it really had been such a long time since I last saw Ezra in person and it was wonderful catching up with her. That really is the thing about great friendships, isn't it? Even if you haven't seen each other in a while, once you do, you just pick up from where you left off.
