Razzzo Bistro and Serye for Valentines

For Valentines 2012 I treated my family to Razzzo Bistro and Serye since they both had group buying vouchers at that time.

Razzzo is located inside BF Homes along Aguirre Avenue. I've always passed by their restaurant going home from work and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to eat there. The place inside looks very nice. I love the interior designing. I imagined this would be a great place for dates and romantic dinners.

Love the wall designs

 

There are dining booths along the walls for a more private dining experience

I love the chicken and drinks at Razzzo. The chicken is just tasty all the way up to the bone. I'm even craving for it now while I'm writing this. I also ordered a Green Tea Smoothie and it was great! But I ordered one of the combo meals and didn't realize it included a blue soda drink so I had two drinks to finish :(. But they both tasted great anyway. I think the blue one is dalandan flavor.

One of the combo meals that includes chicken, pasta and pizza and a blue soda

pasta

Pizza

Burger

We checked their comfort rooms and I just had to take a picture of it. It's so nicely designed. The whole place is just a treat for the eyes.

Razzzo's comfort room

Near the comfort rooms - me and my sisters playing with the mirrors :P

After having lunch at Razzzo we treated ourselves for some dessert at Serye. There's one located in Sucat road at Santana Grove which is fairly near from Razzzo. Their promo is a cake and a coffee for only P99. I've always wanted to taste their Macapuno Pandan Cake because I love pandan and green cakes so that's what I ordered. It's the best Pandan Cake I've tasted so far :). Didn't disappoint me at all. Not too sweet and just right. My brothers and sisters said their cakes are all good. Below are their pics.

Apple Pie

Chocolate Decadence Cake

Sans Rival

Suman

Mocha Manila Cake

 

Macapuno Pandan Cake

Biscotti to go

Cielin's Mango Cake

Out of the blue we just decided to buy Cielin's Mango Cake since the price isn't that too high unlike the commercial cakes out there.  And we added our favorite cupcakes as well!

This Mango Cake became my older sister's favorite cake. Well  not really favorite but she plans on giving this cake to her friends. She said it's great to give as a gift or for parties. It's refreshing and not too sweet. The icing tastes like whipped cream with mango bits and it served as a filling as well. I actually love the icing and wished there was more of it. It reminds me of my mom's refrigerator cake with lots of cream. The cake itself as usual is soft and fresh as what you would expect of Cielin's. This mango cake might look simple but you can't go wrong with it. I'm sure everybody will love this one.

Cielin's Mango Cake

Cielin's Mango Cake (slice)

Cielin's Mango cake (better view of filling)

Cielin's cupcakes - strawberry (for me), mocha (for younger sis) and cheese tart (for older sis)

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Cielin's Pandan Cake

On my payday I decided to try one of Cielin's cakes to treat my family with and their Pandan Cake is what I chose. I've been wanting to try it ever since I saw it in their Facebook page. I love everything green especially in food and I also love the refreshing taste of pandan so that explains my craving for this one. This particular cake you have to order one day ahead. They don't keep it in stock probably because it taste best fresh. From my experience with it, it taste great even in the next day and the next.

The pandan flavor is in the cake itself and not in the icing. It's not really overpowering but you can taste right away the flavor on the first bite. I was expecting the icing to be refreshing but it's made up of butter with green coloring in it and no pandan so expect the icing to harden a bit when it's cooled. The brown you see on top are grated chocolate. I thought it was muscovado at first or some kind of brown grated coconut hehe. As usual the cake is soft probably because Cielin's cakes are always fresh. So, this was just a simple Pandan cake with butter icing. I guess I was expecting too much of a traditional Filipino dish like buko pandan and expected everything to be refreshing. Also I don't like butter icing too much. When I was a kid our birthday cakes are usually made up of this kind of icing and maybe I got tired of it. But for those who love butter icings or old fashioned cakes this will be a real treat.  My family actually loved this pandan cake and it's become a favorite of my mom and brother. Me? I would buy it again but not anytime soon unless my siblings are craving for it right away. All in all I think this is a fair cake especially for its price and would go great with tea.

Cielin's Cakehouse box

Cielin's Pandan Cake

Cielin's Pandan Cake

Cielin's Pandan Cake (slice)

Cielin's Pandan Cake (cross-section)

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Cielin's cupcakes

Cielin's cupcakes was an instant success in our family. We all have different tastes so everyone found a flavor to their liking. All cakes are soft and just right, the icing not too sweet since I think they're all made of whipped cream (which I dearly love!) unlike the other cupcakes out there that has a towering icing of pure sugar or whatever. I just really don't get that. Anyway below is a pic of the cupcakes. I imagine it would be hard writing down the cupcake flavors saying L-R, clockwise, etc, so I made a pic with the details below.

Cielin's Assorted cupcakes, chicken pie and tarts

I love the Strawberry cupcake most of all. It's not too sweet. The cream on top has a refreshing strawberry flavor and the cake soft with a strawberry filling inside. Whenever I have this cupcake in front of me I have this urge of burying my face in the cream and lick everything afterwards. I just wish I have tasted this during my childhood. I'm pretty sure I would've been the happiest girl back then knowing that a cupcake like this existed (that goes also with Yulo's strawberry shortcake). Lol. I know what I would want for my birthday! My younger sister loves the Mocha cupcake. You can really taste the mocha-ness in this one. The cake is bursting with mocha flavor and goes well with the cream on top. It would be my fave as well if not for my overly fondness of strawberries. My older sister's favorite is the cheese tart. Oh yes not all are cupcakes in this assorted box. We have a chicken pie and tarts as well. The Cheese tart is somewhat similar to the egg tart but oozing with cheesy goodness. Not too salty and not too sweet, just the right amount of cheese. I think everyone in my family loves this tart. The Chicken pie is great for merienda. It doesn't have sauce inside like other chicken pies but it's flavorful and satisfying to the stomach. The Walnut tart is a tart on the sweet side so you would want to eat this one slowly. I love it  especially when I'm craving for something sweet with some crunch. The Mangoes and Cream honestly I can't remember tasting it. I think I have but maybe I was too smitten-ed with the strawberry cupcake I totally ignored this one. It would be one of my favorite flavors as well.  The other cupcakes I find just normal probably because it's not my favorite flavor or there's none left for me to taste it. Next time I'll revise this post and add more pictures of the cupcake fillings. By the way the most expensive one in this box I think is around P24. The price for each cupcake or tart or chicken pie ranges from P18 to P20+. Not bad eh? Enjoy looking at the pics!

Cielin's cupcakes including the choco cupcake from my Mother's day post

Cielin's cupcakes (without the text)

Cielin's cupcakes (another view)

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Cielin's Lemon Meringue Torte

My younger sister discovered this cake house at BF, Paranaque and she was able to convince me to try out one of their cakes since the pics in their Facebook page looks appetizing. We also found out that the delicious 'free' chocolate cup cakes we availed from Shopwise during Mother's Day was from them as well. Knowing that, I decided to try one of their cakes since the price is quite reasonable as well. I asked my sister to buy me Lemon Meringue Torte to try one day while she accompanies her three-year-old son to preschool and will be passing by there.

I chose this flavor because I haven't tasted a lemon cake before and I have a soft spot for lemons. Why I ask myself. Hm let me see. When I was a kid I had these pretty pencil translucent erasers that are shaped and colored as lemons, limes and strawberries so I've always thought of them as pretty things. It reminded me of preschool, of soft sunlight, of grass and leaves and the cartoon Strawberry Shortcake! Lemons don't grow in our country so I was only able to taste it when I was older since trade liberalizations only started in the 90s . When I tasted lime I found them too strong. When I tasted lemon and found out about their soft tangy sweet taste it has earned my respect. Strawberries on the other hand... that's another story and will be having a different post for it -- for the perfect cake!

Oh! I have to mention my older sis's lemon squares. She did make one before when she was first trying out her cooking skills. I was so smitten-ed she's making a lemon dessert. But alas she mistakenly put salt instead of sugar so the pastry was a disaster. Imagine eating a sour salty dessert. I think the family still managed to finish it all since it's still food, and we don't waste food, but my sis never recovered from it and hated baking ever since. While me I'm still looking for that perfect lemon dessert.

Cielin's Cakehouse box with address

Cielin's Lemon Meringue Torte

Lemon Meringue Torte

Getting a slice of the torte

 I almost truly love this cake. It just had the right sweetness and tang and I love the nuts and meringue inside. But I think it was lacking crunch and has too much cream. Well actually everybody in our family said it had too much icing and less of a cake. I think if you take a thin slice it would be okay but we're accustomed to slicing as much as we want. lol. Also I think if lemon zest were added to the icing it would just be fine. I just taste too much of the egg whites and it's almost like eating a Brazo de Mercedes without the yellow filling. Well for those who love icings I would say this is for you. I do hope they improve it a little because it's almost perfect.

Me and my sis do plan to try out their other cakes as well. Will keep you posted :).

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Chocolate Mint Spa

My first post here will be a review about a spa place. I'm not much of a spa person myself but I decided to give my sister and my mom a treat since they've worked hard this past few weeks when our helpers took a vacation. I searched the internet for a good massage place and found one that's near called Chocolate Mint Spa in BF, Paranaque. The price is just right for a good massage and the place is really nice, very professional. Well like I said I'm not a spa person so I didn't go with my sis and mom. I just gave them funds for their treat which is a two-hour massage and body scrub. Before they went mom was saying things like it's too expensive, maybe she should just call Jun, the reflexologist who does home service. I kept convincing her that it's fine. They should try it out for me, etc, etc. You know moms right?

Anyway they finally got there. Three hours later they told me how satisfying it was. They said the place was really neat, relaxing and quiet. I thought at first it was located inside a house or something but it was located in a building establishment. They also said it had the nicest bathroom they ever went to. Lol! They both had the body scrub first for one hour then they went in the sauna (which is free by the way every time you visit) and had the two-hour massage. My sis had the Swedish and mom had the Chocolate Mint massage. They were both satisfied with it. This is coming from two ladies who are addicted to massages. My sister always wanted the hard massage and mom wants the light one. I was happy to hear they were both satisfied :). The body scrub they're satisfied as well but mom said the airconditioning was too cold and she felt uncomfortable while doing the scrub. They were able to adjust the temperature anyway so it was fine. When they got home the first thing they said was, "Ang sarap!"

I think they want to go back when I have extra cash again. Well I'm happy that they're happy. And mom learned that it's better to try out other things to know which is better. By the way, I found the spa through sulit.com.ph. Here's the link: click here