Baguio's Pride in Chinese Cuisine

This restaurant is our family's favorite place to eat whenever there are special occasions such as despedidas and anniversaries. This is also where my own parents had their wedding reception during their wedding more than 36 years ago.

I am talking about Rose Bowl Restaurant and Steak House. Rose Bowl is a popular place to eat even with tourists because of its former location across Burnham Park. Now it is located at Upper General Luna Road, Baguio City near the Pink Sisters and Brent International School.

What locals and tourists love about their food is their tastiness and Chinese "authenticity" in flavor. At the same time, the food is served fast and piping hot.

Here are some of our favorites in the place:

• Service Tea: free, hot and satisfying. It feels like the oil  from the foods that I eat are easily flushed from the tea.

• Fried Chicken. If you are exposed with kids, you'll know why. But the main reason here is that their chicken is really tasty and fried perfectly. Quite pricey though at Php 450+. Sulit naman dahil simot to the bones pag kinain ng mga pamangkin ko.

• Pata Tim. This is my favorite from among the viands. I eat everything from the soft meat, skin and the watercress :) 

• Rose Bowl Pancit and calamnsi. Looks like chopsuey with noodles because of the many vegetables in the dish. Yum-o!

  

And this is my next favorite. 

• Tofu with shrimps in oyster sauce. Light, sweet and satisfying!

Burp!!!!

So if you are in Baguio and crave for Chinese food, don't hesitate to visit Rose Bowl. It can be a bit pricey but the taste of their food makes the prices reasonable. :)

Angel of Hope and Prayer

For every delay for the past 2 years, I would excitedly test if  I get 2 red stripes. Sadly, it has always been 1.

I've been wishing and praying hard for those 2 red lines to appear on the strip. But every month, the results are always discouraging - the small pile of negative test strips is getting higher.

My cousin has shared to me this angel since it did wonders for her and her husband four years ago. Now they have a 3 year old boy. And they are passing the angel to me and hubby.

I am hoping that me and my husband's prayer..and our families' prayer will be finally heard. 

Lord, hear my prayer...

Lord, hear the prayer of thousands of women like me who wish to have their own child. Please grant our wish. :)

Sunset Bay, La Union

Our May trip to La Union was dotted with our visits to other resorts. Even if we were checked in at Thunderbird Resorts, we had dinner at Sunset Bay.

Sunset Bay is also a resort located at Poro Point which is owned and managed by Europeans. The resort's theme is a resort garden. I have been here 3x already and I love the simple things it offers.

The resort has a clean seashore with almost white sand and very good sunset as shown in this picture:

I took a picture of my good friend, Mikai while she was taking some pictures:

So firsts things first, upon entry to the resort, their small pond welcomes you :)

They have a lighted walkway which zigzags between the cottages. It rained that's why there are small puddles of water:

 I posed with this plant full of flowers.

This is a frontage of one of their cottages:

They have a small infinity pool facing the China Sea

A closer look:

Near the pool is an area where you can sit and relax.

There is a walkway between this area and the restaurant where you can head out to the beach.

This is their restaurant where our group posed while deciding what to eat.

Their restaurant is modest but the quality of food that they serve is very good and worth the price. Here are some of the things we sampled at Sunset Bay:

a) This is their marinara pasta. The waiter said it's good only for 1 person but it's for 2 people. Two of us had this. They shared with one serving  and had the other 1 taken away with us in the hotel. It had squids in it. The only thing lacking are mussels as what one colleague mentioned.

b.) I had this: dorie with tomato and basil with  mashed potato and vegetables. It was huge! I shared some with my colleagues.

Two colleagues also had dorie but we had different versions of the potato. One had baked potato with it as seen in the picture below and the other one had french fries (no picture for this).

The dorie was nice but it was so big and it was a bit overwhelmed with the tomatoes. I would say there was too much sauce.

3. One had grilled tanguige which according to the one who had this was yummy. I guess I would have chosen this next time. I like plain, clean taste of my food when eating near the seashore.

4. One had ordered the fried shrimp with spicy sauce. This was also yummy. I tasted it. :)

5. And someone got Sunset Bay's baby back ribs! This was also yummy :) If I were to eat again the third time , I'd have this. Lolz. I do not usually eat  much meat when I eat on resorts or restaurants along the beach. I savor sea food but this will be an exception.

The servings are large and the prices are reasonable from 200 to 250 pesos.

So if you are in La Union and  want to relax, relax, relax and see great sunset and eat yummy food, visit Sunset Bay. 

Compared to other resorts, based from observation, this is very quiet and "reflective" type. There are many Caucasian retirees who stay there or just eat dinner and just usually chill.

Buffet Breakfast at Thunderbird Poro Point - 2

In the first post about Thunderbird, we went around the place.

This time, it's "lafang" mode or to translate the gay lingo in English, "let's eat na!!!" :p

Before the food, I would say the that the dining area at the Olives Restaurant of Thunderbird Poro Point is simply beautiful. The tables were covered with violet tablecloth which provides a stark contrast to the white ceiling and chairs and gray walls: 

The food in the buffet breakfast (which is by the way, free when you check in) are grouped according to their kinds. They had plain/garlic rice where you can choose Filipino viands such as tocino, tapa and danggit. There is also soup.They have an omelette station where you can request the fillings and the dimsum area which offers siomai and siopao. 

For those who love cereals, they offer 6 - 8 kinds of cereals. And then, there is oatmeal and fruits. There is a separate area for breads and pastries.

This is how their creamy chicken and macaroni soup looks like:

I had their danggit, embotido and bacon with siomai with the soup:

I had cold chocolate drink but you can get any juice they offer or coffee. I love all of the "ulam" I got but I didn't appreciate their embotido that much. Maybe it's because my mom's embotido is still the best for me. :)

I also had their yummy rolled oatmeal with fruits and full cream milk (I assumed it's full cream because of the milk's taste and texture). Sorry about the brightness, I turned on the flash.

I also had their bread. Their bread station is the one that attracted me most because of how it was set up:

I love their bread tower:

and their breads in the jars:

Yummy. I was already full ( I am a weak breakfast eater) so I just tasted the danish bread with blueberry jam and their ube ensaymada. Both are tasty :) MMmmmm.

The full and happy eaters:

Breakfast made our stay at Thunderbird Poro Point more memorable. We enjoyed and bonded more as colleagues and friends because of it. And, it made the price of the hotel stay worth it. :)

North Luzon's Santorini: Thunderbird Poro Point - 1

One of the destinations I've written in my bucket travel list is Greece. I still haven't set foot there yet but I am positive that in my lifetime I would be able to. :)

I want to see the temples and the museums and I also wanted to see Santorini. Santorini has captured my heart  ever since I've watched the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Mama Mia.The place looks so amazing. It's all blue and white. White and blue.

Blue and white - that is  the essence of Santorini captured by ThunderBird in their resort at Poro Point, La Union. Thunderbird tried to capture the Santorini beauty with its blue domes and white walls as seen in this picture I captured during sunrise last week:

Thunderbird looks already impressive when you go up the driveway leading to it.This is a shot taken from the   parking lot.

Aside from the hotel, there are mini versions of Thunderbird through their cottages and residential houses that dot the area like these ones. To rent a cottage would mean shelling out Php 25,000.00. Residential houses have a lease of 40 years and each are worth Php 12-15 M each according to the receptionist. We rented 2 "modest" rooms in the main hotel.

Owners do not have much say on the architecture. They have to choose from the designs made for the "Thunderbird subdivision".

The dome of the Thunderbird hotel's reception area is very simple. It's painted with blue figures but it is very attractive and eye-catching:

Now let's go to their accommodations. We literally squealed with delight when we got to our room. Looking at this, who wouldn't right?

 We had our own terrace which was covered by the gossamer curtains.

The colors used in the room are attractive. White , orange, blue and dark wood go together. I took this shot for color inspiration for our future house in the nearest possible time ;-) 

These are some areas of the room:

a. The bar and a closet:

The closet contains the security vault which we used to keep our gadgets and devices safely:

b.  The television and study table cum makeup dresser:

c. The toilet and the sink 

d. The glass walled shower:

e. There is a door that can be opened to connect to the adjoining room. We had ours opened by the hotel staff so that we can interact with our colleagues in the other room.

During our 1st day of stay there, we stayed at the hotel's pool the whole afternoon and played basketball pool. This is their fabulous pool viewed from the top:

It was cloudy when we went there but it didn't reduce the beauty of the swimming area:

The blue and white concept has been extended even in the swimming area including the domes.

The bridge is my favorite spot...pretty, pretty, pretty. I am out of words :p 

I didn't take much pictures in the pool since I wanted to plunge in already. But I do have pictures of the lounge area.Nice, right?

Behind Thunderbird, you can see these views. These views were taken during sunrise around 6 to 7 AM on the 2nd day of our stay:

The back part of the hotel:

The ocean view:

The outdoor massage area:

There's also a walkway made of gravel leading down to the beach. Near....

 Nearer... 

The flower of the plants are oddly gorgeous (like jellyfishes):

Down below is a signage on loving Thunderbird. Of course, I had my picture taken with it since....

I LOVE THUNDERBIRD!!!