It was a warm welcome when the Gifted team invited us for a light snack to introduce a new way to gift gifts, specially this holiday season. Gifted.ph is an online retail website that utilizes gift certificates to be sent out as personalized gifts. Gifted chose Stella Wood fire Bistro as the place to held their event.

Christmas is just around the corner. Have you completed your list and bought all your gifts?

Holiday traffic and foot traffic in shopping malls, are some problems you may encounter in your holiday shopping spree for gifts. If you are like me, still deciding what to give to whom and planning my shopping trip like crazy, then I have the solution for you. Introducing the new way to give gifts through Gifted.ph.


Gifted.ph is an online gift certificate website. No, they are  not your usual discounted/group buying website, their gift certifcates are good as the cash amount. They have partnered with reputable establishments like Bench, Fully Booked and formidable restaurants from the Raintree Group of Restaurants. With Gifted, you can easily send out gifts in just a few minutes with just a few clicks.

Cable Car have been in the restaurant industry since 1992. I remember when I first went in Cable Car Makati, Soshi and I played beer pong with KC Montero and Jimmy Muna, and we actually won that night.

Fast forward to present time, Cable Car now has four branches here in Metro Manila (Makati, Timog, BGC and Ortigas). We went in for a foodie meetup at their newest branch in Ortigas. Cable Car have been long known for their comfort food faves that goes really well with their beers and drink selection. Most diners keep going back to Cable Car because of its fun and at the same time chill environment.


Almost all Cable Car branches have the same ambiance. Cable Car Ortigas have a high ceiling where there is also a seating area for diners just above their bar. Cable Car Ortigas is tucked inside the new building, Sapphire Bloc near Marco Polo.

Apart from their bar chow favorites (I mean, who doesn't love Cable Car's sisig?!), here are some of the dishes you can also try at Cable Car Ortigas:

As the months get colder, my skin gets dryer and harder to manage. That is why I usually look for thicker moisturizers and lotion to manage that problem. My instant go to product is Nivea's intensive cream which I find too thick and icky, but very effective in managing my dry flaky skin.

I received a parcel from my aunt all the way from Japan. It contains some of my "bilins" and this cool Menard Tsukika Skincare Set. What is awesome about my aunt is that apart from the full size set, she also sent me sample boxes that I can bring whenever I travel. How cool is that?


I googled about the brand and found very promising details:

The Menard Tsukika Skincare line embraces your skin with a fresh and smooth sensation. It helps moisturizing your skin even if it is exposed to severe environmental conditions; such as, dry air and ultraviolet rays, or affected by aging. TSUKKA helps to improve cell energy and normalize skin turnover. Some of its key ingredients are Night Blooming Cereus flower extract and Hyalluronic Acid.

This is what the set looked like:

Cruising Magazine, Manila Bulletin's travel magazine is celebrating its 16th anniversary with a bang. Partnering with leading restaurant finder, Zomato, Cruising Magazine launched "Taste: Travel for Food" as their main theme for their anniversary. They invite their fans and readers for dinner to share their excitement for this milestone.


"Taste: Travel for Food" aims to create awareness that there are a lot of good restaurants within the Metro that you never thought of. They originally planned to visit 3-4 restaurants, but with the overwhelming success, they decided to go with 16 restaurants since it is Cruising Magazine's 16th anniversary.

On their 13th restaurant stop, we were invited to Bawai's, a Vietnamese restaurant in White Plains. Bawai's is a homey and somewhat garden-type restaurant hidden in White Plains.


Bawai boasts of their home cooked Vietnamese fare that started way way back in their first branch in Tagaytay. I didn't know what to expect because I'm not so much into Vietnamese dishes. Here are some of the dishes we feasted on that night:

A lot of pubs have opened around BGC area, catering to the ever busy young professionals in Taguig. With their hectic day, a lot of them have been gravitated towards pubs at the end of the day to unwind  with the company of comfort food and drinks as they wrap up their busy day.

Pablo's Pub and Restaurant is tucked between the array of specialty Asian Restaurants in The Forum building. Their interiors are inspired by European pubs (or a gentleman's pub) which will want you to sink yourself in the couch and drink the night blues away.


In line with their anniversary, Pablo's is revamping their signature burgers to make your dining (and drinking) experience more comforting. Pablo's opened its doors to us, Zomato reviewers as they unveil their new and improved signature burgers. Here are a few of the signature burgers that we tried that night:

I'm always excited when I get invited to foodie meetups by Zomato. I've been a food reviewer for Zomato since last year, and up till now, I can say that there's still a spark that makes my tummy flutters whenever I get invited.

Our Foodie Meetup location is at Oudon Restaurant. As the name implies, Oudon Restaurant specializes in dishes that utilizes oudon noodles. They even have a lot of variety of oudon dishes ranging from hot or cold dishes.


Oudon has that traditional Japanese restaurant interior that will make you and your tummy quite comfortable. Oudon also serves traditional Japanese dishes aside from their typical oudon dishes. For starters, here are some good appetizers we have tried:

Beauty boxes are the next best thing that trended in the beauty department. Newbies who wanted to explore the world of Beauty yet afraid to take risks will find beauty boxes as a bbig relief. How does this work? You subscribe to the service, They'll surprise you with up-to-date beauty products that you can try. You can rave and review about it and share it through the community of beauty enthusiasts.


Last Year, I decided to give beauty boxes a try. I subscribed to Saladbox, unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations. What Happened? Read my story below:

Foodgasm is a yearly event organized by the UP Economic Society which aims to introduce new food trends and budding food entrepreneur to step up in the food scene. I enjoyed my experience last year (see my post), so I did not hesitate when they invited me again this year as a Food Blogger Judge.