Frannywanny

To celebrate Valentine's Day, Paul and I booked an overnight staycation at Marina Mandarin Singapore . Anyway, let me tell you more about that in my next few posts. Allow me to skip and talk about the lunch that we had the day after Valentine's Day . Since we had a hearty breakfast at the hotel, lunch for us was at 2pm. We got two Groupon vouchers from cousin J for High Society Cafe at The Shoppes @ Marina Bay Sands so we decided to check the restaurant out since we were already in the area. To be honest, I had no idea where the restaurant was as it was only Paul and his cousins who went and ate there before. After walking for about 10 minutes, I spotted the restaurant. It's funny that I don't recall seeing this before perhaps it was overshadowed by the Cold Storage and The CD Shop beside it. The best landmark is to look for Cold Storage and Toast Box which is located across the restaurant.

Whenever I'm asked what my favorite food is, I would always have to stop and think really hard. You see, the problem here is that I don't only have one but in fact, I have 3 favorite types of food that I love very very much! That would be sushi , dimsum and pasta . Give me any of these and I can eat it for days on end. I'm lucky that Singapore is such an awesome food mecca that there's pretty much a very wide array of food choices available all the time. Take dimsum for example. Yes, I do admit that Hong Kong still reigns as the dimsum capital of world but when it comes to Xiao Long Baos , then Singapore is pretty much ahead of the pack. What are  Xiao Long Baos ? It's a delicate, hand-created dumpling that is filled with pork and a small amount of soup. Steamed to perfection, the beauty of xiao long baos is that the soup stays intact even upon serving. So, there's one way to eat this -- carefully lift a piece using your chopsticks making sure that you d...

For the past few weekends, I became a bit anti-social as I've been turning down invites from Paul and friends to go out and check out the city. I would, in fact, declare that all I want to do is to stay at home the whole day. What have I been up to? You probably might ask. After weekends spent getting crafty, with all the blood, sweat and tears (yes, there were indeed some), I'd like to present to you all... My Works of Art It all began one day as I was browsing through Groupon Singapore 's page. A certain ad showing a photobook deal caught my eye. I've been wanting to organize our photos for years and putting them in a neat and pretty photobook just made perfect sense. So there, I bought a couple of coupons worth $20 which is good for (1) 40-page photobook each (retails at S$91).

Oh I just love discovering secret dining places! This is the reason why I immediately grabbed the chance to try Atelier 317 when an offer worth Php. 995 was posted at Deal Grocer . What initially was planned to be a romantic dinner date for two was happily turned into a fun dinner out with my two favorite eating companions Paul and Richard . We had to make a reservation days in advance as the place has only three table thus it has a very limited seating capacity. I've been hearing about Atelier 317 from friends and fellow food lovers, this restaurant is owned by Chef Stephanie Zubiri and is located at a private home in Makati. Thankfully, both Paul and Richard have amazing sense of direction so I didn't have to worry on how to get to our 'secret' destination. We entered Palm Village which is very near Rockwell Center. The streets are quite narrow but following the direction given by the guard, we immediately located Atelier 317 . It's a two or three storey hom...

When I first met Paul 9 years ago, all I remembered was that he's the guy in a blue shirt and who was wearing a gray cap. He barely spoke a word the entire evening and just sat quietly beside his friend N who invited him to our group's dinner that day. I was busy catching up with my girl friends and was obviously oblivious to the fact that there, at one corner of the room, the same quiet guy was staring at me...or so he claims he was. *blush* Fast forward months after that, we began exchanging messages online and via SMS. Later on, as we found out that we live so close to each other, we began meeting up for afternoon merienda or after dinner coffee chats once in a while. One of the first things that I liked about Paul was the fact that he makes a great eating partner. Having met guys who have a million and one conditions when it comes to food (read: no veggies, no spicy food, no exotic dishes, etc etc etc) , I was elated to find out that Paul was really game to try anything a...

I never thought I'd get THIS busy. Don't get me wrong, I am truly thankful for all the blessings showered upon us and let it shower even more! We've been spending our weekends doing the rounds with our dear peanut distributors and Paul, especially, has been busy taking orders and allocating stocks for our customers. Our entrepreneurial dreams are slowly becoming a reality and we're truly grateful for that. ♥ As we've been spending most of our waking hours on our business , we really haven't had the time to head to the mall to do our Christmas shopping..and Christmas is just two weeks away!! Once in a while, I'd inject a short shopping trip in between work and dinner but more often than not, I'd go home empty handed as it's really hard to choose and decide under great time constrains and set shopping budget. Can you relate with this? It's a good thing though that my Christmas list is not totally empty. A month ago, I purchased a couple ...

Ribs, ribs, ribs! All I can think of are ribs! :) Lip-smacking, fork-tender meat that falls of the bone without a struggle. That's my type of ribs. I found one of the best rib places in Angeles, Pampanga and another one in California, USA yet I continue my search here in Manila . A few months ago, I purchased a Deal Grocer coupon with fellow Food Club members Richard, Jane and Abet to try Chubby's Rib Shack which is located right at the heart of Makati and is also the sister-restaurant of Buffalo Wings n Things . With Christmas just around the corner, I normally try to avoid heading to this part of town especially on a Friday night where everyone normally goes out for dinner and drinks after work. However, just the thought of having a plate of ribs for dinner was enough to convince both Paul and I to brave the traffic and head to Makati to try Chubby's Rib Shack out. The deal was pretty sweet, all I had to pay for was P300 and I get to order anything worth P500 on...

"Hi, I'm Frannywanny and I'm a group buying site addict. *hic*" I have three favorite group buying sites that I frequent on a weekly basis. For me, they all have the best formula : good choices of restaurants + irresistible discounts and promotions All three sites offer the chance for me to either try a new restaurant or go back to an old favorite packaged with an amazing discount that helps me save and keep my wallet on a healthy state. How else can I say no? Recently, I bought two coupons from Deal Grocer that will enable Paul and I to partake in the daily buffet of Alba Restaurante Español -- a favorite Spanish restaurant of ours which we used to frequent with our families to celebrate certain milestones such as Paul's college graduation a few years ago. Admittedly, it has been a while since we've been back and when I bought the coupon, I wasn't even planning to make reservations as I thought the restaurant won't be full anyway. I'm g...

After enjoying a couple of Thai specialties at Nav with my colleagues last Friday, Paul and I joined our dear friends Richard, Irene and adorable Lauren for lunch one rainy Sunday. This time we headed to Makati excited for our Vietnamese feast. Shameless plugging alert: I've been craving for Asian dishes lately, I guess this is after going through the August issue of Yummy Magazine that features a LOT of yummy Asian recipes *drool* . So..grab your copy NOW! A couple of months ago, Richard and I purchased a coupon each from Metro Deal Philippines . This coupon will allow us to have a four-course Vietnamese meal for two for only Php. 445 at Ba Noi's . What a steal! Since it will be our first time to try Ba Noi's we figured out that given how reasonable the price of the coupon is, it won't be too painful on the pocket should our meal fails to meet our expectations. Let me share with you the dishes that were served to us by Ba Noi's : From the moment we sa...

I love buffalo wings! It's funny that while I do not like spicy food, this is one dish that I can't pass up on when given the opportunity. I also love coating my spicy chicken wings with bleu cheese and munching on it until the bones are sparkling clean! Through the years, I've had the privilege to try a number of buffalo wings and while some have failed to meet our expectations , others were quite fantastic that it gets me craving for more every so often . I was able to first taste and experience Sunrise Buckets at my nephew's birthday party two years ago. I loved it that they gave us plastic gloves to use so as not to get our hands all dirty and oily while enjoying their chicken wings. Even my dear Kongkong (grandfather) enjoyed his own bucket of wings that he wouldn't even want to share with my auntie (teehee) ! It was pretty good, not too spicy and the wings had just the right amount of meat too. Fast forward to last Saturday, I woke up right before ...

Group buying coupons is really one of the IN thing right now as more and more sites would offer price-off deals on food, travel, beauty and a lot more. I've mentioned before how I would follow certain group buying sites as I enjoy availing of their packages majority on food. It really gives me more reason to try new restaurants without being afraid that it will cause a dent on my bank account. Such was the case last night where we were invited to try a delicious 5-course degustation menu at Robot Restaurant . Degustation is a french term for a way of examining a dish by taking in tasting portions / smaller amounts to test its quality. Despite its small size, these dishes are normally bursting with flavor therefore delighting all senses. Thus, I arrived at Robot ready to be served with really small portions for this particular dinner. We met the very friendly group behind the newest group buying site: Deal Dozen . Browsing their site, it reminds me of my current favorite group...

Lately, everyone has been crazy about Groupons which is actually a new term for group buying coupons. More and more groupon sites have been sprouting here and there offering various price-off packages for food, travel, beauty and more. Of course, being the food lovers that we are, Richard and I are always on the look out for food groupons. One latest deal that we availed of was the Timeless 4-Course Dinner for 2 at Ilustrado Restaurant from Deal Grocer . The package is said to be worth P2,500 but we only got it for Php. 1,250 or exactly 50% less than the normal rate. We arrived at Ilustrado Restaurant in Intramuros a little past 7 last Saturday. The place was packed as there was a wedding reception being held there that evening but it was a good thing we've made reservations thus we have a table waiting for us the moment we arrived. I love the olden Filipino feel of the restaurant with wooden capiz windows and vintage trinkets adorning the ceiling and surroundings of the r...