Dapitan Arcade - Home Decors and More

Months before we were to move in, I told hubby that we can score some great decors and ceramic plates at Dapitan Arcade. I had been searching the internet for some shabby chic decors to go with our country house theme. He grew up in Dapitan but has never been to Dapitan Arcade. Lucky for us, he still remembered the way so we found it easily. The place is similar to a tiangge, no air conditioning but haggling is welcome!

We went on a Thursday morning and we had the arcade to ourselves. A definite plus because it can get so hot inside the arcade. Parking was available just outside the stalls. Parking fee is 20 pesos.

Woven balls for your garden lights!

 I was really excited when we parked. I could see so many decors already! We limited our budget and I had a mental list of things to buy. First were the ceramic plates and serving dishes that we would be using for our everyday meals. I was also looking for the frames that could hold a plate since I inherited some beautiful plates from my great grandmother. We were also looking for a lamp or lighting fixture as well as a rattan basket that can serve as my daughter's toy box.

We went in, it was a bit dark, dusty and hot. But once I saw the items littered inside, I did not mind too much.

Iron candle holders

Wooden welcome sign with a small bird house (Php 400)

Buddha heads and other figurines

Hubby and I decided to go around once and come back to the stalls where we would buy our stuff. The stalls are specialized, some sold only ceramic plates, rattan goods, iron fixtures, fake flowers or wooden kitchen stuff. We even saw a stall that sold beautiful lanterns that can be lighted electrically or with candles. At one stall, I saw a family of owls. I love owls, and the figurines were similar to the one my grandmother had so I decided to get a family of three;

Haggled price for three owls, Php 550.

We also saw a small, intricate wooden rocking horse. I wanted to get it for my nephew but it costs Php 1,500!

Rocking horse

I found 2 stalls that sold all ceramic-ware. I spent 1 thousand pesos in one stall and was able to buy 3 large serving plates, 1 medium plate, a huge bowl with cover that was oven safe and 2 serving bowls (no cover). Really cheap! One large plate cost me 100 pesos only. The oven safe bowl was priced at 350 pesos but I was able to haggle it 300.
 

Plate stands are also available.

On the other stall, I bought 2 serving plates that was perfect for nachos with a cheese dipping sauce. It was round and had a small bowl in the middle. Really unique! I also got another serving dish that match the blue oven safe bowl from the other stall. This one was perfect for making pies. All 3 was worth 500 pesos. By this time, I had spent 2 thousand pesos but we still wanted to buy other stuff. We got a pink rattan toy box for my daughter at only 120 pesos, a lamp for 400 pesos (with bulb) and food cover to keep flies away from your meal (Php 100). I also found iron stands for my plates at 75 pesos each. Sturdier than the plastic or wooden ones they sell at the malls.

On our way out, hubby saw a stall that sold fake flowers. We always admired the flower decors in Kamiseta stores and saw similar flowers. We bought a small wooden flower box with 2 grass balls for a total of 250 pesos. It now holds a place in our living room (Kamiseta style of course)!

We also bought additional lavender flowers and a clear vase to put it in;

Lavender flowers (Php 100 per bundle) and vase (Php 150)

Bought a small lantern too and an oil diffuser. Both for only 100 pesos each!

Candle lantern and oil diffuser

So much to buy, not so much money to burn =) We hauled everything back home. It's a good thing we had a van to cram everything inside!

The toy box and lamp

When we moved in, a lot of people loved our Dapitan Arcade haul. I even caught a friend fingering the fake lavender flowers to see if they were real. My favorite Dapitan loot? Definitely the owls! I even found them individual bird houses.

 Dapitan Arcade is located at the corner of Kanlaon and Dapitan Streets in Quezon City.

Dining Adventures: Yabu

Yabu, House of Katsu in Megamall has elevated my love for Japanese food. On the rare occasion that hubby hears of a good restaurant, it usually is!

We were able to easily get a table for two since it was early (before 7pm). But the waiter said that by 7pm, there was usually a wait list. The menu is very simple and straight forward. I decided between the Hiroshima Jumbo Oyster set and the Soft Shell crab but my love for oysters won over. The katsu set comes with unlimited Japanese rice, unlimited shredded cabbage, miso soup, fresh fruit and pickles. Hubby ordered the tonkatsu or Kurobuta Set. The main protein was pork.

While waiting, the server taught us how to make our own sauce by lightly crushing toasted sesame seeds and adding your desired amount of Yabu sauce. It's sweet and thoroughly enhances the flavor of your main entree.

Tastes juuuusssst right!

Our food arrived shortly. They weren't kidding when they wrote Jumbo Oysters!

Yum! 
The food was still hot so I started eating my shredded cabbage with Yabu's amazing garlicky white sauce. I can't give a name for their dressing but paired with the cabbage, you can almost skip the rice. Since the cabbage side dish was bottomless, hubby and I sked for refills. I had 3, he had 2 since he finished his rice. The oysters were still warm on the inside when I bit into them. Succulent, well seasoned and the outer shell was flaky good! Gave one to hubby so he could try it. The oysters were fresh, no fishy smell or taste. I guess they really know how to prepare it. I used my sesame dip with it too. It was a really enjoyable meal, the atmosphere in the restaurant was relaxed and despite seeing the long line of people waiting to get in, hubby and I really made the most of the bottomless cabbage (yes, it was THAT good). Dessert was also in the huge platter they served. It was fresh fruit. A good complement for the katsu meal.

I highly  recommend Yabu for all the Japanese food lovers. The place is amazing, the walls have murals of creating the perfect katsu, the staff are friendly and you don't have to wait long for the food. It's real good value for your money too since they offer bottomless rice and cabbage, just make sure you have enough of the salad dressing to go with the cabbage =)

Will definitely be coming back to this restaurant.

Jumbo Oysters

My monster Yabu meal!

Check out the nearest Yabu branch at Yabus' website.

The Puzzle Mansion

On a recent trip to Tagaytay, we decided to visit the Puzzle Mansion. If you have ever been on the road to Tagaytay, you might have noticed several signs that advertise the place. We did notice it before but it was only during this visit that we decided to actually find it.

It was a good thing we had our own vehicle, it was quite a drive to find the Puzzle Mansion. The signs helped a lot and when we did find it, it's not hard to miss. The place does not only hold the largest Puzzle Collection but also has a bed and breakfast. The parking is spacious but not cemented so best to be let out on the driveway. A huge sign will tell you that you are in the right place...

And right beside the sign is a really nice pool!

The pool is near the rooms that one can rent when visiting Tagaytay, the rooms are named after flowers =) Since we were there for the puzzles (day tour), we paid the entrance fee of Php 100 each. We were a bit distracted with beautiful garden before we got inside the mansion... At the entrance, a friendly male guide will welcome you and even give a free tour of the puzzle mansion. All the puzzles are housed on the ground floor but immediately our attention was caught with the biggest framed puzzle I have ever seen, I thought it was a painting!

A puzzle with 18,00 pieces, amazing... And it only took a month and half to complete it. Here are some of the other puzzles;

I love owls!

There were even 3-D puzzles...

It took us less than 30 minutes to go around the puzzles. The best part was after looking at the collection, we got to meet the lady who made all these puzzles. Her name is Ms. Gina Lucana, she is currently the Guiness World Record holder for the largest puzzle collection. She beat the reigning collector from Brazil =)

On the second floor of the Puzzle Mansion is the gift shop. One can find for sale several puzzles that are both ready to be assembled and completed ones by Ms. Lacuna herself. Some the puzzles for sale are also among her collection. Ms. Lacuna was very friendly and accommodating (not to mention very humble despite her success), she even showed us the puzzle she was working on, a 24,000 pieces puzzle. She had a very large work space built from plywood to help her complete the puzzle She told us her aim was to finish it by September of this year. I can say that I love puzzles myself, but my 8 piece collection seems so tiny compared to that of Ms. Lacuna =) Still bought a couple of puzzles from her store, though. It's cheaper than the ones selling here in Manila malls.

For more details of the Puzzle Mansion Bed and Breakfast, you can visit their website here

The amazing puzzle woman, Ms. Gina Lacuna with the Marianos

DIY Christmas Ornaments

Late post from me, early Christmas DIY idea for others =)

I came upon this idea while cleaning out my crafts kits and found several packs of paper twines. I bought them in a supermarket but never really used it.

Material Needed:
 - Paper twines (Php 20 per pack)
 - Elmers glue
 - Paper
 - Beads for embellishment
 - Glitter paint
 - Scissors
 - Glue gun

Procedure:
Cut a circle, the bigger the circle, the higher the tree. Fold circle in half and create a cone, decide on the thickness of the cone before securing it with tape on the side. Even out the bottom of the cone by cutting it straight with a pair of scissors.

Using glue, paste the paper twine from the bottom up. Make sure the paper cone is not visible.

Let the glue dry, this will also help harden the paper twine around the cone and the tree will be able to stand.

Pesky Smurfs

Using a glue gun, stick beads on the paper cone. This will be the Christmas decoration for each tree. I bought a bag of beads in Carolinas for only  Php 100 and it was perfect for this project because it had a lot of green, red and yellow beads. I used the glitter paint (borrowed from my daughter) to put our names =) Tie a piece of yarn on top of each cone securely and hang on your actual Christmas tree!

The Binondo Food Walk

Been hearing so much about the Binondo Food Walks that we decided to try it ourselves. Instead of paying for a tour guide to help us out, we decided to just borrow a Binondo Food Wok map and made our own itinerary. There were 5 of us, I was the only girl =), and we took just one car to save on parking. We were able to secure a parking slot near the church (Php 40 pesos).

We started our food trip at Tasty Dumplings.

Tasty Dumpling Menu

We were there before 11am so the place wasn't crowded yet. Here's what we ordered;

Kuchay Dumplings (Php82), Pork Chop Rice (Php 115), Spareribs (Php 140) and Silver Bread Roll (Php 53).

 The Dumplings were my favorite of the food items, it had pork and chives inside. The bread rolls were also good, we came back to order rolls to go =) We stayed in for awhile to figure out our route;

Really handy map!

Next up was Chuankee Fast Food to try the famous soup #5 (Bull's penis if you are wondering). The place was quite busy, we had to wait for a table. This gave us time to order the soup and some kikiam;

The soup #5 was pretty good, it tasted like regular Bulalo, although I did not taste the meat =) The kikiams were bigger than the usual ones we see on the streets. Well worth the money. We were able to share the soup and the kikiam between the 5 of us.

Further along Yuchengco Street, we found Sincerity Restaurant rumored to have the best fried chicken. According to the Food Wok map, another food to try in Sincerity is the Oyster Cake. I love oysters and was really excited to taste this. We ordered half a fried chicken to share. No rice so we won't be full =)

Sincerity Menu

Fried Chicken (Half) for only Php 150

Oyster Cake (Small) for Php 140

 The fried chicken was delicious! Crispy and tasty and juicy... we almost wanted to order rice! The oyster cake... ugh. It looked like an omelet with big juicy oysters and some sticky rice gel underneath. It tasted like a mix of oysters, egg and tikoy. Not recommended hehehe. We ended up taking the leftover oyster with us. I gave it to a dwarf man begging for food.

After eating from 3 restaurants, we decided to take a long walk so we would feel hungry again. We walked around Ongpin and even went inside a few jewelry stores since my friend was checking the price of a silver bracelet. We even saw a novelty store selling some pretty good stuff!

 Feeling a little tired, we saw the DEC store and hubby got all excited because he really loves the diced hopia and iced drinks available from this store. Sadly, there were no hopias but there were cold bottled drinks. I got the almond jelly for Php 40. Since we were there, we decided to buy some pasalubong. I got tubes of big haw flakes for my daughter, some tikoy delicacies for me and buchi. My friend bought some frozen dimsum. The ever so popular President's dimsum place was nearby and we decided to eat yet again by ordering several dimsum.

Hakaw

Chicken Feet

Siomai

We were served hot tea and they did not mind that we have several bottles of DEC bottled drinks. The siomai was meaty and juicy. But the hakaw was the best! Fresh, plump shrimps inside the pristine white wrapping. Hubby loved the chicken feet, he said the sauce was sweet and spicy. We spent less than 500 pesos for what we ordered.

After exiting President's, I took a picture with the famous Ongpin street sign;

After the street sign, we saw Mr. Ube's. I was happy to see that they had Laksa on the menu and ordered that. We also got the Pancit Canton. The laksa was average in taste. Not too spicy and the noodles were a bit soggy. Same for the noodles in the pancit canton. At leas the place was clean and they had a bathroom where we were able to freshen up.

We ended our food walk buying more pasalubong in Ho-land where we bought several kinds of hopia.

The trip took us about 4 hours. It was hot so best to wear light clothing and comfortable shoes. I wanted to go around some more but we were all so tired. Definitely looking forward to Part 2!