What was for lunch?

My phone got stolen on a surftrip in Quezon, so I didn’t get to blog Trois, which is this restaurant that we always stop over in going back to Manila.

Enihoo, just going to share what I had for lunch. 🙂

Chicken sausage
Sauteed lima beans and swamp cabbage
With a balsamic vinegar reduction

Wow sounds gourmet right?
Tagalog translation?
Chicken longganisa with ginisang patani at kangkong, na may suka

Haha! This was just playing with food combinations and trying to plate something (which I super miss btw)

And to test out the new phone’s camera. Food’s up!

Pen Pen’s Pasta Buffet

It finally happened! I finally got my butt off to Pen-pen to try the crispy liempo–but wait, I really went there to try the pasta buffet.

So I thought it would be much harder to find, that is–the store, but thank you good directions and signages we managed to find Pen-pen.

So a quick rundown on the P250 Pasta All You Can Buffet, and my reactions.

Sauces:
– Meatballs – On its own it was just okay, but there’s little snippets of “suggestions” on how to eat the pasta/sauce that they call Karl’s way. I have no idea who Karl is but he knows his shit. I tried this sauce with Basil Oil and cheese as per his suggestion, and by far, it’s my favorite.
– Vegetarian – This actually tasted like Pinakbet, we’re talking pasta sauce with okra. It worked, I put some Kalamansi and I was good with it.
– Tinapa – This is also part of my top 4. Solid taste. Although not much tinapa essence, tasted very tomato-ish, but I liked it.
– Aligue – If I didn’t have to watch my weight, i’d have gorged on this one. Who can freakin’ go wrong with Aligue on their pasta?? Plus the upside was the aligue was very good, not slimy or too rich (owwwwsss.) adding a touch of calamansi, and it’s great!
– Carbonara – It had ground something, maybe it was pork. I’m actually not 100% sure on this, but isn’t carbonara supposed to be only with ham/bacon? Hmm, but it actually tasted good for a cream sauce, of which I’m not a big fan of.
– Bolognese – Normal, but still good.

You had 3 choices for pasta– penne, fettucine and spaghetti. I tasted all of the three, but I really just stuck with the penne, which actually was finished earlier than all the pastas and had to be refilled. I wish they’d have some tri-colored pasta or something, I would actually pay more for wheatbased or healthier pastas, and it could also be a draw to the more health-inclined diners out there.

The verdict is that if I would be in the same area, I would prolly eat in PENPEN just for the meatballs-basil oil experience again… oh and for this…

CRISPY LIEMPO
This was good. We had it with a nice vinegar and I could imagine myself gorging this into my mouth with handfuls of rice (okay.. bad visuals! haha!), yummy!!!

Also, my friend Doy who ate with me, had their fruity punch/iced tea concoction which he majorly loved. You can also have it bottomless and that just makes it more awesome!

PenPen Restaurant is found at Sgt Castor St, located at Morato. And the Pasta buffet happens every Tuesday! 🙂