Peri-Peri (SM North EDSA)

Me, Beloved, and friends celebrated a Holiday's party last Saturday. We met up at SM North EDSA and decided to have dinner at Peri-Peri. This is among the original food places that opened up when the new Annex building re-opened. Beloved and I never had the opportunity to try out this Portugese grilled chicken restaurant, but our friends did. Garnering no negative reviews, and with the fact that they offer unlimited soup and drinks for 49 Php, there was little hesitation from me.

As I mentioned, this place serves grilled chicken. Apparently, "Peri-Peri" is the sauce they use to make this chicken. According to the menu, most of their stuff has some spiciness in it, but you can ask your chicken to be grilled mildly spicy, hot and spicy, or lemon garlicky. I concluded that the best value offerings are the 235 Php "Everyday Platters", so I got their Everyday Platter B. Beloved got their Everyday Platter D. We also asked for the unlimited soup and drink add-on. Oh, and we also got a couple of appetizers: their Mozzarella Sticks (155 Php) and Shrimp Diablo (168 Php).

Dragon Chef (Trinoma)

Beloved and I had dinner at Dragon Chef last night. This, I assume, newly-opened Chinese restaurant is located at the fourth floor alfresco area of Trinoma, right beside Cyma and Chophouse. It didn't replace any restaurant there, it just took a part of the newly-renovated Greek resto. I was doing some Christmas shopping at the said mall and Beloved accompanied me. When we got hungry, we somehow found ourselves on the fourth floor, and found this new place. After seeing that it's a Chinese restaurant and knowing that Chinese restaurants are usually a good deal, we decided to try it out.

The menu was your typical Chinese restaurant menu, save for some dishes named after famous Chinese actors and actresses, which were really just typical Chinese dishes named as such. Price-wise, they were a little bit over than what we were used to. Beloved and I were feeling a bit under the weather, so I suggested getting a soup dish. We settled for their Seafood Beancurd Soup (238 Php). Beloved half-surprisingly suggested we get their vegetarian dish, the Braised Beancurd with Black Mushroom (278 Php). For our starch, we got their Chinese Sausage and Egg Fried Rice (248 Php). I thought this was more than enough for the two of us, but Beloved isn't used to a meal without meat, so we also got their John Woo (398 Php), a pot-braised beef dish.

Lugang Cafe (SM North EDSA)

Beloved and I had dinner at Lugang Cafe last night. This internationally-famous Taiwanese restaurant-slash-cafe is among our more pricier ventures, but Beloved mostly heard positive feedback here from her friends. I personally haven't heard of it until recently, when they opened doors to a new branch at an accessible (to us) SM North EDSA, probably because of it being pricy. Of course, we've had other pricy ventures before, and it mostly turned out well, so we gave this a shot.

The place was packed full. Luckily, they were able to accommodate us immediately. Unluckily for those who went after us, they had to wait a while. This further raised my expectations of this cafe, especially after they handed out the menu. Their dim sum, which I already raise my eyebrows when they pass the 100 Php mark, cost no less than twice of that. However, we already know that their xiao long bao is the must-order in this place. With a few to choose from, we settled for the Steamed Angled Loofah with Shrimps Xiao Long Bao (228 Php). We had a hard time deciding what else to order, since we were hoping not to break the 1000 Php mark. We settled for two noodle dishes: their Spicy Beef and Tendon Noodles Soup (250 Php) and Minced Pork in Bean Sauce over Noodles (230 Php); and their Spring Onion Pancake (160 Php) house specialty. Since this was a cafe, they had an entire menu filled with drinks and cafe-style desserts. Sadly, they didn't have what Beloved originally wanted: milk tea and a different flavored smoothie. She settled for their Peanut Smoothie (200 Php).