Nolita (Bonifacio High Street)

Beloved and I had dinner at Nolita. This Japanese-sounding restaurant is apparently an Italian restaurant named after a portmanteau of "North of Little Italy". We ended up here after a recommendation from a friend on where to eat at Boni High Street, a place we rarely frequent, that is up to our budget. We soon learn that it's not really a full-fledged Italian place, but rather specializes in pizzas. Big pizzas.

Because their pizzas are big, they offer them by the slice, and a slice easily filled up an entire plate. While they do offer the entire pie, we thought three kinds would fit both our budget and bellies. One downside was that they weren't really fresh-from-the-oven, and all laid out for the communal customers. With plenty of choices to choose from, we opted for the most curious looking (or sounding) ones. We got a slice of each of their Vegan Eggplant Melange (210 Php), Sausage, Pepperroni, and Mushroom (250 Php), and their Steak and Egg (290 Php) pizzas.

Amici (Tomas Morato)

Beloved and I ate at Amici a couple of times over the past couple of months. The first time was dinner on a whim, looking for what's open. Amici happened to sound satisfying as I was craving pizza that day, and so we went.

For those who don't know, this Italian place serves genuine Italian dishes not limited to pasta and pizza. They also carry risotto, isalata, zuppa, and their own gelato brand among other house specialties, or il favorito dela casa. I wanted to try out their Artichoke and Portobello Flatbread Pizza, but they were out. Instead, we settled for their Truffle Mushroom Pizza (435 Php). Because it felt like it wouldn't satisfy the two of us, we also got their Mediterranean Blue Cheese and Walnut Salad (205 Php) from their selection of insalata. Finally, Beloved ordered their Cafe Mocha (125 Php) because she wanted to.

Project Pie (Shaw Boulevard)

Me, Beloved, and Const tried out Project Pie for dinner. This is a hot place for foodies being a build-your-own pizza place. What made it hot was the claim that you can put as much toppings as you could possibly can on their pies, hence the "Project" bit.

It was a bit inaccessible for Beloved and I alone, as we didn't have an auto. But with Const, it was a pretty unmissable place to the right side going southward from EDSA. The place was packed and the queue quite long. It promoted a communal approach where you sit wherever and encourages you to sit with strangers. It was actually more of a hassle for an odd group like us because of the lack of vacant seats.

Anyway, as I mentioned, you can build your own pizza using the toppings they offer to your liking at 285 Php per pie. However, they do also offer numbered menu items with preselected ones at a similar price. I ordered their #5, as it seemed to tickle my fancy. I also built one of my own over a red sauce, complementing the #5's white. I made sure I didn't build a gluttonous mountain of toppings like the person before me, which was sadly possible to ask for in this place. Beloved also made her own pie, and Const ordered one of their preselected ones and also made one of his own. Beloved also ordered their Banana Nutella (145 Php), which was simply a dessert offering over their pie crusts. We also ordered Iced Tea (65 Php) which you fill your own from their different iced tea flavors and comes with a one-time refill.

Steveston Pizza (Tomas Morato)

Beloved and I had dinner a couple of times at Steveston Pizza. This place, relatively new, located at Tomas Morato, popped up in our Facebook news feeds with pictures from friends that was gastronomically pleasing. Aside from knowing that it's a pizza place, and that they serve scrumptious-looking pizzas, we knew nothing more than that. We had quite the surprise learning that they only serve one size—foot-diameter pizzas at not-so-scrumptious looking prices. A couple of them was even priced at 1.3K Php—yes, at the same size!

Still, that didn't stop us from ordering. Our first visit didn't contain any of the most-expensive-pizza-we-ever-saw offerings. Aside from the premium "C" pizzas, there were the more affordable Pizza Classic, the healthier Margarite Tree, Colours, and The Journeys. We settled for one of their Colours priced half of their "C" pizzas: their Green Pizza (699 Php). Yeah, if you compare it to the competition, it's still quite expensive. We also ordered their Angels or Oven Baked Chicken (180 Php for 6 pieces), and had them Spicy. The server warned us that their "Spicy" meant Spicy. We took no heed and ordered drinks.

Brooklyn Pizza (Tomas Morato)

Beloved and I had dinner a couple of times at Brooklyn Pizza, Tomas Morato. We always pass over this place whenever we go to Tomas Morato for other food adventures. Lately, I've been wondering why. I've heard little about this place, but from the outside, it looked like a decent enough pizza parlor that serves Buffalo wings. After Googling up their menu and finding out their somewhat reasonable price tag, we finally made time to try it out.

As I've mentioned, their prices were not too steep for a pizza place. We were even luckier the first time we went because they had a promo that features most of their menu. Their Barkada Summer Promo, priced at 799 Php, offered a choice of some of their 14" pizzas, a choice of some of their pastas, an order of Buffalo Wings, and 1.5 liters of Pepsi. Although there was just the two of us, and I would've forgone the included beverage, this was too good of a deal to pass. So we settled for their Vegetarian Pizza and White Shrimp Pasta.

Papa John's - Unlimited Pizza Tuesdays (SM North EDSA)

Me, Beloved, and a couple of friends partook in Papa John's Unlimited Pizza Tuesday promo on its last day at SM North EDSA. This promo has been around for a couple of months. We tried going on the first day, but the entire corridor was packed with people wanting to try it out, and we ended up in Joey Pepperoni. We didn't have time or thought to go back after this incident. However, we found out that the last Tuesday was a couple of days ago, and we decided to take part in it, even if we had to queue.

There was a similar crowd, the corridor filled with people when we arrived, an hour earlier than the promo time. Luckily, we were among the first who got accommodated. Priced at 199 Php, you get to choose from four different varieties: Pepperoni, Hawaiian, Chicken Bacon Ranch, and Garden Special. Unlike Leona's all-you-can-eat promo, where an entire pizza is given for the table to consume, Papa John's Unlimited Pizza promo serves by the slice. Servers roam around the store giving slices to empty plates. You have to eat the entire slice, including the crust, before you can get another.

Leona Art Restaurant (UP Teacher's Village, near Maginhawa)

Yesterday, me, Beloved, and friends partook in an all-you-can-eat pizza promo at Leona Art Restaurant. This place located at Teacher's Village is actually a place I've never heard of before until a couple of days ago when a friend linked me a picture of said promo. Since it was a pretty affordable deal, and since we were free at the time of the promo, we decided to try it out.

The art cafe is located near Maginhawa street, at the corner of Matimtiman and Magiting street, just a short walk from the Ministop at Maginahawa. Leona offers the usual cafe food fare, and, of course, a selection of grilled pizzas in ten or fourteen inch variants. Sadly, they don't offer all their pizzas for the promo, which is understandable because of the tag. Anyway, for 199 Php, they will serve up four of their pizzas: Three Cheese, Pepperoni, Onion and Pesto, and Hawaii, for your table to share.

Joey Pepperoni (SM North EDSA)

This last Tuesday, me, Beloved, and friends ate at Joey Pepperoni. I mentioned the exact day because it's somewhat important. We were supposed to take advantage of the Tuesday-only all-you-can-eat pizza at Papa John's. When we got there, there was a mob waiting for the 6pm starting of the once-a-week promo. Surrendering, we decided to find someplace else to eat and found ourselves at a different pizza place, which, while does not offer unlimited pizza, still offers the same type of menu, and, humorously, has the same initials only in reverse.

The place is located at SM North EDSA's annex, at the first floor, very close to the SaveMore supermarket. My friends have taken advantage of their unlimited pasta offer, which they do not serve anymore. They do, however, offer two pizzas out of four choices for 199 Php, and most of us decided to take on that offer. Beloved and I got their Beef Bacon and Garlic Gamberi pizzas (199 Php) and, since according to my friends, the pasta here is good, we also got their Bolognese Pasta with Mozzarella Sticks for 170 Php which we added 20 Php to upgrade the iced tea to bottomless that came with it.

Pizza Hut - Lechon Pizza (SM North EDSA)

Me and my friends ate at SM North EDSA's Pizza Hut Bistro for lunch the other day. I know I said I wouldn't blog about popular restaurants such as this one as there's basically a Pizza Hut on every other main street of Metro Manila. However, this instance is special. We went there for their Christmas season promotion: the Lechon Pizza.

For my non-Filipino readers, lechon is basically pig roasted over open fire. It's mostly famous for the deliciously crispy and dangerously greasy skin that everyone fights over during festivities. The Lechon Pizza boasts a lot of the said delicacy over a bed of cheese. For many, this idea is greeted with a face of disgust. For me, this is greeted with a huge smile on my face as it sounded like something I must try the first time I heard of it. I had a very hard time convincing someone to try it out with me, because the idea of eating an entire 10-or-14-inch pizza topped with the unhealthy and Muslim-repellent topping sounds suicidal. Finally, last Saturday, I managed to convince a couple of my friends to try it out.

Anyway, they offer a 799 Php promo which includes a 10-incher of the Lechon Pizza, a salad, a pasta, and two glasses of wine. Because we thought 10-inches is a bit too small to share over three people, we ordered the 14-inch Lechon Pizza instead for 499 Php.

Yellow Cab (Katipunan)

Beloved and I had dinner at Yellow Cab's Katipunan branch last night. This time, she's the one in doubt whether or not I should write a review about this, since this is another well-known pizzeria, perhaps third to Pizza Hut and Shakey's, and perhaps tied in third for Domino's. There's a Yellow Cab branch practically anywhere, at all malls, all major roads, and other populous area. Despite that, I still find Yellow Cab special, and perhaps my favorite popular pizza place among the three I've mentioned. I love their pizzas for the oiliness of their cheese, which I find much more flavorful compared to the other two. However, I don't just go here for their pizzas, and the reason we went last night was because I was craving for this other reason. To find out, read on.

It's been a while since my last Yellow Cab visit. Nine out of ten times I go here, no matter what company I'm with, we usually end up ordering their Four Seasons pizza. This is basically a sampler of four of their best flavors, and three out of four I like a lot. This time, we didn't. They've added something in their menu maybe a year ago that I haven't tried yet but have been wanting to try out—their Dear Darla Pizza. This is a thin crust pizza with minimal toppings meant to be rolled with alfalfa sprouts and arugula leaves, similar to the pizzas in Uncle Cheffy. I was pleased to find out that this pizza is much cheaper than their regular ones, so we managed to order their second size, a 14 inch Dear Darla (435 Php). As for what I was craving, this item in their menu I fell in love with the first time I tried it. Ever since then, I never fail to order this one whenever I go to Yellow Cab—their Twice-Baked Potato Halves (195 Php). Our drinks were a couple of Sola Iced Tea (45 Php); raspberry for beloved and lemon for me.

Aveneto Pizzarea Ristorante (Trinoma)

Yesterday, for lunch, beloved and I ate at Aveneto. This is one of the more overdue nomnom adventures we've had, since we've been here more times than I can accurately remember. And if you're a mall-goer or live in the vicinity of Visayas Ave., you've probably at least heard of this resto, if not have eaten in it. If not, well, you can probably assume from its name that it's Italian, and it is. Being an Italian restaurant, they specialize in pizzas and pastas, but also have some nonstandard Italian fare ranging from their appetizers and their hero sandwiches (then again, maybe the latter is also Italian). This restaurant has a lot of branches, and I've been to most of them. The particular one we ate at yesterday was their Trinoma branch. When we go here, it's usually full because it's dinner time. Their lunch hours are the opposite of that, and we were practically the only table when we came in.

Aveneto is a place you don't go alone, or even on a date. You go here in groups of maybe at least four simply because of the serving sizes. This is one of the places me and my friends go to when there's an occasion and have no particular place in mind because it's a pretty good value if you're in a huge group. Their pastas are good for at least two, and their pizzas, even the smallest, can be shared by four (assuming you ordered pastas on the side). A good thing, though, is that like most Filipino franchises, they allow taking home of your leftovers with no extra charge. That thought in mind, we decided to order a pasta, a small pizza, and a couple of appetizers. Beloved wanted their Deep Fried Crabsticks (190 Php), and I wanted their French Fries (55 Php). Because their appetizers platter, which contains cheese balls and chicken wings aside from the aforementioned, has less crabsticks than she wanted, we just ordered them separately. As for our pasta, we ordered their Seafood Pasta Parmigiana (250 Php) on thick noodles, which is basically seafood pasta in red sauce. Our pizza of choice was their small Vegetarian Pizza (240 Php), because it was basically the only choice we had that has mushrooms, no seafood, and sounded complementary to what we ordered. Their Refillable Iced Tea is priced at 65 Php, and we ordered one for each of us.

Friuli Trattoria (Maginhawa Street)

Beloved and I ate at Friuli Trattoria for dinner. Yes, I know I said it'll be a while before our next nomnom adventure. But because Starcraft II's Southeast Asia server lags like hell, it didn't really take plenty of my time. Anyway, Friuli is an Italian joint found in Maginhawa St., one of the closest pizza places from home. It's also our family's restaurant, so I might be a bit biased. I hope you trust that I won't be despite saying that this is my favorite Italian place, as I'll try to back that claim up. I've basically tasted everything on the menu, but recently, they've renovated and added a lot of brewed coffee-based drinks on the menu. It's also been a while since we went here, so we did.

Friuli boasts an affordable menu with some not-so-common varieties of pizza. There's also pasta, which basically comes in two white, two red, and one green varieties. I'm not really big into pasta, and when I do order pasta, I just get the Pesto. But they say they're good as well, especially the Putanesca. I'm digressing, so I'll just say it straight: you go here for the pizza. While we usually order the more affordable ones because of the mantra I follow: pizza is about the crust and not the toppings; we decided to order one of the more premium ones: Spiced Romano (229 Php) because I sort of missed it. Because we're not ordering pasta, we just got their Mozarella Sticks (130 Php) as a side. For our drinks, I had Italian Soda (50 Php) and beloved tried the Iced Caramel (75 Php), one of the newer coffee-based ones. That's it for our meal, and if you add it all up it comes less than 500, which is quite affordable comparing it to our usual food adventures.

Bigoli (Trinoma)

Yesterday, beloved and I ate at Bigoli while doing my errands. It certainly wasn't the first time we went here. In fact, this is one of the most frequent places we eat at in Trinoma. Not that I fancy Italian food that much, which is what Bigoli specializes in. And even for an Italian place, it's not among my favorites. However, for the fact that they offer unlimited bread sticks and bottomless drinks for a very affordable price just makes it somewhat impossible to just shun this one away. Beloved also likes this place due to the fact that they serve cream dory.

Obviously beloved ordered Cream Dory with Italian Rice (130 Php). As for me, I wasn't really feeling for pasta, and I usually order their pesto just for their bread sticks. This time, I ordered their Bacon Stromboli (120 Php) because it's been a while since I had bacon and I was feeling bacon deprived. I also ordered a slice of their Shrimp Bianca Pizza (85 Php), which I always get after discovering it with whatever others I order. Of course, we also ordered their Bottomless Drinks (55 Php). No sharing!

Xtremely Xpresso Cafe (Subic)

Beloved and I went to a trip to Zambales which turned into a trip to Subic after a day because of the randomness of the impulses of my father side. There, we got to try out a couple of restaurants that we decided to do a review on. When we got to Subic, we stopped by a cafe called Xtremely Xpresso Cafe for brunch.

Although there's plenty of coffee in their menu, it's more of a diner than a cafe, especially since they serve pizza, pasta, sandwiches, rice meals, and breakfast. Among them was a 22-inch pizza for around 450 to 650 Php, which seems to be a great deal. Unfortunately, they don't serve pizza during the time we got there. Instead, we ordered their pasta, Nut Pesto (220 Php) which comes with your choice of topping: seafood, Hungarian sausage, and... another that I forget. For drinks, I ordered Green Tea (50 Php) for myself and Iced Tea (60 Php) for beloved.

Uncle Cheffy (Eastwood)

Today, me and my mother and brother went to Eastwood mall. Having pretty much no choice since all other places had long waiting lists or aren't really appetizing, we chose to go to Uncle Cheffy. It's supposed to be a brick-oven restaurant featuring panizzas and barbecued stuff. I have never heard of this restaurant before, and never heard of any recommendations from other people mentioning this. It's also my first time having panizza, so it's pretty much a blind-tongued experience.

We ordered a couple of items from their menu that features their tagline—Memphis Barbecue US Beef Rib Fingers (595 Php) and Seafood Panizza (425 Php). We also ordered a couple of bottomless Iced Tea (70 Php). The beverages came first, and I must say, it's not your normal instant iced tea—I could actually taste some of the soothing bitter tea in the refreshing beverage.