My Grandson

Yes, I am thirty with a granchild. Grandchildren, actually. I have two grandsons from my two of my eldest nephew and niece. I am featuring this cute little baby boy because he is the latest addition to the family (sorry to the other kids, I'll feature you later). :)
His name is Ajdin, son of my niece Lennie, who is the eldest of all my nieces (she's almost my age so...), and the eldest of my eldest brother Gil (who is 18 years older than me).
They all live in the States and I only get updates of this cute little baby thru emails...

But isn't he a darling? Honestly, his cute little face makes me smile.
Always.

Food trip no. 3

(Panginggit kay Dad)

For my third food trip, I decided to have the family favorite: Pizza!

For the first pizza, I was reading this article on Yahoo about traditional pizzas. So I went to this pizzzeria over lunch just to have a non fast food chain pizza. The restaurant is called La Paesanna Pizzeria. The place is cozy, two blocks away from my office building. Looks Italian, with a pinay waitress and Arabic chef :)

I started off with some bread (pizza crust) with some preserved black olives and olives in tomato, and some chili oil. For 28 dirhams (pizza only), it's not too bad. But I had the half for take out, I think it's supposed to be good for two. Not bad, but needs to have more cheese.

The 2nd pizza I had was from last week. My officemate and I are supposed to go to the gym that evening, but we cannot grab a cab for an hour already so we decided (well, he did) to eat at the nearby Papa John's instead :)

For 60 dirhams, we had grilled chicken salad, fried chcken breast fillets, sodas and medium pizza (I chose the Little Italy kind, which had all meat, mushrooms and black olives). It is so good!

We didn't have leftovers...

So much for dieting!

Food trip no. 2

Like I've said, I have decided to document all the food that I eat here in Dubai. Much to the enjoyment of my dad, who I always share my stories and to make them feel envious of my love for food. Lately I am fascinated with Kebabs.

Kebab (also transliterated as kabab, kebap, kabob, kibob) refers to a
variety of grilled/broiled meat dishes in Middle Eastern, Central Asian and
South Asian cuisines. Kebabs usually consist of lamb and beef, though particular
styles of kebab have chicken or fish. Pork is never used for kebabs by Muslims
or Jews because of the religious prohibition on the meat, but is sometimes used
by non-Halal or non-Kosher sellers.

So for the past week, I've had two kinds of Kebab lunch and dinner. Both are chicken because I prefer them than mutton or lamb.

The first one is from an Iranian fastfood called Noón Kebab. I tried the plain kind and one is marinated in yoghurt. Yoghurt is very popular in arabic and indian dishes as well. This entire meal is priced at 19 dirhams... not bad. It comes with rice (which I didn't like). I was hoping they have the arabic bread instead. But I forgot to ask. :)

Just last night, for dinner, I went to a nearby hypermarket and I was looking for something to eat. I came across this section where you can get raw kebabs to take home or you can ask them to cook it for you then take it home. So I chose 3 varieties of chicken... in tomato, hot and spicy and in yoghurt. They ended up tasting the same to me. But it's cheaper, costing 5 dirhams per skewer. So 15 dirhams in all, with hummus, bread and garlic sauce (which turned out to be mayonaise). It also had a serving of fries on the side.
Not too bad huh?

The verdict? I am still looking for the perfect kebab... I definitely need to eat a lot more of these.

Three Things

I decided to continue the things list from my sister’s blog since I wanted to share my three things…

3 things I wish I could do but couldn’t
-rap
-speak Arabic
-do extreme sports

3 things that make me smile
-my nephews' and nieces' pictures (they're just so cute!)
-Dubai Festival City

-some cute guy...

3 things that make me laugh
-Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller movies
-being with gay people (they just crack me up)
-Pugad Baboy books

3 things that make me cry
-being emotionally hurt by stupid people
-sappy, love stories…sigh…
-weddings (doesn’t matter who is getting married, I just cry during the vows and stuff)

3 things that scare me
-scary movies
-death
-Love :)

3 things that I love
-God and my existence
-My family
-My passion for fine things :)

3 things that I like doing
-Yoga and meditation
-reading or travelling
-just being myself

3 things that I hate
-people talking bad about me
-war and fear
-the ability to hate

3 things that I don’t understand
-Arabic
-Love
-the connection of everything and everyone in this world

3 things on my desk
What? Three things???
-my camera, iPod
-office stuff like PC, phone, stuff…
-cosmetics samples (a lot of them for approvals)
-my nephews’ and nieces’ pictures
Wait, these are four things… hehehe

3 things I’m doing right now
-listening to my iPod
-drinking a banana, mango, strawberry smoothie
-checking some latest liquid foundation samples that I had to approve first thing next week (but is too lazy to do, oops)

3 things I want to do before I die
-have a happily married life with kids (2 is ok), as my niece Mary puts it, "to make babies"…
-go and live somewhere abroad (wait, I am already doing that…)
-travel with my husband (what husband???) to places we both like to see (in the future, that is) and things we like to do (like that rappelling thing)

3 things I can do
-whistle to the tune of ANY song
-touch the floor with both hands without knees bending
-do the fish face (with lips and all)

3 things that I like to listen to

-Old school music (like Supersonic)
-80s music
-anything that I can actually sing

3 things I would never want to listen to
-people fighting about stupid nonsense things
-Tagalog novelty songs
-that laugh part in the end of Michael Jackson's song Thriller... i still feel scared :)

3 things I would like to learn
-speak Arabic or French
-skiing
-how to make souffle

3 foods that I love
I’ve done this on the four things and still lack some… so I’ll just add these three
-Shawarma (but not the mutton kind)
-Cheesecake (omg!)
-chocolate (or chocolate drink)

3 beverages I drink regularly
-cold bottled water
-Diet coke or diet pepsi
-coffee

3 TV shows I watched as a kid

-Punky Brewster
-The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls
-all those cartoons

3 Books I've last read

-The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

-The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

-Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coehlo

My Four Things

I got this idea from my sister's blog where she passed me this meme to list down four things that I have or love...

4 Places I’ve Lived
Kalookan City, Philippines
West Orange, New Jersey
Gardiner, New York
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

4 Jobs I’ve Had
Sheep feeder (well what do you call someone who feeds sheep???)/Honey Farm helper
Laboratory Analyst
Color Chemist
Quality Assurance Coordinator

4 Jobs I Wish I had
Film maker or theater (musical) actress
Coffeeshop cum bar owner :) (planned to actually fulfill this)
Make up artist (in training)
Veterinarian

4 Places I’ve Holidayed
Everyday is a holiday for me!

4 Favorite Foods
MY lasagna
Pizza
Fried Chicken (forever!)
Ginataang hipon or grilled squid (I need to have a seafood entry)
(I should make this into 10 things, not just 4)

4 Places I’d Rather Be
At home with mommy and daddy :(
In Maldives
Singing or dancing on a stage (videoke only)
In a historical place that I would actually go to in the future (like Greece or Egypt)

4 Bloggers Id like to Pass this Meme to
My cousin Emmy (who had a blog)
My niece Nikka (also starting a blog)
Just anybody who is fun :)

Food trip no. 1

I've decided to add to my blog my fabulous love for food... Good food, that is. I always dine out so I really look for food that is both healthy and good, while keeping in mind that it should be of superb value (reasonable, that is).

So for my second food trip, I should go with my favorite Grilled Salmon that I usually eat from Ikea. As you might ask, Ikea is one of my favorite places to go to... (I'll talk about Ikea on another post). They have cheaper food, great value and basically very simple and quick...

It's priced at 19 dirhams for the fish with steamed veggies and your choice of either gravy or white sauce (i opted for the fattening kind- the white sauce). And then I'd add some arabic bread and a bottle of good ol' H2O.
I just love Ikea and their food.

So for my second Grilled Salmon dinner, I just simply became a fancy eater... I ate at this restaurant called The Lounge inside a Marks and Spencer store, also located at the Dubai Festival City. So for a dish which costs 42 dirhams, this is what they started of with: 2 pieces of bread with some sort of marmalade. The bread by the way is freshly baked, and is still warm. I enjoyed it, really. Then they brought out the Grilled Salmon, resting on top of potato wedges (I don't even think it's an entire potato). It is about 3/4 inch thick (the salmon) and is so moist. I don't know how they can stay so moist and fully cooked at the same time, considering the thickness of the fillet.

Just wanted to make my money's worth by really cleaning up my plate! Did I mention that a bottle of Evian there costs 8 dirhams? Evian in Ikea costs only 3 dirhams. But hey, I paid for the ambience... (who ordered that darn ambience???--- like that Erap joke).

I want to do this!

My friend and I watched the Esprit fashion show, which I thought was an ordinary show with skinny, tall models (male models to be exact hehehe) walking on the runway…I was wrong!

There were male models alright.

But the catwalk is not on a typical stage… it is vertical!

So there I am as I watched in awe and wondered if I can do that… out of all the daring things out there, I think rapelling (if I had spelled it correctly) could be more fun and less scary (I hope). Well, compared to bunjee jumping (no way!), sky diving (even more!) or rock climbing, I think rapelling is safer (I really do hope so!). But on the Esprit thing, rapelling is done face first!

Hmmm… I think I’ll opt for the traditional, butt-first kind.



Pretty cool huh?