Tikim20: Tea Tap your way (San Juan)

A close friend told me about Tea Tap Cafe and since I am in the San Juan area, I checked it out! I wasn’t disappointed with Tea Tap Cafe, they have modern, cozy, and clean interiors which makes it a good hangout place (free wifi, clean washrooms, and fun smart glasses)! In splashes of blue and white, it is indeed a calming space to drink tea, catch-up with friends, and enjoy the ambiance.

Meow welcome!

A spacious hang out place! Yay!

Order here

Tea Tap Café offers milk tea, fruit tea, freshly brewed tea, a variety of yakult flavors, and grass jellly infused drinks. Just like in other tea cafés, you can choose the sweetness level and add-ons/drink toppings.  Unique and Interesting at the same time, they have Perilla (basil seed jelly), grass jelly, and red bean as their add ons. Upon receiving or tasting your order and you think that your drink is too strong/bland, the sweetness syrup is just around the corner to save your order...and it’s FREE! =) A star for the tea tap cat!

Perilla

Sweetness Syrup is here to the rescue

Formosa Black Milk Tea, and Blueberry Yakult

YUM

The café also offers snack food to fill in those hungry tummies! Pasta, Korean style buffalo wings, Japanese takoyaki, and chili cheese roll are all available to satisfy your desire. On my next visit I will surely try them out!

Food for thought

Drink Menu

Oh! Don’t forget to get a tap card and have it stamped when you order a grande drink, 10 stamps=1 free grande drink! Be on the “meow” and get a tTea Tap drink!

Tap Card 

Meow Tea Tap Map

Quality: 4/5

Price: 3/5

Ambiance: 5/5

Tea Tap Café

P. Guevarra Street, Corner Wilson Street,

San Juan City, 1500

Website: www.teatapcafe.com

Tikim19: Ganso Shabuway (Greenbelt5, Makati CIty)

Shabu-shabu has gained its popularity due to a healthier alternative of cooking food in a tasty manner. The two things that would make a great shabu-shabu are 1.the BROTH/SOUP 2.SAUCE. These two factors are I think what gives the shabu-shabu cooked food flavor. Ganso Shabuway is an American Japanese hotpot franchise that opened this 2011 and they are making a name for their awesome dipping sauce! It was actually my first time to dine in a hotpot that the broth is not really for sipping thus it made me concentrate with the meat and sauce instead.

Ordering in Ganso Shabuway was also a different experience compared to the other hotpot houses that i have been where food ordered is shared. In Ganso Shabuway, you order food for yourself and you pay an additional fee if you want to share; it is like one set meal per person is their ideal set-up.

How to order

Step1: Choose broth

Step2: Choose your Shabu-Shabu

A closer look Meyer or Kobe? 

Ste3: Choose your vegetables and sides

TAKE NOTE: One meal= One Person. Extra charge for sharing :( boo!

Their menu offerings is straight forward, they simply created a unique selling point by limiting their menu to beef as their main entree. The process of ordering: you choose your broth (traditional seaweed or spicy miso), choose shabu-shabu order (beef, vegetable, mushroom, or unagi), pick ramen or udon (note that price differs), and lastly choose your add-ons (side orders like rice, drinks).

Half and Half Broth: Traditional Seaweed and Spicy Miso (not that spicy anyway)

Meyer Beef for me

Veggies come with the meal

What i'll truly remember in Ganso Shabuway are their 2 dipping sauce, kindly ask the staff to how to add the other condiments to your sauce because it will taste better! Sauce + Lean Meat = Happy Customer :)

Before: Plain Sauce

After: Sauce with condiments. AWESOME!

Condiments for a flavorful sauce

I do hope that other kinds of meat will be available in their menu even for a limited time. An example would be holy week promo, where white chicken/fish fillet will be available as an alternative for beef since Christians do red meat fasting during this period.

Taste: 2.5/5

Price: 2.5/5

Ambiance: 3.5/5

Ganso Shabuway

2nd Floor Greenbelt 5,

Ayala Center, 1228 Makati Philippines

Contact Number:  9036763/ +63917-5418181

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GansoShabuwayPH?sk=info

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/gansoshabuwayph

Tikim18: Ajisen Ramen Agogoloko Gyoza (Greenhills, San Juan)

If you have been to Hong Kong, Ajisen Ramen is a paopular fast food Japanese restaurant that you can find everywhere (available in HK International Airport). It is in Hong Kong that I first discovered the yummy gyoza (and addicting gyoza sauce) that everytime I’m in town I drop by the restaurant. When I found out that Ajisen Ramen opened a branch in San Juan, I immediately want to try their gyoza; curious if the taste and menu are the same with Hong Kong’s Ajisen Ramen.

Ajisen Ramen San Juan Branch

To my delight the gyoza tastes perfect! Dip the gyoza with its sauce and yum..!  I like the sauce overflowing the dumplings, the salty-sourness of the sauce is a match for the oily gyoza! A little boo-boo that I noticed is that the gyoza sauce of Ajisen Ramen Philippines is limited; they just serve you a little sauce together with the dumplings L This situation is unlike in Ajisen Ramen Hong Kong where the gyoza sauce is available for your heart’s content since it is like a normal condiment placed on the table. One more thing, in Ajisen Ramen Hong Kong, there’s garlic powder and chilli flakes readily available in the table; I like the enhancing flavour of these two spices mixed with the gyoza sauce. I really hope that on my next visit, Ajisen Ramen Philippines would make these condiments readily available too!

Philippine: On the table condiments

Hong Kong: On the table condiments ~ so many!

On the table (on our 4 visits in Ajisen Ramen)

A must order is of course, their gyoza! Don’t forget to let them swim in sauce

Philippine: Gyoza

Hong Kong: Gyoza with LOTS of garlic-spice sauce

Hong Kong: Letting my dumplings swim 

A perfect match during rainy day is their house specialty Ajisen Ramen. Soup base is uniquely tasty! You can ask for more soup for an additional charge of P35/cup. (see photo of Chasu Ramen) Their Chasu Ramen is just like Ajisen Ramen but it has more pork slices! I ordered the Chasu ala-carte (pork slices alone) but found it too oily to eat it alone with rice. It is really is best when it is with noodles .This soup is a favourite dish of mine!

Chasu Ramen

Chasu Ala Carte

Their fried chicken is a bit disappointing, nothing special to it. Note that the fried chicken of Ajisen Ramen Philippines and Hong Kong doesn’t taste the same. If you are in Hong Kong and you wanna try Ajisen Ramen, don’t forget to try dipping the chicken into garlic-spice-sauce; perfect with rice!

Philippines: Fried Chicken, more breading and a but rubbery

Hong Kong: Fried Chicken, more juicy and less breading

Tan-Tan Mien is a dry noodle with spicy ground pork, beancurd, and Ajisen Ramen sauce. Nothing special to this dish

Tan Tan Mien

Gyudon (ground meat) Rice Topping with fresh egg yolk, the sauce in their gyudon is a bit too sweet for me.

Gyudon Donburi

By the way, don’t throw away your receipts, collect P10,000.00 of food purchases and you can get a discount card! Just ask the manager for more details J Happy gyoza-ramen eating!

Taste: 4/5

Price: 3/5

Ambiance: 3/5

Level 2, Northeast Square,

47 Connecticut Street, Greenhills,

San Juan, Metro Manila

Telephone: 4776490

Website: http://ajisenphilippines.com/