For our wave 60 team’s anniversary we decided to dine at Ding Qua Qua in JY Square Lahug. I haven’t heard much about it though but basing on its name, I can tell that it is a dimsum kind of eatery and I was not wrong.

Ding qua qua opens at six in the evening and closes at ten every day, buffet costs you Php 210 without drinks. You can order bottomless drinks for only Php 45 and they also have their milk tea for Php 45 too!

The food was not that extraordinary actually, in fact I only ate what I had on my plate and didn’t go for another round anymore. The milk tea had made me full after eating all of the orient pearls on it. But for a buffet meal at Php 210, it is all worth it.

I was attracted by the wall painting of the famous Great Wall of China and how the lights added nice effect to the ambiance.

We first thought of not dining at JJ's Mandarin Restaurant because we heard their food is costly, yet before we checked out of the JJ's Seafood Village after my brothers flew to Dubai, the resto seemed to be calling us. It was so inviting that we didn't have the chance to say no, our stomachs were giving in to the thought of the food inside.

So we were the first customers as they are opened at 11am and our check out time is 12noon. We made it a point to dine first before going home.

As we were on tight budget and were just there to try their cuisine, we selected those that we thought are familiar to our taste buds. The parents chose our viands anyway since they will pay afterwards.

In a small corner inside Bohol Quality mall lays a coffee shop named A Cup of Jo. When James and I went home to Bohol for my brothers' “despideda party”, we went to the said mall searching for a light breakfast since we reached Tagbilaran almost nine in the morning. Then again, we searched for something new so we went to this noticeably lonely corner. No one's around yet, we understand the mall just opened a couple of minutes ago.

So we scanned through their menu, they have their special Bean Burrito and American Hotdog yet both were unavailable so we ended up with a single cup of cappuccino and cheese burger.

Going back to work from a vacation means bringing home a "pasalubong". Pasalubong is any gift or souvenir brought for a family, loved ones or friends after being away for a period of time.

For almost three years, I would always buy Calamay or Peanut Kisses as pasalubong to my colleagues whenever I go home for vacation. For those who are not familiar with the two, Calamay is a sticky sweet famous delicacy of Bohol, it has been famous because of it is distinctively sold inside halved smooth coconut shells, but nowadays, this has been sold in plastic containers also for convenience. Peanut Kisses on the other hand is made from peanuts and egg whites shaped like miniature Chocolate Hills, the famous tourist spot in the island.

One of the restaurants I would love to visit in Tagbilaran City is Garden Cafe because of it's uniqueness. My first and last visit was when I was still in grade school, my cousin in law brought me there and I couldn't forget the experience. Reason? Because they have mute and deaf waitresses and crews which made the place the most silent restaurant I had been to ever.

Glad James and I came to the restaurant accidentally last week before we went back to Cebu. It was nine in the evening, while we were roaming around Tagbilaran City, we accidentally passed along the said resto. I hopped in happiness because I had been longing to get there. Though our ship's departure time was at 10pm, we still went in and ordered our meals. Unfortunately, we were not able to take photographs of our orders which we just took out because we were running out of time already and the camera had ran out of battery also, BOOO! BTW, I ordered Aloha Burger, it has beef patty with pineapple for Php 65, really good! James had his B roasted Chicken Meal for Php 110 and a Mango Pie for Php 35.

And while our order was taken cared of, we took advantage of the very little time taking photographs of the place. Garden Cafe is an old west cowboy restaurant and museum at the same time so most of the decorations are about cowboys and vintage stuff.

Though I am not anymore part of the Team Papa Joe, I am glad I was invited for the team lunch which happened yesterday and took place at Casa Verde in Ayala Terraces. We had a great time and laughed alot, as in a lot! Unlike before,  everyone was present yesterday. We got a prize from making to the top team for our account's overall stack ranking for the month of April. And as a celebration to that, we held this team lunch. Actually,we thought of eating at Banana Leaf but for some reasons, we ended up eating at Casa Verde which we didn't regret anyway.

Our "chikas" and laughter was interrupted when we learned that Loreto had already submitted his resignation. Without us knowing, his last night shift was last Sunday and though it maybe a sad thing that we will not be having him anymore in the future team lunch or any meal, we are happy because he is now moving into his greener pasture. He is actually going abroad but will be staying in the country first for his short term studies. Well, farewell and congrats Loreto!   One good vibe was that he never let that event pass by, he made it to our team lunch without being late! Lol

Anyway, Casa Verde's specialty is the Baby Back Ribs also known as Brian's Baby Back Ribs. The serving was too much for me, if you are just an average eater like me, most women do, the serving is too much for sure. I was not able to finish it up but decided not to take it out then, most of my colleagues went out with the packed lunch. Now it is not just yummy and tender! It is also affordable, you can share it also if you want for Php 198.

For days James has been asking me to help him with a Drink/Food Menu design for a specific restaurant. I didn't say No or Yes either and it was not because I don't want to help him that's why i didn't say yes at first. It was only because I was not yet inspired to do the task. Actually, he was working for the restaurant's website, the manager for this restaurant is his friend and a former colleague of mine so I also want to help him out with it but it was just not my day.

Yesterday, I gathered the strength to do the Menu at last. Maybe because the manager was already asking for it and so the power of pressure plus the adrenaline rush was hunting me that time. So, what happened was I begun making the layout, since the old menu was available, I based the color combination with it. Maroon and Gold. Oh! This reminds me of my Alma Mater, CIT-University.

Anyways, I started with the layout and then viola! I was able to finish the first page, well, not really the entire first page because there are still missing information details. But what I mean is that 90% of the page is complete. The next pages for the food name and price list was easy to do, the only hard thing there was to type their titles, they were Indian terms and some may sound awkward so I need to re-read the terms. But overall, it was just a way of duplicating the layer and editing the text layers. By the way, I used Adobe Photoshop CS4 for the design.

I started making the design at one in the afternoon, I used James' HP laptop first but after two hours of using it, I got tired of waiting for the program to respond again, it was all running in circles. Clicking for action commands then the Photoshop won't respond, need to wait for like 7 minutes, respond again then clicks, Oh! It was such a pain. So I switched to my notebook, copied the .psd files and olah! I waited no more. That was a way better than his pc. I guess that was a sign that he needs to buy a new one soon, tsk tsk tsk.

At four in the afternoon, I was able to finish the whole six pages. As I've said, the rest of the price list was okay except the typing part, that was the only thing which slowed down the making process.

A day after I reached home last Wednesday, my parents invited me to go out at five in the morning and eat some Puto(sweetened rice) and Sikwate(chocolate) at the public market for our pamainit. Now let me differentiate pamainit and breakfast, in the province like Guindulman, we usually eat pamainit first early in the morning to heaten up our stomachs, this meal is from four to six in the morning. Starting seven to nine, breakfast is served. While city people loves brunch, probinsiyanos love eating twice in the morning.

I had never eaten such meal for like ten years (just exaggerating) so I went in and came with them. I invited James but he was too sleepy to come because he slept late the night before. When we reached the place which we call as "Sikwate-han", we ordered three pairs of puto and sikwate for the three of us. I haven't eaten this for quite a long time already so I thought it is worth blogging about it. I didn't bring with me my camera so I borrowed my father's E51 cellphone. 

The puto was worth Php 10, no wonder why the serving had spiked compared before when it was still five bucks per plate.

I was craving for cookies and cream shake one hot afternoon but for some reasons I was too lazy to go out and buy one at the mall. So what James and I did? We made our own shake version. We didn't find Oreo cookies outside so we bought Cream-O biscuits instead. There were bananas left so we experimented for a banana-creamO shake. What was inside our head? Nothing, just to play with the ingredients and make the hot afternoon a cool and fun one.

Actually, my favorite shake flavor is mango then the cookies and cream came as second. Just saying though, what is your favorite? Thirsty's fruit shakes are the best. I have tried almost all fruits except the durian one. I also like zagu's cookies and cream and their black sagos are my favorite. I can actually eat all of those sagos! Lols.

Going back, here are the ingredients:

When James and I had to go back to Cebu after our one week vacation in Bohol, we stopped by Bohol's Island City Mall to take our lunch and withdraw some cash since there ain't any other town that has ATMs. So we did took our lunch in ICM's food court situated in the ground floor of this four story mall. We were looking for something not beefy or porky, we tried to pile in this grilled stand named Payag but the line was too long that we might be eating our lunch past one in the afternoon, it was just twelve that time. So we ended up buying in this stand where there isn't any one in line, Savory Hot was its name. Why named that way? Because they cater meals in a sizzling and savory hot pans. Oh and the price is very affordable mind you, I had my own Chicken Curry Sizzling Meal at Php 45 and James had his Chicken Halang-halang as well at the same price. This is very pro-student! Lol!

Anyway, this isn't about Savory Hot though but about the desert we had after lunch. Since the ground floor food court was full of people and that there were diners waiting for vacant seats, we decided to go to the other floors and look for seats instead. We were seated near this inviting food stand:

Just by looking at the pictures, my buds immediately started to crave for it. Though I was still full, I persuade James to buy for us. I just realize now that I have actually sinned with what I have done! Oh my! It's gluttony, I have even tempted James and he gave in! (Sorry Lord). Anyways, so since the price was okay, we ordered the bowl size for Php 18 and added two toppings or they call it top-its worth Php 3 each scope: chocolate bits and assorted nips. This was how the bowl looked like:

Before going home to Bohol, James and I looked for a place to dine in for lunch. We were thinking we can just go on drive thru at Jollibee's or Mcdonalds but we thought about the food and then decided to just look for another not common and we haven't tried yet.

We were on Mcdonald Mambaling then with our things and saw Red Bowl just in front of us and then we thought, how about this? Without further a do, we went in. 

There were no customers yet and the crew were looking bored but were all awaken when we went in. This is how they look the moment we went in:

One of my old good friend Inday Reina, had just graduated with a degree, Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering last March 31, 2011 at CAP Building. When both of us were still studying, I was in CIT and she was in STI then, we never had seen each other so when she invited me to join her celebration, I hesitated not. I didn't take that lots of photos because they had their own event official photographer and aside from that, we were seated at the back. When the event almost ended, I surprised her and took this photo:

She was indeed surprised and after four long years, we saw each other again. Well, the only thing which had changed is the body size. 

We just had our first team lunch yesterday since the reshuffling five months ago.  There is only one reason why a team can't get any team socialization budget and that is because their stats are low. So that means, for almost five months, we were one of the bottom performers. So sad!

That does not mean that I didn't perform well the last months, as a matter of fact I got really good grades or stats on every agent attribute. It's just that the total average score of the whole team was not good. Most of us were having some challenges with some of the attributes, one to mention was our QA scores. But anyway that was all history because we have been on the top for the last month and now, we all received the fruit of our labor.

We were thinking of two options, either we will add it to our team building budget which will be on the coming months or just use it for a team lunch since we haven't done it yet ever since. Everyone opted the latter and so we went and voted for a good place to eat.

Listed were the nominated restos:

Gerry's Grill

TGI fridays

Pancake House
Max
Pier One
SM food court
Pizza Hut
Mc Donald's
Shakey's
Wendy's

It was funny because we ended up picking Mooon Café which in the first place was not part of the options. So we went there for lunch, my bad because I arrived an hour late which means, everyone is already eating and I was still waiting for my 10-15 minute waiting order. That's fine though since James was also there, both of us waited for our Mexican Back Ribs. We ordered the same menu anyway. 

My Mexican Back Rib was a huge serving. I was not able to finish it all up so I ended up taking it out. Hehe it saved my dinner!

Here are some of our team photos at Mooon Café :