Ginza Bairin in UP Town Center

Ginza Bairin is one of our favourite restaurants in UP Town Centre, this and Red Onion (okay, Kim doesn't like Red Onion).

We had our feet scrubbed, and we were able to purchase St. Ives' Anti-itch lotion, so we were more than ready for a little (that is... heavy) dinner tonight - before I had to run off to pick up my evil sister (okay, she's not that evil).

Parking in UP Town was at its all time worst. Then again, it may be because they're still building parking buildings. That didn't deter us from making the hike to Ginza Bairin. How did we live before the arrival of Ginza Bairin and Saboten, really?

This is our third time to eat in Ginza Bairin, I think. And like Saboten.. and fine, Yabu, na din, you have to grind sesame seeds for your katsu sauce. In other words, you have to put some elbow grease into grinding if you want to have dinner *winkwink,

We didn't actually need to do this because both Kim and I ordered the Menchi Katsu with Cheese Curry Set. 

All sets come with refillable cabbage-salad, Miso soup, Japanese rice, and fresh fruits. 

There's the dressing and Shoyu Wasabi sauce for the cabbage salad - more than anything, I was so looking forward to the cabbage. 

I so appreciated the food server, because she suggested to put the curry sauce on the side so that I could appreciate the labor I put into grinding. 

Bon appetit! The Japanese curry has arrived! I've been hankering for Japanese curry for 2 weeks already!

Unfortunately, though, Kim wasn't successful in getting me to forget the #HOMEGROWN stores we passed by before we crashed in Ginza Bairin. The Polaris Project's bazaar of sorts in UP Town Centre, had a booth, by Polaris Project themselves, which sold artworks. I saw this cute painting of a bird house - really adorable. It was only PhP 350.00 - which is really affordable for an acrylic on canvas painting. 

Bird House, Acrylic on 12" x 9" canvas, Renee Avila

At first, I thought I wanted to present it similar to the painting of Miguel Villanueva, but now, I'm thinking I want to have a big gold frame. I have time to decide. Its a nice piece by Renee Avila. Will try to research on the artist. 

All in all, amazing Saturday!

Ginza Bairin

G/F UP Town Centre, 

Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

tel. no. 0917.871.0041

Polaris Project

thepolarisprojectph@gmail.com

Late Lunch at Yabu in Megamall

Since I was on leave the day after my birthday to rest from the all-night party, Danny and I decided to go to Megamall to do some early-Christmas shopping. It was a pretty good decision to go there, as there weren't a lot of people there during weekdays. That's the way Megamall should be experienced, sans the mad and scary mob.

We got carried away with the shopping, had to look for gifts from so many people, we realized it was getting late and we haven't eaten lunch. Since we were already in Megamall, we decided to try the new Japanese restaurant there. At first, we didn't know what the name of the restaurant was, and we spent a good few minutes searching for it in the atrium area of the mall. It was a good thing I recognized the comic-book style artworks on the restaurant's walls from the blog that had featured it.

Yes, since we seldom go to Megamall, we ate at Yabu, to ensure that it would be a meaningful malling experience for us.

It was rather late, so there weren't any diners except us, YAY! It gave me a chance to take a picture of the restaurant's interior.

The condiments tray was so cute! Look at the salt holder, it's shaped like a pig! How cute is that?

Another special thing about the restaurant, you have to make your own Katsudon sauce. Here are the instructions:

So this is me trying to make my own Katsu sauce. I ground the sesame seeds. It isn't that tough, because you just have to turn the mortar on the little bowl, and it will grind on its own because of the grooves embedded on the bowl.

Then you put the katsu sauce mix into the ground sesame seeds. The wooden ladle was so cute!

We ordered side dishes, potato salad, and seaweed salad. Yum!

And the main course, Hire and Seafood Katsu Set! The cabbage salad is refillable. The salad dressing was part of the condiments tray. It was so delicious! The hire was very tender, and the katsu breading was excellent.

Will truly miss Yabu in Megamall. It's so sad they still don't have branches in either the Fort or Makati. A restaurant this yummy should be located in the CBD as well.

For everyone's reference:

Yabu: House of Katsu
2nd Floor The Atrium, SM Megamall,
EDSA cor. Julia Vargas Avenue,
Mandaluyong
tel. no. 576.3900