Sister and I don't bring a lot of cash when we travel, basically because we don't have that much to burn anyway. Normally, whenever I travel north, I always have about three thousand to spend - including bus fares - no matter how long I am planning to stay on vacation. I am a very thrifty person and has already learned the many ways to stretch the budget, but there were times that I find myself spending mindlessly, and this food trip was a good example.
When sister and I once went to Baguio City, thinking where to eat was one of the toughest questions to be answered because there are just so many to choose from. However, since we were on a budget, we couldn't eat at the two places we had in mind - Cafe by the Ruins and PNKY. We decided to just go to SM City Baguio for our aunt also asked us to buy the latest issue of DiabetEASE Magazine, and it was there where we found a place to eat at. We knew there were Joey Pepperoni branches in Metro Manila, but because we still haven't tasted the food here, it was the best choice we could think of.
The place had a very spacious dining area, but because there were very few diners at that time, we decided to stay at the al fresco side, where some of the diners stayed at, maybe because of the natural cool breeze.
Choosing what to order took us time for we want to make this food trip very memorable. The place offered a few food promos, and in the end we decided to go for a plate of pasta, a small serving of pizza, and a dessert.
Pasta Altonno
Sister's choice was the tuna spaghetti. A few years ago, I had a very bad cooking disaster at home when I cooked Tuna Spaghetti for the family and it left me so devastated that I stopped eating Tuna Spaghetti. Having a taste of this was a big leap for me, and I was glad I did because it tasted really good. The sauce wasn't oily, the seasoning was okay, and of course, the bell peppers tasted great.
Bolognese Spaghetti
If you're a fan of tangy, very-Italian tasting pasta, this one's for you. It may look very simple and not as decorated as the usual Pinoy Spaghetti, but it was packed with flavor.
Both pasta plates were priced at 99 each, a glass of iced tea included. Truly worth its price!
Messicana Pizza
I guess my sister has developed a liking for Mexican-flavored pizza that she ordered this as her pizza choice. Very meaty kind of pizza, something impressed my sister as she's not really into vegetables, and the Mexican seasoning was so awesome! Well, Mexican is my favorite international cuisine, that even if this one didn't have my usual pizza toppings, I considered this something very memorable.
The Works
This might not have my favorite pineapples, but this pizza was foodgasmic. Umm umm good!
Sister and I only ate two pizza slices - one from each flavors and had the rest packed to take home - or rather something to eat while traveling back home. I thought all along we planned this food trip well, until we realized we made a bad budget choice for going for our pizza. Well, the pizzas are very affordable - 170 pesos each, but at that time Joey Pepperoni also had a promo on pizza - two 8-inch pizzas for only 199 pesos. It only had two flavor choices: Ham & Bacon in Red Sauce and Ham & Mushroom in White Sauce (either go for one of each or go for two of one flavor), but it was still pizza and we could have saved 70 pesos each should we went for it. Well, sister said that the important thing was we had what we really wanted, so it was just okay.
Frozen Cappuccino Mudpie
For her dessert, she opted to go with one of her favorite ice cream flavors - coffee. Been so long since I last ate an ice cream cake (errr pie), that even if in reality it's just ice cream shaped into a cake, it still brought us many memories of our late father taking us to this cake place in Makati (called Dates & Nuts if I remember it correctly) where we ate ice cream cake at 7 in the morning. Very rare did our father took us with him at work, and the ice cream cake was our ultimate foodie memory. No ice cream cake will come as close to that level, but this one was okay.
Pizza Cookie Dough
There weren't much desserts to choose from, so with the remaining four choices, I went with this as this was very unique. I have tasted a lot of Brownie a la Mode in the past, and this provided a different twist - with the chocolate flavor coming from the choco chips. The cookie was soft and wasn't overly sweet that it paired well with the vanilla ice cream.
We split the bill as we both want to make sure that the money we had for this vacation would suffice everything. We each paid 354 pesos - quite steep for a traveler on a budget, but considering the amount of food we ate and how great tasting each were, it was beyond what we expected for a memorable food trip. At first we shy from entering Joey Pepperoni branches in the Metro as it looked posh, but knowing how affordable their food were, we knew we'd come back to dine there again.
I come from a family who loves cooking and eating. I never had any formal training in cooking and that I taught myself how to cook based on the handed down recipes, but I could say that I can cook good food. In 2008, I started documenting my food trips for my