Myron's Place and Terrace at 5th.

Myron's Place

When you're on a dinner date in the south, it's usually the same choices: The French Corner and Melo's in Westgate, or the Sky Lounge Resto in Vivere. Since moving to Makati, Ian and I have been trying the restaurants in Greenbelt 5 for our dinner dates :) Well I don't know if we can try all of them since it would eventually take toll in our budget if it piles up :p

First stop is Myron's. Myron's isn't really new because they have a branch in Power Plant before they opened in Greenbelt 5. Since we're from the south, we're usually at most in Greenbelt area.

Whenever we try a resto we usually ask what's their specialty and they always always say it's their steak. Well for Myron's, I know it's their steak. Ian usually gets that, while I usually get the ribs and we just share our food :)

Myron's menu in Munchpunch.com

Bianca's Cut 240 grams

Baby Back Ribs

Happy Campers

I am no steak connoisseur but the steak was tender good :) The ribs was really yummy too. Well I really can't be a food writer because I'm so damn easy to please with food :D

Next stop, Terrace at 5th. Terrace at 5th's Menu from Munchpunch.com

I love the service here, first when we ordered, they offered to split the 2 dishes into two plates, half of each order so we won't have a hard time sharing the food. Second, when they offered desserts and coffee, since we wanted hot chocolate, and it's not on the menu, the waiter asked the kitchen then got back to us and offered to make us hot chocolate even if it's not on the menu. Talk about SERVICE :)

complimentary bread

Cynthia's Amazing Artichoke Dip (with Melba Toast)

Half of Grilled U.S. Short Ribs and Half of Homestyle Confit of Pork Belly

Okay, so back to the orders, as I've mentioned whenever you ask what's their specialty, they always say steak so in Terrace at 5th they said the same thing. Anyway, we wanted to try something else :)

For starters, I loved Cynthia's Amazing Artichoke Dip. I love CPK's Spinach and Artichoke Dip (which is expensive for tortillas and dip, P500++), and Cibo's Spinach Zola (Spinach and Gorgonzola, I only like eating in Cibo because of this, P200++). The one in Terrace at 5th is just artichoke, but it's really good :)

The Grilled U.S. Short Ribs(Calatagan, Batangas style with roasted garlic and homemade atchara and rice) is good, again I love ribs, and it's really tender and moist. The Homestyle Confit of Pork Belly (12-hour, slow-roasted pork rib belly in reduced balsamic sauce) even if it was cooked for 12 hours, reduced in balsamic sauce, to me it's still your normal lechon. Yes it's tender and all, but dip it in Mang Tomas, you wouldn't know the difference that it was done in reduced balsamic sauce. I dunno, just nothing out of the extra ordinary, but I'd probably go back for the ribs, the artichoke dip, and to eventually try their steak :)

Oh, and I also love it that you can choose between white or red rice, so there's the healthier option :) There was actually a time in our house that my brother and I ate red/brown rice at home, but the rest of the household didn't like it that much haha.

I already ate lunch but this post is making me hungry again :D

Got Hitched.

I loooooove our on site wedding video! :) If you're surfing through my blog, you have to watch the video I posted. I've always wanted one on my wedding :) If you're not familiar with on site wedding videos or same day edit videos, videographers shoot on the day of the wedding (preps,ceremony,etc) and show it during the reception. So it's really a time crunch, and they have to be really good to produce a video in a few hours, squeeze more than x hours of videos to a 3 minute preentation.

I don't have Internet access in our condo so I am currently blogging at home. I had to go home since Ian just got back from Finland, and to be safe we want to do the quarantine thing. We've been crazy busy because of this wedding, and it's finally over! :) We loved every second of the big day.

What I've learned:

1. Murphy's Law, there's always something that could go wrong during the wedding. If it happens, and you're the bride like me, don't freak out. Stay cool even if they forgot the flowers for the bridal car, or they served the wrong food during the reception, or they forgot the props for the games during the wedding. I still kept my cool!

2. You will always ALWAYS go beyond your wedding budget. Thank God we actually lowered our original budget and had room for the excess(while actually still being on a budget, I hope this made sense)

3. Some years into the relationship, when we've discussed how much each of us should save for the wedding, we forgot to take into account furniture and appliances. It takes a good chunk of the money, even the rent since there's 2 months deposit and 1 month advance. So an advice to couples, add that in the budget :) And if you are in a serious relationship as early as now, it's good to start talking about the budget so you'll have more time to save!

4. We've always wanted and discussed a small wedding, specifically a 100 guest list, well 98 to be specific since we're included in the 100. When I told my mom about this before, it led into an argument since she won't be able to invite her friends. When your parents insist they invite their friends and say that they'll 'shoulder' their guests, a good compromise is letting them throw a post wedding party (this resolved the argument quickly) Because sometimes, it's not really about the money, it's about having people really close to you witness the union, and not some people you barely know. Ian and I had the 100 guest list, my parents had theirs the next day with 130+ guests. Hahahaha and most of the people I can't remember the names :D

5. Invest in wedding shoes that you can wear again! I didn't want to spend x thou amount on shoes that I'll just wear for one day. Thank God for Zara :) And I really wanted to wear purple shoes :)

6. After the wedding's done and over with, you will only have memories about it and videos and pictures. We actually invested more on the videos and photos, than for instance my wedding dress. I'd actually rather scrimp on the dress, and not get a designer one, than compromise the photos and videos.

7. We didn't hire a wedding planner for the wedding, some people hire to assist only on the day itself. It was still a success because I actually distributed the work to family, thanks to all my cousins who assisted that day! :) Even if they were part of the entourage, they had tasks haha.

8. Getting a photobooth as the souvenir or giveaway is actually better than giving away trinkets that people will just put away in their cabinets.

9. Take your prenup pictures in a place that's related to your story. We were thinking of our having ours in CSA, our grade school campus (we were classmates before) but we had it in our college alma mater, Ateneo. Although we weren't together in college, we were classmates once in an elective and we've shared our dose of UAAP games every year! :) Go Ateneo! (In the video, Ian even mentions the blue eagles)

10. It's not true that you can't eat during your wedding, Ian and I have been pigging out on the day itself. I ate complete breakfast, lunch, and I ate well during the reception.

11. Sometimes, it's not the bride who's magastos, sometimes it's actually the groom :P

12. If you want drinks to be served after the wedding, do it somewhere else. Throw an after wedding party in a separate location. We did this because we want the ambiance not to be stiff anymore, where people can be laid back and be themselves sans the 'formal' feel or stiffness of the wedding reception where people can really talk and be loud and noisy, remove their barong, even wear flip flops.

13. Since we both sort of drained our bank accounts for the wedding, we still have to save for a big vacation, so we initially planned to book the first flight out of Manila (domestic or international) ala Amazing Race on a tight budget. Only to learn that it's really expensive to book on the day itself! Plus there's swine flu so international is out of the list. So we had our honeymoon here in the Philippines, Paris can wait! Hahaha we still have to save for it :D People actually give us credit to be able to pay for our own wedding at this age, and the wedding on a budget turned out to be REALLY nice! :) I'm only spilling how much we spent on people who are planning to get married and needs a ballpark figure on how much to save :p

Make-up Artist: Chickoy Vistro
Photographer: Dusko Almosa
Videographer: Rommerson Galapon
Prenup Photgrapher: Charles Buenconsejo
Photobooth: Poof Photobooth

*I'm plugging for them since they really did a wonderful job!*

C

Rica signing off :)