Appetite Magazine's Restaurant Festival 2011

Grand Launch

13 October 2011

Grand Atrium

2/f Shangri-la EDSA Plaza

Mandaluyong City

Prelude:

My sisters attended a culinary event and they covered it as invited bloggers. As that event nears to end the organizers(or PR) gave them this ticket (photo below) and they gave it to me.

I was so thankful to them - most specially to my sister Jenn (http://taraletseat.blogspot.com/) for giving me this ticket. I already accepted that I can't join the Restaurant Festival because my Facebook friends are not enough to generate "likes" during the campaign period. Since I have my ticket to the event, I can surely come together with my sisters.

Check In:

We arrived at the venue two hours early. We don't want to be in EDSA after 5pm so that we will not be caught in rush hour traffic. We strolled a little and stayed at the food court. At around 6:30pm we registered at the check-in counter and the organizers gave us this little booklet that serves our "passport". We have our ticket (look at the ticket, it says "passenger") and our passport and we will just wait for our Launch time. As we wait, me and my sister Jesz (http://sugarplumfairy-lyn.blogspot.com/) strolled more by visiting all participating restaurants and taking their Facade Photos. Then we came back just in time for the Launch.

Pre-Launch:

When gained access to the event area. We took our camera(s) as we took photos of all featured dishes of all participating restaurants. We did this so that we can have good -if not best- photos of the dishes before serving.Ill feature these photos after this entry. After the in-flight catering photoshot, we secured our cocktail table as we wait for the Launch.

Launch:

As you can see, I used the words "passenger"; "passport"; "check in" and; "Launch". Yes! the motif of the launch is "flight". The program started by a lively greeting from the Chief Stewardess (the host) Ms. Sam Oh. She welcomed us with her warm smile and hospitable personality. She then called the flight crew to deliver their speeches : First, from the Associate Publisher of Appetite Magazine, Ms. Monique Buensalido; then the Editor-in-Chief of Appetite Magazine, Ms. Nina Daza-Puyat; then a representative from Mastercard (sorry no photo, the official photographer came infront of me) lastly, Ms. Lala Fojas of Shangri-la Plaza.

Ms. Daza-Puyat and Ms. Fojas unveiled the banner as the "Restaurant Festival 2011" as they declared the festival open and will end at the last day of the month of November. The festival have a sampler menu and it will cost from 500 to 700 Philippine Pesos (depending of the restaurant). On the next entries I'll feature these menus, for the mean time, sample on these samples I got.

But if you are so excited to know more of these, go to Appetite Magazine's Website Restaurant Festival Page

In-Flight Food:

I had these yummy goodness that really tickled my appetite. The photos herein are just samples & less compared to the one you'll get when you dine at the participating restaurants.

For round 1 samples from Sing Hainanese Chicken House : Hainanese Chicken (bottom) and Fish Cake(w/ toothpicks).

For Round 2 samples from Secret Recipe : Chocolate Indulgence Cake (right) and Black Pepper Chicken (left)

For Round 3, samples are getting to run out of stock then I need to watch out for my sister's bag & for our table as well thus I'll get a little bit of samples. 


These are from : (top of the rice) Clawdaddy : (L) Smoked BBQ Chicken Quarter and (R) Buffalo Wings; (bottom of rice); 


from Cravings : (L) Mango Cream Crepe; and (C) Chicken ala Pobre w/ Mushroom Gravy and; 


from Cafe Provencal : (R) Grilled Chicken Provencal

The sample from Cafe Provencal is so small but my appetite is still up and big thus even its hopeless to get the "right" serving of samples, I still went to the next remaining restaurants. 


For Round 4, samples from Lemongrass : Pork BBQ (on top of rice) and Lemon Chicken (on the left)

with a little twist of the plate and a little push of the samples, I still got these thumb sized samples from Crustasia : (bottom left) Hunan Cumin Ribs and (top right) Battered Shrimp (its just a part of the Grand Javanese Sampler)

another push and this Pork Humba from C2 managed to get into the plate.

Good thing the Ice Tea is free flowing but there's more restaurants to go to but sadly, they ran out of stock thus I did not had a chance to get from : 


Pho Hoa who have these spring rolls and crepe. I really like to have those.; 


Pepper Lunch which should be my 2nd round but they have a little stock so I did not got one. and yes, i cant move on as of this writing.; 


Cyma's Chicken Souvlaki which I also wanna try.; 


lastly I also did not have a sample from Green Tomato who serves this Sausage and Shrimp Pasta, Four Cheese Pizza and Tiramisu.

But wait! there's one more. As the saying goes "one more for the road", so before the event ends I still manage to eat sample deli sandwiches from Pages Deli, this yummy Sausage sandwich which they call "journey to the center of the earth" (bottom) and turkey and bacon sandwich which they call "animal farm" (top left).

PS : the green part of the silver lined paper plate is a reflection of the lighting.

Deparure:

While resting, we talked to our fellow bloggers and got a chance to have a photo ops with Ms. Daza Puyat, Ms. Oh and Ms. Buensalido. A few more photo sessions at the event's wall and off we go home.

Once again, thank you Appetite Magazine for this event. I enjoyed alot. Thank you Ms. PR (i forgot her name) for the loot bag. and thank you dear ladies for the souvenir photos we had, its an honor to meet you.

AND

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Photo herein is captured using
Canon Powershot A580 in
Appetite Magazine's Restaurant Festival 2011 held at
Grand Atrium, 2/f EDSA Shangri-La Plaza
EDSA corner Shaw Blvd.,
Madaluyong City, Philippines
last 13th of October 2011