My daughter and I watched How to Train Your Dragon a few nights ago. We both had fun watching it. It's the kind of film both adults and children will enjoy. We did not have dinner before seeing it because it was almost the preview time when we bought the tickets. We only had our share of popcorn and iced tea inside the theater.

She craved for her favorite chicken cheese roll (breaded chicken rolled with cheese and vegetables) from Kimono Ken as soon as the movie was done.


I am on a diet so I skipped rice and just had one piece of sakana-fry (crispy fried cream dory with tartar sauce).


Hubby had an appointment earlier so he just followed us at the restaurant. As usual, he ordered kani salad. This kani salad has a lot of greens compared to most kani salads from other dining places.


Good movie, nice light dinner and we're off to a looong weekend. Nice. :)

***More food sharing at Picture Clusters and Food Trip Friday.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of wellnessdaily.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have been going to the gym for more than a year now. I have seriously taken up working out as part of my health and wellness activity. Who would have thought that I will be enjoying going to the gym? I used to be lazy going up the third floor of my office. Now I even attend body combat, dance classes, body balance and yoga.

I lost a lot of unwanted fats already. It got me really motivated to achieve my desired weight. As I always share with my friends, I have no problem when it comes to working out. I look forward going to the gym even if my schedule is so hectic. But there is one thing that hampers my total weight loss program. It's dieting. That was my struggle.

Yes, was. Because now I am thankful I have disciplined myself when it comes to managing my food intake. I just told myself I have to do it. Just do it. If not now, when.

I would like to share what is working for me so far in terms of sticking to my diet and working out religiously:

1. I have set a monthly weight goal. I missed on the first month by three pounds but on the second month I achieved my goal. My morale was so high that it made me stick to my diet.

2. I refrained from weighing in several days in a week. I prefer to weigh in at twice a month to check my progress. Weigh yourself under the same circumstances on the first time you weighed in. Ideally, no food intake yet for a more accurate reading of your body.

I asked the trainers at the gym about properly monitoring one's weight. I learned about the importance of reducing fat mass and checking BMI. It's not only one's weight that should be managed by also those two I have mentioned.

3. Eat less more often. I veered away from junk food, sweets and too much rice. I only have 1/2 cup or 1 cup at the most in a day. On some days I don't have rice at all. I am on wheat bread, tuna with lite mayo, fruits, boiled bananas and boiled eggs.
I don't starve myself but I regulate my eating habits.

4. I do a lot of household chores to burn calories when I'm just home which is mostly during weekends. It helps a great deal.

5. I subscribed to some health and wellness online publications. I read about success stories about weight management. They inspire me a lot.

I signed up at www.wellnessdaily.com. It is like a one-stop shop for all the health and wellness readings you are interested to know more of if you are a health enthusiast. Going to this site will save you time rather than browsing and searching endlessly for health topics. It aggregates the latest news on wellness, recipes you can try for your diet, and a variety of other topics including working out and mental well being.

My favorite channel here is Eat Right as it gives me loads of ideas on healthy meals I
can prepare for my and my family.

Yes, this is a favorite of the family. We love its creamy texture and the crisp broccoli. My daughter can't have enough of this. :)

I am always in search of a different restaurant where my family and I can visit. I searched the web last night for a good restaurant we can go to which is just near our place. Our original choice was a casual-dining pasta house just a few minutes drive from our house but it closed shop already.

I landed at spot.ph and Adarna Food and Culture captured my attention. Interesting.

The restaurant will let you travel back in time, circa 1960s. It is a visual feast for people like me and my husband who love to experience themed restaurants. I recounted on my other blog, Life Bliss, the interior of the restaurant.

My husband was supposed to order the pandan rice but I was intrigued with the Yellow Batanes Rice. It has turmeric, garlic and bits of pork. We ordered the family serving which is good for five persons. The serving is quite big as we had to take home the left-over still good for one person. (Hubby consumed it for dinner tonight, still good after reheating.)


Yellow Batanes Rice, P150 (Family), Rating: 5 stars out of 5 stars
We had to play it safe as my daughter is a bit choosy with her food. She ordered the Victory Joe Chicken Wings with Fresh Tomato Salsa. She loves it! We all do. It's a bit pricey at P300+ but it tastes good. Very crispy with a creamy, buttery taste. My husband and I love the salsa. It's around six to seven pieces if I remember it right.


Victory Joe Wings with Tomato Salsa, P392, Rating: 5 stars out of 5 stars
We want fish too so we opted for the tried and tested rellenong bangus, single serving. Achara goes with it. My husband wanted ketchup with it but we did not ask the server anymore. We just tried it as it is.

I was not happy with it because there's a bit of an aftertaste, malansa in the vernacular. We actually did not get to eat much of this.


Rellenong Bangus (Stuffed Milkfish), P175, Rating: 2 stars out of 5 stars

Atchara
My husband and I wanted to try this beef menu because we both love coconut cream. Piassok is a dish from Sulu - beef is buttered, cooked in coconut cream with spices. It's very tender. Husband love it, I like it. The only thing that keeps me from saying I love it is the burnt after taste. There are even burnt portions of the beef as it was served to us. We also had to take home our left over. It proved to be better tonight when we reheated it.


Piassok, P335, Rating: 3 stars over 5 stars
The customer service is great. The food servers are very warm and very neat. Serving time is a bit long most probably because food are cooked as they are ordered. That's fine as long as you are not that hungry going to the restaurant.

Overall, our experiene at Adarna Food and Culture is very good. We will be back again to try the other dishes.

The change in weather caused the sniffles I've had since last week. It's still a bad cold. Not getting enough rest aggravated my low resistance to virus. Coughing ensued. I listened to my body so I cut down on other activities. I did not drop by the gym this week to use the time to rest. I thought I'm covered but I have developed a sore throat caused by eating too much chocolate.

Life is fair. I am on a forced diet since I can't eat much to compensate for my absence in the gym.

But before the nasty sore throat I craved for the moist chocolate cake from Conti's last week so my husband bought a whole cake. Three days after I had all these chocolates. Chocolate overload.


Don't mind the magazine in the background. I always have an MJ magazine with me and I browse when I am home whenever the feeling hits me.

Anyway, I love most of the chocolates in this jar. My favorite is Swiss Delice Rotondini. It tastes almost the same as Lindor Truffles, my favorite chocolate in the world.


The jar containing 2 pounds worth of chocolates is still half-full. My sore throat prevents me from taking even a tiny bite a day. My daughter is NOT a chocolate lover and I'm happy about that. My husband is so-so. I devour all the chocolates in the house you see.

Thanks to my mom for including this in one of their packages. It's Kirkland Signature, Chocolates of the World. I love it!


Picture from Vita Springs website.

***More food sharing at Picture Clusters and Food Trip Friday.

A staple in our order - chicken tenders with fries. This one is from T.G.I. Friday's menu. It's a choice of honey mustard dressing or barbecue sauce. My daughter prefer the former.

My daughter loves potatoes, not just fries but mashed potatoes as well as boiled. Maybe because this is one of the first baby food we fed her when she was about four months old. She doesn't like mashed potatoes with gravy though.

I prepared mashed potatoes with meat loaf and cheese a few weekends ago and she loved it!


I tried cooking chicken curry and got some excess carrots and potatoes. I boiled them and we munched on them while watching Disney shows.


***Feast on more potatoes at Lasang Pinoy, Sundays.

I have been absent in my food blog for almost four weeks now. I was too preoccupied to post anything here during the height of the storm Ondoy (Ketsana) and the anticipated (but definitely not welcome) Pepeng (Parma). As most families, our time and energy were spent monitoring the news, getting home early, stocking food and yes, we did pack some clothes and important documents. Our area was not affected by the flood but the deluge that happened in 80% of Metro Manila was enough to alert us and keep us to be always on guard.

Let us continuously pray for the complete rebuilding of the damaged areas and the lives of the people greatly affected by the flood, the children most especially. Let us pray that our country (or any other country) will not experience another Ketsana or anything damaging to lives and properties. Pepeng lingers in the country and is ravaging northern Philippines. Pepeng, please leave and do not create more damage.

Life goes on. Work and school and other activities have resumed. I'm back posting and joining the food meme.

I'm sharing right now one of our dine outs at Kulinarya Kitchen, Rockwell, Makati City. As I have shared in my blogs countless times everyone in my family loves shrimps. We tried two different servings of shrimp at Kulinarya and both proved to be delicious.


Barbecued Shrimps

Gambas
My daughter wanted some pasta and ordered twist and cheese with bacon. It's fun to eat as it's both creamy and crunchy (because of the bacon bits).


Twist and Cheese with Bacon
What is ever present in our menu when we eat out? Of course, chicken. It feels like my daughter always add either chicken or fish and chips in her order as her "fallback". In case she does not like the taste of what she first ordered, she can have the chicken anytime.


Deep Fried Boneless Chicken
The dessert came in chocolate creme brulee. I am not fond of creme brulee but this is my daughter's favorite.


Chocolate Creme Brulee
TGIF!

***More food sharing at Picture Clusters and Food Trip Friday.