5 more days to go before we bid goodbye to the dinosaur exhibit at SM MoA Block 5.

Here’s map of the Dino’s Alive for you to determine if you can handle the walk.  Don’t be intimidated by the map because you can easily move around in 10 minutes alone.  With kids and some photo-ops, it’ll take you an hour or two!

T-Rex here to greet you welcome to their island!

with their baby dinos up in the tree!

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From our family to your, we wishing you a fruitful year for 2009!

Green Mango Salad with Soft-shell Crab (P310+)

The soft-shell crab doesn’t look very enticing but once you’ve tasted it, you’ll be wanting more!  I did!  But f course, I have to contain myself because I’m not the only one who loved it!  Nice to pair it with the green mango salad but I prefer to have it alone or with rice because of the crab fat hidden inside the shell…made me want to get some more.  It was definitely a soft-shell crab!  No sharp edges to stop you from munching the crab.  Yummy till the end and wanting it to have a continuous supply on our plate.  Too deadly.

Calamari with Crispy Garlic Chili (P285+)

Best to eat it while it’s hot.  AD made it a point to get the plate and place it in fromt of him.  It’s his and you can only have a piece if you ask permission from him.  Don’t worry, he’ll share.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Chili and Basil (P280+)

Silly me.  I thought it was ground pork but obviously, it was not.  That’s what happens to me when I’m hungry and eat in a hurry.  I do not really “taste” the food.  All I care is to have food in my tummy and be full (which usually happens to me).  As long as the taste is ok, I eat it.  It is only after or even not at all that I really dissect the food ingredients to the end.  hahaha

This dish is too hot for me to take but I like it (minus the hot~ness).  I cannot take spoonfuls of the chicken continuously or else, I’ll burn.  HB loves this.  He loves hot stuff.

Red Lamb Curry with Peanut (P450+) with Rice (add P50+).

We got ours in a cold state. We had to return and let them re-heat the meat.  Actually, I expected them to change it because it was their fault that they didn’t time the heating properly.  They even “forgot” to beautify the dish when they re-heated it.

For HB, the sauce was a meal by itself.   Again, he loved this one!

Traditional Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Prawns (Pad Thai) (P420+)

The pad thai taste good.  Sweet

Tom Yum Prawn (P310+)

Oh la la!  Another expensive soup we have here!  So, I make sure I do not waste a drop of the soup nor leave any edible stuff in the bowl.  Trying to justify its price upon seeing it…2 pieces of shrimps, slices of coconut meat (I thought it was squid), oyster mushroom and what?  Imported herbs?  But to be fair, it tasted what we expected it to be….sinigang version of the Thai people.

Cocounut Sundae ala Thai Style (P175+)

Ngek….ice cream with coconut meat.  Wish they could’ve been more innovative.

Mango with Sticky Rice (P195+)

Sticky rice with mango slices.  One slice for AD, one for Momma, for Poppa (aka AD) and for Ninang M.  That’s all folks!

Thai Patio

The Joy of Eating

Ground Floor, Greenbelt 5 (beside Zuni)

Ayala Center, Makati

Telephone +632 729-0742; +632 729-0650

Yoghurt Shake (Sweet) P95.  This is not the usual yoghurt shake I get whenever I’m in a Persian restaurant.  The sour-y taste was just right.  Think of this way, it was milder than the froyo we now have.  It was not “nakaka-umay” but instead, you’ll want to have it all in one sip.

Salad-e-Oloviyeh (P155). Potato puree mixed with chicken strips, green peas, cucumber pickles and mayonnaise.

This is their version of potato salad.  No different from ours except for the garnishing on top which I ate.  It was cured.

Mirza Ghasemi (P155+). Grilled eggplant, sauteed onion and garlic with Persian spices, served in homemade tomato sauce.

Great with the pita bread or rice.  The sweetness of the onion was all over the spread.

Persian Square Salad (P165). Crisp Romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato, corn, carrot, bell pepper, Kalamat olives, and croutons, topped with the chef’s secret dressing.

Chelo Joojeh Kabab (P375+). A skewer of charbroiled chicken thighs and breast marinated in saffron, onion and lime juice. Served with Basmati rice, topped with saffron, butter and two grilled tomatoes.

It was nice to have a juicy chicken meat that we can enjoy even AD was able to eat the meat.  One sign that the meat was not hard and very dry.  AD liked the rice with the butter.  What he does is dip his spoon into the butter and eat it with rice.  Yikes!  I’d like him to avoid eating like that but he always insist on it.  That’s why, as much as I can, I do not buy butter so he won’t have it so much.

We peeled off the skin and sliced the grilled tomato then poured garlic sauce on it.  Very good with the rice too!

Chelo Kabab Koobideh (P295). Two skewers of juicy strips of charbroiled seasoned ground beef mixed with onion and persian spices, (25 cm each). Served with Basmati rice, topped with saffron, butter and two grilled tomatoes.

I always tell HB to order the longganiza type of kabab whenever we got to these kind of restaurant.  I do not know why but I have this thing with longganiza.  But I prefer it to be sweet side and not too spicy (like Vigan’s).  This beef kabab was also juicy but somehow, I keep on looking for the ooomph taste that in the end, the kabab was already gone and I was still trying to figure out its taste.  But I’d love to try it once again! 

Ghormeh Sabzi (P265+). Cubed beef cooked in finely chopped onion, red beans, leek, scallion, chives, herbs and sun dried lime.

Oh no!  This was soooo wrong!  HB gave me a portion on top of my rice and yiew!  Sayang yung rice! (The rice went to waste!)  It reminded me one of those chinese preservative fruits that I usually eat but in sour taste form!  What was worse was I bit on the sun dried lime thinking it was the beef!  After that, I ushed aside the portion where Sabzi was placed on my plate.  Never again, did I get another serving of it even if I feel that it would go to waste!

I felt bad when I told Reza about it because it is one of his favorite dish!  Oh my!  But then, to each its own!  I just can’t take eat any Sabzi anymore but definitely, I’d like to go back and try some of the dishes we haven’t tasted.

No dessert this time.

Caspean Persian Square Restaurant
Unit 101 Bldg B. Ortigas Home Depot (near Starbucks)
Julia Vargas Avenue, Ugong, Pasig City
Call Reza +63916 392-2143

This photo was taken when we recently went to Puerto Princesa in Palawan.  That’s us ~ AD and me.

Hope you had a good one!

Happy Holidays!