Wining and Dining in Anzani

To me food has always been one of life's little heavens
-- and it doesn't even matter if its expensive, or cheap, at the side of the road, or in a high-end restaurant --
what matters is the entire experience of eating it
-- the people you are with, the background music, and of course the taste.

I honestly dont have any right to make a food critic blog because when it comes to food, I am easily pleased. haha I love to eat. :) But there are some places that are particularly awesome that I can't NOT put it into my online diary. :)
I'm talking about Anzani, Cebu.

Anzani is this new mediterranean little restaurant that you see on the way to Marco Polo.
It's overlooking my village actually as its on a hill.

For my visit-dinner with my barkada (or whats left of it since most are out of Cebu at the moment),
we chose Anzani this time because we wanted somewhere different, good wine, and apparently steak! haha



When you enter, its a little intimidating simply because the people inside are all older but the staff is super great,
and the food. oh the food! it was amazing. :)



EM's Medium-Rare Wagyu was just to die for. Absolutely worth it!

Bimi's tuna was good. Personally, I'm not a huge fan. But she loved it.

My baby back ribs slid off of the bone! It was huge though, but I didn't complain.


Anzani has a wine bar, Bellini, right beside the restaurant overlooking the City.
It's beautiful.
Apart from that, its also private and the wine choices are so diverse that it was fun picking
-- or pretending to pick, since the actual wine connoisseurs are no longer in Cebu. :(





Oh, Cebu, you keep me crazy for you. :)

XOXO,
Joanie

Scarce Long Weekends

Long Weekends are scarce and as such, treasured.
They are spent wisely doing what we love to do with the people we love.
I spent my looooong weekend in Cebu.

I spent mine mostly with family because I havent seen my grandmother in sooo long.
And because I miss them and they missed us. haha





And a little wining and dining with the barkada (what's left of us anyways) at Anzani. I love you guys.



Whenever I go home to Cebu, I always make sure to EAT all my cebu favorites
-- no matter how short my visit, I always siksik every favorite meal I can.

This long weekend was no different :) I had...

lechon - puso "hanging rice" - bulalo
(This is best eaten with your hands. I am a pure bred filipina and i love my filipino food - proud of it. *pats her ABelly)

Don Merto's belgian chocolate cookies - La Marea's Warm Brownie Cup

Save the other Cebu goodies for the next visit.

Sundays are Music Days 5

Let me share my musical promiscuity on Sundays.
Sundays are music days.

Failures

I just got home from a very depressing 120-point hematology exam.

My table is a mess, my books are finally opened and highlighted, my trans heavy with post-its and worn out from repeated reading and coffee-spillage, my ancient notebook revived and filled with notes, my trashcan filled with empty starbucks, cobra energy drink and chatime parapharnelia from consecutive caffeine-filled sleepless night.

I felt I studied this time. I feel like I should’ve gotten higher. I left the house feeling rather confident this morning, but I return defeated before noon – no after-party lunches or post-celebratory outing with friends for me.

Time for some re-assesment.

Hold your horses. No! Not the “should I still be a doctor?” type of assessment.
If anything, these first-time-ever-in-my-lifetime consecutive failures have reaffirmed my want to becoming a doctor.
More than ever, I want to hold on and become better because I want to be a doctor.

My grades may not be the right measure of how good I am of a doctor or as a person in general. But my effort to be better – to know more, to understand, to be able to translate the lessons of the classroom to something concrete - is. And all this time, keeping in mind that I’m NOT just doing this for myself, for my family, for my teachers, for the expectations set for me – but more importantly for the future lives that will be in my should-be-capable-by-then hands.

So. Reassessment.

Re-assesment of priorities?
Re-assesment of study style?
Re-assesment of commitments?
Re-assesment of attitude/personality/world-view?

I don’t know yet. This long weekend will be recharging and reflecting time.
All I know is I have to change something.
This negative funk has got to stop.



Don’t count me out just yet. You haven’t seen anything just yet.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

It’s not even funny. That feeling. When someone else takes hold of your heart, when someone else’s feelings become your only priority, when you know that at that particular moment, you can only truly be happy if that other is happy.
Your game-changer.
And all that time, that other doesn't know you feel that way or worse, he/she does, but still chooses someone else – anyone else but you.

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I have any right to write about this – this crazy, stupid feeling. I’ve had my share of grand gestures and declarations of love – but in the receiving end. So I may know what kilig, flattered, and appreciated may feel like, but not that heart-wrenching-stomach-in-knots-blood-pumping exhilarating feeling of putting your heart on the line.

So it was an absolutely enjoyable surprise that I loved this movie.

It was as idealistic as any other feel-good-chick-flick in that love, or the hint of love, prevails in the end.

BUT the emotional rollercoaster that the characters go through before the happy-ending was a delight to go through, the witty lines got me giggling at the start and letting out hearty laughter later on (it helped that we were the only ones in the cinema since it's a weekday), the casting seemed off at the start but was actually so appropriate that their chemistry got me teary-eyed (okay, I’ll admit, ONE tear fell! ;p) and in love with them. Lastly, the twists of the story was hilarious for the audience and appropriate for illustrating the craziness, stupidity, and awesomeness in love.

It was a welcome recharge before immersing myself in matters of the heart – well, the blood (but what is the heart for really but to pump this awesome thing called blood to sustain life? Its definitely NOT for love, ask any med student).

It's nice to be reminded that life is more than just cancer, diseases, and the cellular body, that life can be about crazyness, stupidity and feelings - but still JUST AS IMPORTANT. Life. Love. Med. Funny.

This is crazy.
This is stupid.
This is love and MED.

Sundays are Music Days 4

Let me share my musical promiscuity on Sundays.
Sundays are music days.