Laguna Mabuhay Philippine Restaurant, Jalan Gereja

The deal: RM10 for RM20 cash voucher for food and drinks at Laguna Mabuhay 

What we got: 

Despite the Philippines being much closer in proximity to Malaysia, there doesn't seem to be many outlets in KL serving Philippino food, with the more popular cuisine imports being Japanese and Korean. In fact, before I've even heard about Laguna Mabuhay (via the ever-popular, unbelievably up-to-date Eat Drink KL) I wasn't even aware that there were food outlets offering Philippino cuisine. We've always up for trying new things, so why not food of the Pinoys?

Laguna Mabuhay is located a stone's throw from the busy parts (read: Bukit Bintang) of KL city centre. A good landmark would be Museum Telekom; once you spot it, the restaurant's not too far away. 

Pork sisig (RM12)

Laguna doesn't have a particularly glamorous, or even new, setting. In fact, things appear to be a little, shall we say, aged there. That, however, shouldn't be a deterrent at all for those curious about what the restaurant has to offer.

While we were looking at our menu trying to decide what to order, which was a little hard because there weren't detailed description of the dishes with names that sounded foreign to us, the affable owner--Ronnie Tan, we presume, based on a letter we saw hanging on the wall--came over and asked if it was our first time having Philippino food. He recommended the pork sisig, adobo pork and pinakbet, all of which we got.

We were told the pork sisig is reminiscent of oyster omelette, or o'chien, only with pork instead of oyster; we'd have to agree. Served on a sizzling plate, you mix the raw egg with minced pork, and top everything off with a squeeze of lime if you'd like. 

This dish ended up being a little dry though. My partner didn't really enjoy it but I found it okay.

Pinakbet (RM14)

The pinakbet was is a (mainly) vegetable dish consisting of bittergourd, okrea, long beans and cucumber with slices of  meat in a fish/shrimp paste. To a certain extent, the sauce reminded us of tau cu, or black bean sauce. Both of us enjoyed this.

Adobo pork (RM15)

Ronnie also shared with us that the main tastes in Philippino cuisine comes from vinegar, tamarind and calamansi. The pork adobo is essentially vinegar pork--good vinegar pork, that is. The portion may look deceptively and inaccurately small in this picture, but trust us, the pork chunks are  pretty sizeable. We would've prefer the meat to be a little more tender though.

Rice is RM1.50 per bowl. We're grateful to Ronnie for the gracious hospitality, and currently have our eyes on the delicious-looking stuffed squid for the next visit!

Tax: None

How much we paid: RM25.50

Urbean, Avenue K

The deal: RM18 for RM30 cash voucher for food and drinks at Urbean

What we got:

Urbean isn't a very hard cafe to spot--you can practically see it once you exit the LRT station to Avenue K. 

Cappuccino (RM10)

No complains about the cappuccino; we enjoyed it and appreciate the fact that it was strong enough.

Roast chicken, pesto mayo and buffalo mozarella open sandwich (RM17)

Four slices of sourdough bread; two topped with chicken slices, cheese and a light pesto mayonnaise, and two with onions, tomatoes and what we think could be red leaf lettuce (we're not very good with vegetables), and a small side of coleslaw. The open-face sandwiches were light and tasted decent, making for a satisfying meal.

Pesto cream penne (RM17) with an add-on of smoked salmon (RM4.50)

Penne cooked with roasted red peppers, mushrooms and peas in a pesto cream sauce--the first mouthful and we were hooked. Until we took a few more, that is. While sauce was undoubtedly delicious, it was so thick and creamy that it ended up being very cloying. It actually took some effort on our part--the both of us--to finish this plate of pasta. Again, this is not to say that it doesn't taste good, because it does, but perhaps this dish could benefit from a thinner sauce. Richer is not always better? The smoked salmon was also a little saltier than I liked.

Our tastebuds were so satiated we could not stomach anything else, so instead of having dessert at the cafe like we originally planned, we got it to-go. 

 Hummingbird cake (RM9.50)

So we had our cake in a plastic box instead of a pretty little plate. This is only our second time having hummingbird cake, so we may not be the best judge of this. It was rather dense and pretty heavy on the banana, with decent-sized pineapple chunks. We'd love if it had a tad more  cream cheese though. Hummingbird is not our favourite sort of cake, but this version was all right.

Tax: Service charge of 5%

How much we paid: RM36.90