Henkel Archives - Between Bites - Bites of Food, Travel and Lifestyle

I haven’t seen my friend Kenny Flake (I love his name) in 8 months!!! Good thing he called me up two weeks ago to schedule a dinner date with me, courtesy of him. Is Bubba tagging along? As Kenny said, “of course that’s expected!”

It was a late dinner since Bubba and I came from the Star World American Idol event at Eastwood Plaza, Libis. Adel sent two invites so Bubba and I went to support her event. We arrived just in time at around 730pm and it had a good sufficient crowd. I saw Abe and Jason (colleagues of mine) sitting at the judges’ table. The hosts of the event were Slick Rick, Sam YG and Tony Tony of Magic 89.9. One woman from the first batch was able to get 2 answers right. Same story goes for the 2^nd batch where one guy answered two questions to proceed to the next round. The 3^rd batch was a different story as one guy got three correct answers and he answered all the questions without a flinch. He must be quite an American Idol fanatic or he must have that American Idol Trivia game on DVD that you can conveniently buy from Hobbes or Landes. Anyway, we stayed until they announced the last three finalists at 920pm. I wanted to catch who won it but I didn’t want to be late for my dinner plans with Kenny.

Kenny, who I fondly call Kennykins or Kinster, used to be a colleague of mine in PS. Interestingly, we grew closer when I resigned from that company. Five years later, who knew we’d be this close. I remember he used to drag me to Fluxxe nights at MDC (Manila DJ Club) when it was still open at the Fort a couple of years ago. We used to have a lot of lunches together when the IT company I worked for before was still located in RCBC.

He hasn’t shown much of himself since he started his new work at Henkel, which is some big shot international leader in Finance and Consultancy. He’s been traveling since he came on board going to New York, Arizona, Philadelphia, etc. The last time I saw him was when he attended the Nokia Soul of Manila Awards Night in Ayala Museum. After that, it was only some messages and calls in between. I was really happy that I’m seeing again after 8 long months! We took that road somewhere in Ortigas that leads directly to Fort which only took less than 15 minutes. We got there before he did since he was strolling around Bonifacio High Street working up an appetite probably. I got my favorite seats in the house. 5 minutes after, the Kinster is standing in front of us, a statuesque of magnificence, with black kicks that had orange shoelaces.

I was so excited to bring him to Chelsea, since it was his first time to eat here. He wanted to eat some place else but I insisted on Chelsea. He knew he wasn’t going to win this. After all, he had to make up for being an absentee in my life. He obliged. Unfortunately though, Chelsea was a total let down that night. I don’t know if we went so late at 945pm that the cook was ready to pack his bags and go home but the food was significantly different from the last time I dined here (Link: https://www.janedchua.com/2008/04/22/chelsea-as-good-as-ny/). Since we were so hungry and excited to talk, I came up ordering the same dishes I ordered last time. Not much thinking involved right? Squash soup with goat cheese, four-cheese pizza with Arugula salad, and whole rosemary lemon chicken.

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Four-Cheese Pizza with Arugula salad PHP395++

The crust was not as crunchy and there were barely any mushrooms on the pizza. But this was way better than the chicken letdown.

Whole Rosemary Lemon Chicken PHP495++

There were lesser vegetables for sure on the plate than last time. I didn’t taste the rosemary and lemon at all (unless you actually eat the julienne cuts of lemon –but that’s bitter instead of tangy) and the vegetables didn’t integrate its flavor with the chicken. The veggies were soggy and didn’t have a bite at all. The worst part was, the chicken looked overcooked because it was dry.

Squash Soup with Goat Cheese

It never arrived. We were halfway through our pizza and chicken when I remembered the soup. I asked one waiter where it was and he said it wasn’t in the order list. I checked with the waiter I ordered it too and he gave me a sheepish grin. I said it was okay since we were almost done.