Perfectly set by the brown-blue ripples of the Manila bay, as it tenders services of a fine resort hotel, Westin Philippine Plaza’s pool bar—offering fastidious grilled cuisines and modish liquor concoctions in international varietals—is a champion excursion-spot for a quick summertime relaxation within metropolis grounds. Suggestively, relaxation—with the family while musing with Manila sunset’s tangerine—is bliss with fine cuisine, or perhaps even just the notion that detouring off a corporate life for awhile to be one with nature might be enough for all food to be delectably enjoyable.

It’s terribly unfair to count calories in front of good food. However with today’s prevailing awareness on health, it can’t be helped. Majority of food-makers and restaurants are giving consumers what they want. They veer away from the hazards of diets high in sugar, fat and processed foods, and stamp low cholesterol and calorie on what they sell. This is much like the circumstance of Rustan Makati’s creative Asian restaurant East Café. The East Café is holding its second Tofu Festival, which it intends for the health buffs and the clean living, from March 17 to April 30.

Jun Jun: We are totally overwhelmed by the number of inquiries we’ve been getting the past few weeks from all the readers of Taste. Answering your questions makes us review our techniques and methods, and later on, this helps us as we go through our own baking challenges. Baking has a lot of chemistry to it; it is like a science of different mixtures and solutions that are made up of ingredients that act differently alone as versus when they are combined with other ingredients. Isn’t it fun to see a freshly baked cake straight out of the oven which started as a yellowish liquid batter? How about a blob of flour and water which, when baked, turns into bread?

It’s great to be back from my furlough with my kids. I was so glad to have been given the privilege of getting booked at One Crescent Place owned by Armie and Jackie Abis, and being able to use their junior suite. One Crescent Place is a beautiful 12-room hotel at the back of Balabag Church and is probably the most technologically advanced hotel with its electronic gizmos, and is a computer hot spot for those who have to be in touch with the world. The rooms are elegantly done in all white with ionizer air conditioning. Though Boracay is not a gastronomic haven with its cuisines bordering on passable to regular. We decided to make the most of the vacation and play safe by planning our meals.