chic eats: the breslin

As a passionate and unabashed carnivore, I'm ashamed that it wasn't until April that I finally dug into The Breslin's meaty menu. Liza Ilarde was in town so we rounded up some former MEGA girls for a get-together at this chic little English-style pub. While the wait can be long and the quarters a smidgen tight, The Breslin agrees with me. For one thing, they have a great beer list with both local craft and classic English brews. And then they have a dreamy menu of bar chow that includes delights like this lovely plate of crispy sweetbreads and spiced lentils. Absolutely delish!

Our non-meat-inhaling friends went with scallops and an herbed Caesar salad with anchovy croutons.

But the winning order of the night was Minelli's: the Terrine Board featuring intriguing varieties like guinea hen with morels, rabbit and prune headcheese, liverwurst and a classic pork pâté, all served with pickles, piccalilli & mustard. At $32 for a board, it is a great spread to pick on while enjoying good beer and even better conversation.

Almost makes me want to wish for a gloomy day so I can skip the beer garden and squeeze into a cozy pub for some great beer and grub ... almost.

The Breslin is located at the Ace Hotel, 16 West 29th Street (near Broadway), New York, NY 10001-4502.

cel vs. food: elbert's steak room

During my visit to Manila last month, I had the pleasure of paying a visit to Elbert's Steak Room, an elegant establishment tucked in a nondescript building in Salcedo Village. Finding the place proved to be a bit of an adventure, as I breezed right past the third floor and ended up on Sagittarius Building's rooftop! It was worth the trouble though as Elbert's Steak Room is definitely paradise for a carnivore like myself.

In addition to the beautiful meal, I had some lovely company. Hosting our little group was Liza Ilarde, the eternally chic editor-in-chief of Style Weekend who is also Elbert's wife. Also joining in on the steak massacre was Katrina Holigores, editor-in-chief of Expat Travel and Lifestyle Magazine and one of my all-around favorite people in the universe. Liza and Katrina were my former colleagues back in my publishing days at MEGA.

Every steak order at Elbert's Steak Room comes with a soup and salad. As if our meal wasn't sinful enough, the soup that night was a delightfully rich French onion soup. We assured ourselves that if we had our two glasses of red wine, we would be fine. According to Katrina, red wine is a vasodilator and would help our steak fat-laced blood slither through our veins despite the overindulgence. So getting our drink on was a good thing, as long as we kept it to two glasses of wine. What Liza and I wanted to know was, how big is this glass that studies speak of? I could totally deal with it if were the size of, say, Jules' beloved Big Joe or Big Carl.

But I digress. The point of the evening was to indulge in some delicious meat, and that we did. I followed Liza's example and ordered a rib-eye while Katrina went with the filet mignon. I had planned on going all out with the porterhouse but after the heartstopping salad of foie gras and grilled eel that I had the night before at Opus, I feared for my cholesterol levels. The rib-eye turned out to be just perfect. It was cooked a beautiful medium rare with the outside nicely seared and the inside juicy and still rosy—just the way I like it. The meat was nicely marbled with fat and oh-so-juicy. It didn't stand a chance.

There are too many places in Manila where meat gets mercilessly cooked to a dry pulp so I can certainly appreciate the value of having a legit steak room like Elbert's where one can get a properly cooked steak with good wine. Prices for steak dinners run from P1800-2900 (approximately $49-67) but for the quality of meat served, I think it's only fair. The next time you feel the need to show a steak who's boss, I recommmend paying Elbert's Steak Room a visit.

Elbert’s Steak Room is located at 3/F Sagittarius Building III, 111 H. V. de la Costa Street, Salcedo Village, Makati City 1227, Philippines

doing good: japan aid bag by two oranges

One of the most used items in my closet is the humble canvas shopping bag. I love using them for everything from toting groceries to my Spanish workbooks. During my last whirlwind Cali-Philippines-Hong Kong-Macau trip, the canvas bag I bought at Coachella was every bit as handy in the desert of Palm Springs as on the 11-hour bus ride to Sagada. Canvas bags are awesome for traveling and even just carrying around in your purse as they take up so little space and weigh nothing.

I'm an even bigger fan of canvas shopping bags with a cause. Philippine brand Two Oranges has created a Japan Aid bag in an effort to raise money for our Japanese brothers and sisters whose lives were devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. Months since disaster struck, they are still in dire need of help and every little bit counts.

The bags are priced at P250—that's less than $6! Proceeds will be donated to the Japan Earthquake and Relief Fund of the Philippine Red Cross. For more information on ordering, visit the Two Oranges website.

cocktail hour: amor y amargo

"Without the bitter, baby, the sweet aint as sweet."
- Vanilla Sky

A few months ago, Zoe, Amanda and I went on a quest to get chummy with bitters. During olden times, these alcoholic herbal infusions were used as folk remedies. In today's cocktail world, these spirits give your aperitifs and digestifs a bit of flavor and dry zest. Over at a tiny bar in the East Village called Amor y Amargo, bitters are the star of the show.

I had a flashback to a boozy evening with Zoe in 2010 as soon as I saw the countertop of the bar. Formerly Carteles, this was once a good spot for procuring Cuban sandwiches before heading up the hidden staircase for a rum punch at Cienfuegos. In typical New York fashion, this tiny 8-seater joint has turned into a bitters bar less than a year since my last Cubano in the same spot.

Our education in bitters started with a sampling of the Bittermens Very Small Batch bitters sold at the counter. We were told to rub a drop between our hands and smell it before tasting another drop. I thought it was amazing how much flavor is packed into such a very tiny amount of liquid. Then we put in our orders for some small bites and drinks. I was quite pleased with my order. The crispy garbanzos with crumbled morcilla ($6) packed a nice little kick and a satisfying crunch. The Americano cocktail on draft was pretty delicious. Yes, you read that right: they have a cocktail on tap. The Americano is a mixture of sweet Vermouth, Campari and soda. It was refreshing and had a lovely mixture of the bitter and the sweet.

My memory fails me on what exactly Zoe and Amanda ordered for drinks but I'd hazard a guess and say Zoe had the Bittermen's House Gin & Tonic ($12) with her artichoke salad ($8) while Amanda paired her white bean and oil poached tuna salad ($8) with À L’Ancienne (Cognac old fashioned with Bittermens Spiced Cranberry Citrate).

The truth is, I can't recall their drinks too well because I really preferred mine! I quite liked my second drink, too: the Mud Season, a mixture of zucca amaro (a rhubarb bitter), mirto (an Italian liqueur made out of myrtle berries), sweet vermouth, rhum agricole & Bittermens hopped grapefruit bitters. It had a caramel-like sweetness to offset the bitters, which I liked. I would definitely come back if only for a taste of the sweet vermouth on tap described on the menu as "an adult version of sangria" and dubbed life-changing by more than one fan.

I would recommend coming here with cocktail enthusiasts as it is definitely bar geek territory and bitters aren't for everyone (yet). Please don't force an appletini-loving friend to take up precious space at the bar. Leave that chair to me and my sweet vermouth.

Amor y Amargo is located at 443 East 6th Street (between 1st Avenue & Avenue A), New York, NY.

the perfect red lipstick

It took some time before I felt comfortable wearing red lipstick.

As a ballet dancer for many years, I thought of red lips as stage makeup and found it weird to wear it out in the "real world."

I suppose, it takes some growing up to be able to wear red lips with ease. In my early 20s with very little life experience, I felt like a little girl playing dress up when I would attempt red lips.

But now that I'm just a month and change shy of 30 and my ingenue state is rapidly slipping away, I'm feeling very comfortable with scarlet lips. I don't need a special occasion to wear red; I will put it on even when I'm just spending a Sunday afternoon shopping in Soho.

It helps that I've found my perfect red: Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupté in Red Taboo. It's a  rich, blue-based red that stays put even after one glass of wine, two bottles of beer and a massive pot of mussels (true story). While it's not exactly cheap at $34 a pop, I think it is worth every penny. The texture is so rich and luxurious, and this particular brand keeps lips moisturized. I love it to pieces.

What's your go-to red?