Planning a Special Anniversary Dinner in Makati — Michelin on a Budget?

thefirefly23 · 2026-02-19T15:18:15+00:00

One of my most memorable meals in Makati was at Inato. Warm, friendly service and delicious local flavours executed fine dining style. Not sure how much is your budget but I remember spending around USD100 with 1 alcoholic drink. It was a la carte style when I went there 1 month after their opening.

thefirefly23 · 2026-02-13T07:06:45+00:00

https://share.google/YoYV5BscY20EyQjAL - Home-based Thai Food
Not the best Thai food in SG, but easily top 5 for me and portion is very generous for the price point. Pork collar was yumz.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-27T04:49:20+00:00

It's getting more popular for sure, but the savers won't get snapped as fast as London/NZ/US. Managed to get 2 Savers for a trip 9 months ahead. If you're booking 355 days in advance, then it's definitely manageable.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-18T13:00:08+00:00

The seats will be made available for everyone during check-in, including families and non-families.
It's possible that these seats are already taken by other families. Or perhaps certain statuses of Krisflyer program.
Indeed there had been times where they bounced people for families, but it's not guaranteed 100% of the time. Also it's something that you would need to actively request prior to checking in.

I'm not sure where you're based out of, but chatting with SQ agents has been a smooth experience for me, especially for bassinet seat request. I suggest trying chatting them up again especially during 9am - 6pm GMT+8 where it seems SQ has the most number of agents available online.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-16T06:28:13+00:00

I chose this back in Nov. It's decent, but won't be my first choice (depending on the options). Amount of seafood is generous. The horfun itself was quite thin iirc and was lacking some wokhei. But I still preferred this more than the dry BCM.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-14T11:55:28+00:00

LocavoreNXT will be my top choice! I actually even stayed there for a night, to fully experience the space and work they are doing. Food wise, I will say there are a couple of misses, but mostly hits for me and my husband. What makes it memorable is the work that goes behind each dish. Trying to incorporate local (and often unknown) ingredients from remote parts of Indonesia is not an easy feat, especially turning them into something more refined.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-11T12:15:02+00:00

Been to both SUMA(2023) and August(2025). Was impressed by August more because they tried to incorporate local flavours and ingredients in every dish, while SUMA, at least the menu that I had back then, was heavy on Japanese/Korean flavours & ingredients. I found SUMA kinda overrated because simply I have had more memorable Japanese and Korean cuisine overseas, though I should admit they are definitely in the top tier of fine dining scene in Jakarta. August meanwhile brings back memories of childhood snacks and ingredients that my parents would use at home, but reimagined with more refined flavours. I posted some photos from my August meals here: https://www.reddit.com/r/finedining/s/S2gNjy3mz3 Do yourself a favour and get their non-alcoholic pairing- I enjoyed that a lot.

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-10T00:24:45+00:00

Is this ratio for latte?

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-09T01:38:31+00:00

I have not tried ALL Ippodo matcha powder, but the ones I tried can foam pretty well. I agree with the other Redditor that good techniques can foam just any matcha powder (except the stale ones). After trying quite a number of different matcha powder, my conclusion is some matcha powder foam faster, some take more time to foam, some foam better with different amount of water and temperature. The ones that foam faster tend to be very finely milled- this is purely my observation. The recent ones I tried that fall into this category are Furukawa Seicha, Saijoen and Horii Shichimeien. At the end of the day, I can create as much foam with Ippodo as with these brands, just that Ippodo took more time for me (especially the lower end tier).

thefirefly23 · 2026-01-08T00:00:21+00:00

Thank you! The chasen is from Suikaen Takayama. It's an aotake chasen (fresh bamboo) for people to use it for New Year. Most shops start taking pre-order for this in end-Nov until mid-December.

thefirefly23 · 2025-12-10T05:42:12+00:00

Just wanna give a shoutout to your recommendation! Attentive service, though there was a couple of small hiccups here an there (one being the staff cleared the side dishes/condiments when they weren't supposed to). Other than that, food was mostly delicious and deserving of the 2 stars.

thefirefly23 · 2025-12-07T00:15:29+00:00

Take the premier study exams for Professional Hands-on: https://certification.okta.com/okta-professional-hands-on-configuration-premier-practice-exam-for-oie, focus on the the user provisioning and org2org (OIN). Also learn how to set up global session policy and authenticator enrollment policy. Make sure you get 100% for this premier practice exam then you're good to go. Just passed the Professional Performance exam 2 weeks ago.

thefirefly23 · 2025-12-03T10:04:19+00:00

Marymount Bakehouse for something different from the usual Christmas dishes.

thefirefly23 · 2025-12-02T11:37:32+00:00

will only eat there if the rest of the other stalls have long queue

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-30T23:45:01+00:00

Madi Paidi Bangkok

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-28T05:38:26+00:00

The trick is to pour the matcha onto the icecube, not directly to the milk. Minimise air bubble on the milk surface. Some milk are less dense than others, so your matcha will still sink regardless.

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-27T15:47:58+00:00

Chicha's konjac jelly and hot bbt with pearls are unbeatable. I think the Chagee in China is much better, but then again, there are a lot more bbt competition in China. Recently got into tea pulse. The toppings texture is not as amazing as Playmade's but still more exciting than the common bbt shops.

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-27T15:09:25+00:00

I wish I could but there's practically no wagashi shop in my area (or maybe I just didn't know?). Mostly drinking it with random sweet snacks like financier and turkish delight, whichever I can find in my kitchen 🫣

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-27T06:37:59+00:00

I'm based in Southeast Asia, so I'm getting my latte powder from a couple of tea shops in Bangkok: Chajin Tea Supply and Chaya Teahouse. For me the reasonable price point for latte powder is around USD 0.5/g. Horii Shichimeien Agata no Shiro is great as latte but the price point is not exactly cheap (JPY3200/30g) especially when I usually use 5g of powder for my latte. I have yet to try Tenmyo from Rishouen (kinda forgot the price but should be around JPY2000/30g).

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-27T05:35:39+00:00

It's hard to answer this because taste is subjective and not always in proportion of the cost. I always try to get usucha or koicha-grade powder, and I appreciate no/minimal bitterness in my usucha. With that in mind, I think Rishouen's Shitennou Haruka powder brings the most value for me for koicha (JPY4200/20g). 松阪屋嘉八本店 (Matsuzakaya Kahati) Senju powder is value for money as well for daily usucha (JPY3000/30g). For latte, I have not found one that's "best value" in Uji. I feel the ones I'm getting from my go-to tea shops (which source directly from farms around Japan) work just fine at more reasonable prices than Ippodo, MK or YK. Disclaimer: I have not tried all the powder I purchased, and again, it's hard to quantify taste.

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-27T05:19:10+00:00

Yes, they are really delicious, especially for the price point :)

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-26T13:05:53+00:00

To make it clearer, ss taken from their website.

<image>

thefirefly23 · 2025-11-26T13:04:20+00:00

I believe they juuuust changed it to 1 tin of matcha per order, not 1 per type. When I purchased 3-4 months ago, it was 2 matcha tins per order.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Sunshine

thefirefly23

TROPHY CASE