Go back in history with Malens

Food tripping is fast becoming an "in" thing with today's generation but usually, the crowd come in troves towards Quezon City, Manila, Makati, and other places around North. Little do people know, South, specifically Cavite, is just as food trip worthy as any other place. Heck, even Aguinaldo's house becomes a huge food mercato during the weekends complete with colorful and plentiful string of lights.

Nowadays, we are plagued with food trucks and fastfoods that an honest to goodness plate of classic home cooked meal becomes a welcome treat once in a while.

Located at Noveleta Cavite just across Puregold is a place called MALEN's. 

Upon entering this establishment, you're easily transported to the old Spanish era with it's interiors. Visitors are greeted by a huge wall sculpture of Gabriela Silang on a horse.

A cake display chiller is located near the entrance door boasting of their different baked offerings. They can also customize a cake for you should you require it for your events.

A function area is also available for reservation. 

Solid wood dining tables and chairs fill the entire floor and waiting for your order will never be a bore for there's a vast display of pasalubong goodies you could check out while waiting.

A wooden rocking horse is a big hit for the kids. My niece had a rockin' time with her new friend! :)

Malen's menu also have that rustic feel to it. Each dish has a corresponding history attached to it. Though, this same menu is the reason why part of our whole Malen experience almost turned into a disaster. We were not aware that only selected items on the menu was good for sharing and the rest already is a meal for one person and their server, one in particular, did not tell us that our orders already came with rice (we also ordered a separate order of rice, which is indication we are clueless). When we found out and asked if we could cancel the other rice order because we were not aware, the server, a male, that could totally pass as bouncer for a club, "apparently" told us that he informed us while we were ordering that our meals already came with rice! Hello?! Tulog ba kami kuya nung nag-oorder kami? That totally put us off and we did not enjoy the food as much as we wanted to due to poor customer service from this waiting staff who completely turned it around and lied up front.

We ordered a couple of things to try but please excuse the poor food shots as lighting inside the restaurant is pretty dim.

Sungay Green salad is your basic green salad paired with honey mustard dressing

Nothing too fancy, just your regular unbreaded fried chicken

This was my order. I was disappointed with it. Clearly, sandwiches wasn't their strong point. I almost cried at how lonely and sad this sandwich looked. A couple of roasted beef slices in between COLD, WHITE bread slices. Fries is cold and tasted generic. The salad siding is too little to save this sinking ship.

Ordered fresh buko to drown my sandwich disappointment.

The beef is surprisingly very tender and tasty.

I'm a baker, so normally, I gravitate towards baked goods. I checked out what their resto had to offer. In the end, we decided on the chocolate crinkles. Theirs had additional cashew nuts mixed in to make it a bit different.

More items they offer. The baked chicharon is a must. 

My experience here was so-so. It could have had good potential had it not been for the whole rice debacle. Some of the food were good like the caldereta but serving was a bit steep for the price. I advise you to veer away from their sandwiches not worth your buck.


Till next,

Product Review: Hard Candy Mix-in Pigment Drops

Aaaaahhh...music to one's ears when we see the word "DUPE", atleast for makeup. :)

The Cover FX custom cover drops had been gaining popular reviews from beauty gurus the world over and us, mere mortals, have been salivating over this wonder product ever since the rave reviews came out.

What's not to like? The promise of full coverage with the power to take that "foundation you've accidentally bought in the wrong shade" out of the waste bin, is enough to make any makeup junkee swoon.

But, as spiderman would put it, with great power comes...a hefty price tag! Yes, this much talked about product from cover FX retails for US$44 a pop! As much as I long for it, I don't have that much blood and enough kidney to sell for it.

So, when Hard Candy released something of the same nature with a US$7 price tag, I forgot to breathe, went online and scour Walmart's page for this product. As expected, it went flying off the shelves as I've been reading about certain shades selling out and some not finding stocks of it in Walmarts around their area.

So when it actually became available online, I HAD TO GET IT. Luckily, a friend of my friend who currently resides in Los Angeles, was coming home to the Philippines. He was kind enough to agree to bring me some things from the US.

This was one of the things I ordered off of Walmart's page. I got two shades, Light4 and Medium3 because I thought I could just mix them together to achieve the right shade or so I could have options to use for foundations I have that are too dark and too light for me.

Like the one from Cover FX, this too comes with a dropper (hence, the name mix-in drops).

Now, I don't own the custom cover drops or have yet to try it but based on reviews I've seen from other bloggers, that one has a thicker formula than Hard Candy. Ingredients list of the mix in pigment drops are as follows:

One of the product's claim is full coverage. So why don't we test that out shall we? (I also did the same test with my first ever product from Hard Candy here)

I went ahead and drew lines using a waterproof black eyeliner and the lip ink in the shade red. Then, I used two equal drops of both shades to test out the extent of its coverage.

First layer was not able to totally hide the marks. They still seep through and you could still distinguish them both underneath so I went ahead and did another drop.

With the second drop you could now see an improvement coverage-wise. But still nothing too impressive.

Now let see what will happen if we mix it in with two different foundations.

I mixed the Light4 to my Milani conceal+perfect foundation in medium beige since it has become a bit darker for me every since I started on the Benzoyl Peroxide treatment.

And the medium3 with my revlon photoready foundation which is a bit light and too yellow for me.

I took a drop each and place it on a dish to mix.

I drew another red line on my arm using the lip ink smear proof lip product for the coverage test.

Here's the result:

At a drop each added on both foundations, there's only a minute difference on the coverage but the shade of the foundation you can clearly see a difference. The revlon which was a bit lighter and yellow for me became a bit darker more beige now. The milani one became a little bit lighter.

Conclusion:

Though both Hard Candy and Cover FX have the same purpose and objective, each one is a league on their own.

In terms of price, I believe you get what you pay for pigment-wise. If you're looking into just altering your foundation shade which already have a light or medium coverage and want to amp it up to a full, then by all means try the one from Hard Candy it'll get the job done without breaking the bank. You just have to put in more drops than you would with Cover FX.

The bottle with the separate dropper I'm not too fond of. It can get messy if you are not too careful and you get the dropper neck to touch the mouth of the bottle. I prefer a bottle with a dropper spout instead.

Another factor to consider, after swatching the Hard candy mix-in pigment drops, I took a bath but did not scour my hand with the swatch. I only let the suds drip over it then took a photo after.

Notice how it got darker? It somewhat oxidized on my skin. I Have no clue what happened. It is not waterproof either.

All in all, if the price points weren't that far apart, I would go and save up for the Cover FX custom cover drops instead. But the Hard Candy Mix-in pigment drop is worth trying out and experimenting with.

Have you tried this one out? What are your thoughts? Share it with me please. :)

Till then,