A Life Full of Meaning will Take Some Time to Hatch (Our 2013 and Review of Hatch 22)

Lettuce Says,

Celebrating the first year of our marriage, Christmas, and the turnover of the Old to the New Year, Sunrise and I have decided to just keep it low-key and celebrate these events at home with intimate meals and simple gatherings with each other and with our families.

Long post ahead! I guess I really missed this!

2013 was an exciting year for us, a whirlwind of excitement and challenges. We underwent a lot of changes in our lives, as individuals and as a couple. To share with you, here are the top milestones of Lettuce and Sunrise.


1.) It was a first time that we ventured into a business partnership that thought us a lot of raw and head-on learnings with the high's and low's of a small business. Please visit our spa Banahaw Heals Spa San Vicente, whenever you find yourself in Binan, Laguna!

Banahaw Heals Spa San Vicente

2.) Lettuce, yours truly, got promoted! (Yey!) I am currently loving my career at one of the most employee-appreciative companies in the Philippines. As some of you who are close to me may know, I literally and figuratively paved my own way, the exciting way to finish college even though I studied in UP Diliman, which is supposedly providing a subsidized education which some people like me sadly still can't afford. I went to all the nitty-gritty of asking money from relatives, pancit canton meals, tutoring stints and various call center jobs. All these things With God's guidance, I graduated and passed the board exam. I have worked for a government institution then onto a private surveying company which eventually made me a very stressed, under-paid, and unhappy person. One of my prayers through the Pink Sisters in Tagaytay (See: Wedding Proposal and Pink Sisters) was to get a great paying job with some nice and honest people around me. So, here I am now! (Intrigued? Nasa Ayala Triangle kami :) Our bosses are very inspiring people as well) :)

3.) The birth of TravelnStories, our travel blog and newborn travel marketing business of Sunrise's. Please do check it out!

Kayangan Cove, Coron, Philippines

4.) Change of Residence from Binan...to Makati! This has got to be the start of our journey as a married couple. Aside from being very close now to my work (what a big change and relief!, no more half an hour walking, one-hour line at the Ayala Terminal and two-hour traffic jam going home everyday!), Sunrise is now more reachable to and from his clients, lots of business opportunities (praying hard for the some great ones! If you are an Angel Investor out there, please! call us now na! :)), and we have (hopefully) extra time for other things to do like visit these hole-in-the-wall foodie spots around the Metro, and yes more blogging time! Hurray for My Empty Plates!

Make It Makati Model si Sisterette Avi

We also had our fair share of challenging times, regarding family and finances, just like other normal couple. The only difference I believe was that we got through everything together with hands held and looked up to God for guidance.

Before I babbled everything here and make a comedic telenovela out of our lives, let's get down to hatching our first review of the year.

For our first year anniversary, we just planned to have a meal somewhere quiet for some comfort food eating. The holiday celebs with our North and South families (Sunrise from Binan, Laguna, whereas Lettuce is from Malolos, Bulacan) and our own new year's eve celeb had made a dent in our expenses (hahaha) so our supposedly trip abroad has been rescheduled to hopefully this new year. This actually proves that we had matured in terms of planning and setting priorities since we are living the marriage now.

I was craving for some all day brekkie type of meal that day. Sunrise suggested Ihop since we (still!) haven't tried it yet, I offered Cafe Ilang-ilang because we have a 50% off voucher that is expiring real soon. But since we were both such lazy pants after snoozing til 1pm, we opt to visit Rockwell instead. Then, I remembered Hatch 22 Cafe and Bakery at the Powerplant Mall!

The restaurant is located right beside the open parking lot, near Starbucks. From inside the mall, there is an entrance on the upper ground level, near the expensive watches stores.

Hatch 22 Cafe and Bakery

The interiors has this rough and friendly vibe, perfect for a late lunch date.

Chalk prints, log chairs, unfinished patterns, unpainted walls, and original paintings of the co-owners, Heussaffs made it more interesting. And with floor-to-ceiling glass walls to boot, somehow inspires the New York vibe.

You can also enjoy sundown (or even as sunrise as early as 7am, they won't judge! :) ) cocktail drinks by this strip of a bar, or take-away some breads and pastries for mom!

Shall we empty thy plates?

Bread Basket (Php 270)

The smell of bread inside the restaurant was something you simply cannot resist! So we ordered these warm goodies, Bread Basket 1 in the menu, which contains Butter Brioche, Cheddar Milk Biscuits, Cranberry and Walnut, Dark Rye, Jalapeno, and Cheddar Bread with bacon jam and apple pie butter.

French Onion Soup

We also ordered Soup and Salad (Php295), which came with half portion of any salad and soup of the day.

Sunrise devoured the French Onion Soup as if he was dehydrated! I'm not exactly a fan of anything with onion overload, but a sip of this had me coming back for more spoonfuls bursting of salty goodness with a hint of fresh sweetness from caramelized onion simmered on beefy broth. This was a great companion of those fellows in the bread basket.

Falafel Salad

Something took me by surprise that day, I fell in love with this healthy beauty. The colors were strong and dark as well as the flavors that inspires me to go on a salad diet. If only Hatch 22 can deliver me this and its sister greens everyday for free i will gladly take a break from those worldly meats and sweets. 

Falafel salad is a tossed heaven of mixed salad greens, golden falafel (Falafel is a deep-fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas, fava beans, or both according to Mr. Wikipedia), goat cheese, tomatoes cucumbers, olives, red beets, orange slices, and lemon oil dressing. Try forkfuls of different combi of the enumerated happy ingredients and be ready to be surprised, this salad definitely tasted like a salad flown from NY to MNL via a time machine.

Lettuce's main dish, Crispy Corned Beef. Yes, I can be boring like that.

Crispy Corned Beef (Php380)

But by the simple looks of it, I became excited as this plate was served in front of me. Believe it or not but before we ate our mains, Sunrise and I felt close to full already. Hahaha  their breads are really tummy-filling creatures. The spiced up crispy Delimondo corned beef (mas pina-sosyal sa Purefoods brand) came with extreme garlic rice, crunchy egg and seared tomatoes drizzled with spiced honey vinegar. The dish is some sort of a letdown, the combination of the garlic rice which is in itself not-that-extreme, sosyal corned beef, and egg made it a little bit hard to swallow because the dynamics are all dry. It should have been better if the egg was served sunny-side up and climbed another level higher of that garlicky kick.

Let's see what Sunrise got this time.

Cassoulet (P640)

As soon as this wonder Cassoulet had arrived, the aroma filled our table (and my dress as well :) ), this slow cooked casserole with pork hock (yummy pork joints), sausage, smoked bacon, roast chicken, white beans and warm toasts. If you have limited stomach space, I suggest you order this meal by itself because it is also a tummy-filling monster! But a loving monster on which you can taste the whole effort of who made this dish. The pork was oh-so-tender type that the bone is as tender you can eat it as well. I can picture a homey mama making this white-bean casserole with French origins, throwing all the love into a pot of gold. A winner in our books.

As for the drinks, we only tried their iced tea which was super bland and tasted watered down. Maybe their cocktails were way better.

We had successfully EMPTIED Hatch 22's PLATES! You should too!

Hope you can share to us your own emptied plates as well by hashtagging #myemptyplates or uploading your photos in our facebook fan page.

(Clap clap naman kayo jan!) :) Well, we had some of the breads for take-away (hanep maka carbo loading ang resto na ito :) )

I would have liked to try their desserts but our brimming stomachs won over. We almost covered all the GLAs (gross leasable area hahaha jargon ng mga taga malls) of the whole mall just to burn some of the calories away. Suddenly, a live acoustic string band was playing "A Thousand Years", awww what a sweet coincidence, that was one of our wedding songs. And! they are actually great for wedding receptions. To show our thanks here's a free ad for you guys! :)

Thanks Soulful Mood Strings!

As to listen for their next songs, we searched for a light sweet ending to our bongga meal earlier. On to Wooden Spoon! (Ugh! Yeah I have a pending post for Wooden Spoon, hope you can wait for it :) )

Mango-Ube Crepe

This crepe was amazing, instagram-worthy, pocket-friendly, and a foodie find! Imagine this,  chubby mango strips with ube ice cream enveloped snugly by a fluffy buko-pandan flavored crepe, drizzled with chocolate syrup and nuts (with garlic!!!) bits. This crepe screamed "This is a Daza recipe!"

What a fulfiling day for us (and for our tummies!), as our hearts reflected and celebrated the holidays, our first and unli future years with the simple joys of love. Happy Anniversary Sunrise! I love you! #alammoyan (hahahaha #watahashtag!)

#happy1stanniversary #lovelovelove

Ps. Hayaan nyo na ang pagka cheesy anniv naman eh :)

December 29, 2013
Hatch 22 Cafe and Bakery

Hatch 22 on Facebook
Ground Floor, Powerplant Mall, Rockwell, Makati City, Philippines

(+63 46 860 2699)
PhP 300-1000 per person

*All articles and photos posted are owned by LettuceandSunrise and should not be copied and/or used without prior written authorization from us. You can always SHARE our posts with the applicable trackback by putting the corresponding links. We will also do this ethical act for other people's posts, websites, and photos that we want to share on this blog. This is a personal blog. Like a diary or journal, all the views, insights, and opinions written here are solely based on our own point of views and belong to ours alone and not of the companies we are part of. Information may not be accurate and may only be applicable at the exact time and situation we experienced it. We will not liable for any errors in this information or any losses or damages arising from its display or use.