Ihaw - 1

Where it can be found:Philcoa

Type of dining place:Hip/Casual Dining

Type of food served: Pinoy sizzling

Upside: very good food thats friendly to a college student's budget. The well-kept restaurant, with a hip interior design and ambiance is a welcome breath of fresh air to the UP student's dining options.

Downside: It can get pretty crowded on busy days and parking is a hassle.

Budget for 1 person: P100 to 150 for a full meal with drinks

Must try: Squid sisig; among my personal favorite sisig recipes. Their inihaws are also great.

Honest recommendation: Ihaw-1, tacky name aside, is quite a surprising find in the philcoa area. Its not quite fastfood but not quite upscale dining. The food is very reasonably priced and portions are pretty good. Their iced tea in a fish bowl is a cute way to reel in your date too if you're a student on a budget. ^_~

Milko

Where it can be found:
Malls/ Supermarkets

Type of dining place:
It's an ice cream stand

Type of food served:
ice cream

Upside:
Ice cream doesn't melt easily

Downside:
It's not a popular ice cream stand so it's hard to find

Budget for 1 person:
P10-P25

Must try:
Depends on your preference really....

Honest experience:
Unlike the popular Snowpy stalls selling soft ice cream that tastes like cold whipped cream with lots of sugar, milko offers the standard ice cream with a consistency like the ones that come out of a gallon tin can. The ice cream is a little too sweet for my taste and the consistency is more sticky than creamy. I do prefer my ice cream to have a creamy texture but I guess its stickiness is what makes milko stay firm longer than the average ice cream (which melts as soon as it touches a cone). At a very, very affordable price of P10 for a small cone - one scoop - (P20 for a bigger cone with two scoops of your choice and P25 for a cup with two sccops of your choice), the stickiness can be ignored. The flavors are few -- double dutch, cheese, halo-halo, rum with raisins, cookies and cream, chocolate marble -- and although they do not have the basics (like plain chocolate and vanilla), I bet everyone can enjoy at least one of the flavors available. I've tried the double dutch, cookies and cream, and rum with raisins and they all taste pretty good. The latter however tastes just like mocha ice cream. Go figure.
And so.... would I rercommend this ice cream stall? Sure!!! At a very cheap price, you can have a cold treat which is ALWAYS enjoyable in a tropical country, so I personally don't have any complaints.