Chilli and Ink in Magiting Street

This small restaurant along Magiting Street (across Moonleaf and Iscreamist and just a few meters from Maginhawa Street) made it to my favorite list.

Chilli and Ink is named such because their specialty is spicy chicken wings (though there's also something for those who can't handle spicy) and they have tattoo services.

For spicy food-lovers like me, they have four different levels of spicy chicken wings: Level 1 (Hot ng Ina Mo), Level 2 (Hot ng Ina Mo Rin), Level 3 (Hot ng Ina Niyong Lahat) and Level 4 (Hot ng Ina Niyong Lahat CHALLENGE). They serve chicken wings by 300 grams. Levels 1,2, and 3 cost PhP150 while Level 4 costs PhP200. They also have other flavors like regular, garlic parmesan, wasabi, spicy mango, binagoongan, etc.

When I go to Chilli and Ink, I usually order the budget meal (because the 300-gram serving is too much for me). For PhP99, I get chicken wings, rice, a cupcake and a glass of iced tea, and it's not bad at all!

Level 2: Hot ng Ina Mo Rin (served with garlic mayo)

I swear by their caramel cupcake and I know a lot of people who do too. Both the cupcake itself and the frosting are delicious.

They sell their cupcakes by the dozen too.

They have many tattoo magazines for while you're waiting for your food.

I really love Chilli and Ink. It's very near our university. The place is laid-back. The people are very nice. The food is cheap and perfect to appease my perpetual craving for spicy food. And even if you don't like spicy food, as long as you like chicken, I think this is still worth a try.

PS: Chilli and Ink is where I got the idea for my Tropical Buffalo Wings. Next time I will try making Wasabi Buffalo Wings at home!

My Floral Head Wreath

Just a quick post before I move to doing all my weekend tasks (both academic and domestic). 

This is something I've been meaning to make for the longest time. However, I could not find an occasion where I could wear a floral head wreath without getting weird stares from people. Well, now I do (AME 1UP, our student org's event on February 23, 2013 at the World Trade Center) so I bought some plastic flower decoration from Landmark last night (PhP150) and then used it to make a floral head wreath this morning. 

I've been wearing it around the house this morning and it's so comfortable that I don't feel like I'm wearing anything on my head. It doesn't fall off either. I wish I could wear stuff like this on a normal basis without getting weird stares, of course. But maybe I'm asking too much haha.

Next time, hopefully on summer, I want to make a floral wreath from scratch! I will sew ribbons and lace into flowers and then attach them to a circular wire. :)

Recipe: Tropical Buffalo Wings

I love spicy chicken wings! Recently, I learned a nice twist to it: MANGO. I got the idea from Chilli and Ink in Maginhawa Street and tried to execute it myself. I know it sounds a little unusual but it's worth a try (especially now that mangoes are in season).

Tropical Buffalo Wings

Original (non-tropical) version

Tropical Buffalo Wings

1 kg chicken wings
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup flour
salt
pepper
cayenne (optional)

1/4 cup butter, melted
half a mango, pureed
chilli pepper sauce

1. Mix together milk, flour, salt, pepper and cayenne.

2. Coat the chicken with the batter. You may let it sit for an hour.

3. Cook the chicken until crispy. You can deep-fry it but I prefer using the convection roaster at 200 degrees C for 30 to 40 minutes (so that I don't have to use oil anymore and some of the chicken fat gets drained too).

4. While the chicken is cooking, mix the melted butter, mango puree and enough chilli pepper sauce.

Left: butter and chilli sauce mixture. Right: mango puree.

5. After the chicken cooks, immediately dunk it into the butter-mango-chilli pepper mixture.

6. You can serve the wings with garlic mayo dip (mayo mixed with crushed garlic).