Nine years after opening its first café in Tokyo, Café Kitsuné is now finally coming to the Philippines.
Café Kitsuné Manila is expected to officially open in July 2022 at The Podium in Ortigas Center in Mandaluyong City. Further details will be made available at a later date. But expect Café Kitsuné’s Philippine location to have its beloved signature Paris-meets-Tokyo atmosphere and aesthetic. Café Kitsuné Manila, like all of its cafés around the world, is a modernist reinterpretation of the classic Parisian café and wine bar.
Created in 2013, Café Kitsuné has grown to a network of 20 cafés across the world including Tokyo, Paris, Seoul, New York City, Beijing, and Vancouver, achieving cult status amongst specialty coffee lovers around the world. In 2019, Café Kitsuné has also extended its activities to new business lines, adding roasteries, bars, and restaurants to its range.
The ethos of Café Kitsuné echoes this. Modern and urban, with a unique savoir-faire. It offers a warm, sensory dining experience, whether for coffee, afternoon tea, night cocktails, or lunch and dinner among friends. It opened its first café in Tokyo in the Aoyama neighborhood and has since opened other locations in other highly-coveted metropolitan cities such as Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Bangkok. Each location maintains its signature modern Parisian café and wine bar look and fee. Yet it also imbibes the local spirit of its iconic global locations.
Café Kitsuné has since become a cult favorite among the locals of its many locations and travelers, and creative coffee connoisseurs. Every Café Kitsuné location is chic and convivial. It welcomes visitors of all ages throughout the day, every day.
The highlight of any visit to Café Kitsuné is its high-quality coffee. Known for being full-bodied and flavorsome, Café Kitsuné cultivates its single-origin coffee beans in Brazil and Guatemala, and are roasted with the utmost care. This makes for a perfect cup of espresso, cappuccino, cold brew, or nitro—smooth and syrupy, with hints of cherry and chocolate. And each cup is prepared by a talented team of passionate baristas who understand the art of coffee making.
Menus in other locations are executed by local chefs who consider their location’s signature flavors without sacrificing the taste fans of Café Kitsuné look for.
Menu items Filipino guests can expect at Café Kitsuné Manila include many favorites, such as its signature burger, styled as a beef teriyaki tartare with bacon, fried egg, and comté; and the croque-monsieur with tuna, lemongrass, and ginger, and the café’s specialty bechamel sauce. Customers can expect a wealth of flavors with the café’s dessert menu, from mochi made with seasonal fruits to a carpaccio served with Sichuan pepper and Thai basilic syrup. Café Kitsuné’s cocktails are also a favorite among regulars, and its emphasis on an understated yet refreshing balance of flavors is expected to carry over in the Manila location.
Manila customers can also expect Café Kitsuné to carry its collection of accessories and tableware.
The young man with chainsaws for limbs has returned! The hit gory manga series Chainsaw Man is finally back to begin its Part 2 after having a 2-year hiatus.
This manga created by Tatsuki Fujimoto was quick to become a rising title in the world of manga, thanks to the chaotic fun it delivers to readers. The fandom was further fueled by the announcement that the manga was being adapted into an anime series by Studio Mappa, the same studio behind Attack on Titan season 4 and Jujutsu Kaisen.
While there’s no release date yet for the anime, the Chainsaw Man manga series will release new chapters every Tuesday. You can now read the first chapter of Chainsaw Man part 2 for free on the Shonen Jump website.
Chainsaw Man follows the young man Denji, who uses his Devil dog Pochita as a weapon to kill Devils for the Yakuza. When the Yakuza betrays him and he was left to die in the hands of the Zombie Devil, Denji is saved by his Devil dog who fuses with him, turning him into the Chainsaw Man– a human-devil hybrid with chainsaws protruding out of his arms and on top of his head.
“The Artist Is Alive” Digital Exhibition by Jasper Castro and curated by Raymond Tribdino goes online this July 15, 2022 at www.theartistisalive.online, inviting the world into an immersive ASMR Art experience for anyone who can access the internet.
Labor Bae (Acrylic on canvas, 4×4 feet)
The exhibition is best experienced with a desktop or by connecting to a larger screen, and a pair of headphones as it would enable the audience to simultaneously take in both the paintings and the recorded spoken word poetry. Through this multidimensional rendering, both audience and artist are looking and hearing the same thing in the most intimate set-up–bringing their psyche to the same place. Aiming to be a notch above walking in someone else’s shoes, it’s being in the artist’s bipolar brain. With this extreme empathy, the artist hopes to connect and befriend the audience as she handholds them through the exhibit to listen to her deepest darkest secrets.
How do you make friends? For her first day at school, her mother advised: smile! But that didn’t work and she was bullied. In college, she discovered a technique herself: start with a secret. She would make friends with random girls by talking about crushes. Opening up on the get-go inevitably created a safe space where others could open up too.
The primary reason this exhibit works as a safe space is that it starts with the artist completely opening her heart and her secrets to the world. By taking the first step, she hopes that the audience, too, would trust her as they dive in, and attempt to find healing together.
Everyone needs to heal.
The exhibit comes at the tail-end of a pandemic that has left almost everyone with surprising and unwelcome self-discoveries about the limits of their mental health.
Jasper discovered the limit of her own mental health in her early twenties when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A series of heartbreaks led to years-long clinical depression that stole years of her life. She and her doctor agreed that the blow-up was a long time coming, as symptoms for the disorder had been present since she was a suicidal 4-year-old. However, it was held off for a long time partly thanks to her consistent dedication to the arts.
When Jasper finally got out of her depression, she found she was a completely different person, as though she was reborn. She didn’t love this new self with her new larger frame, and new somber personality–but she understood that these changes had been necessary for her to survive through a difficult time.
In this series of artworks, Jasper finds her way back into loving herself, embracing every phase of her moods, and every facet of her personality. Here, she lays it all out in the open–confessions about desires, frustrations, dreams amplified by triggers, and episodes of mania and depression. Laid out before her, she can find the beauty in them, and despite the temptation for self-loathing, here she learns to forgive herself.
Pushing the limit of expression and getting her message across, Jasper combines her two main mediums: painting and poetry. The audio and visual cues then propel her audience to a destination beyond color and words, serving as coordinates to a third space where both artist and audience share the same mind.
In Trigger, she encapsulates the moment that could lead to a mental downward spiral. A Beta Loves To Fight captures that second before a big angry blow-up. She renders anger in its complex contradictions: soft fluffy afro decked in metallic, harsh shadows on a gentle face, and a fighting fish primed to fight housed in bubble gum. In Heaven’s Looking Down she seeks to express a more subtle trigger that’s harder to pinpoint: disappointment.
The Mangic of My Boston Ferns
In Mania, she sears vibrating, creative manic energy onto her canvas with two pieces that both heavily feature nature that thrives, survives, and thrums amid adversity: the desert cactus and the low-maintenance Boston fern. In Honest Oasis, she confesses her sexuality, and loneliness–two strong emotions amplified during manic episodes. It’s also in Honest Oasis that The Artist is Alive finds its essence: the raw, naked attempt to unify a fragmented self. In The Mangic of My Boston Ferns, she explores creative manic insomnia, delights in how it can be a creative power up but also doesn’t discount the price to pay.
A Floating Lesson (acrylic on canvas)
In Depression, Jasper presents two situations of emotional downward spiraling. My Purple Heart is about coping with the aftermath of rejection through projecting love towards the distant and impossible, to temporarily house a heart longing to love. In Spiral Of Threes, she describes the repetitive, cyclical nature of depression–that it comes with warnings all the time, and yet remains unstoppable as it devours, like crawling poison ivy eating away an immobile house, a pinned down body.
Respite serves as the meditative rest in this series, an important calming ending to a long and winding journey. A Floating Lesson is about learning to breathe and relax when overstimulated by life’s torrential river. Hatch is about finding solace in sleep and learning to shut everything down.
The series ends with Labor Bae, which uses her fascination with nature and honeybees to talk about the formidable task of embracing one’s vocation–whether as a floral-scented short lived spring bee, an autumn bee that lives long but spends most of its life huddled in the hive for winter, or as a long-lasting lonely Queen Bee powerful yet damned to spend her whole life in the hive. The woman sits amid gigantic crimson poppy flowers–an ode to Morpheus, the god of dreams who fuels her art.
The whole collection is a celebration of a fact that the artist shares with the audience: that they are alive. Through the ups and downs, they have survived. The artist announces her presence by using herself as the subject in many of the paintings and also through her susurrous poetry. As the audience journeys with her from brokenness to building herself back again, she bravely brings her secrets out into the open. As Jasper defiantly amplifies her voice, refusing to be silenced, giving it her all–with her colors and her words–she whispers one last desire into the world: she hopes to inspire you to share your secrets, too.
Located at The Shops at Ayala Triangle Gardens, The Bistro Group’s Rumba is now open to tickle your tastebuds. It is helmed by Chef Alfredo Rodriguez Sangrador who has been living in the Philippines for 8 years now and is the Head Chef of the Bistronomia group with restaurants like Las Flores, Rambla, Tomatito, and BCN by Las Flores.
The flavors were inspired by countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea where guests can expect a taste of Spanish, Italian, Greek, and a bit of French. Upon entrance, you’ll notice the rich patchwork of textures ranging from white floral blooms to a compelling wood ceiling and furniture accents in colors that carry the characteristics of the Mediterranean landscape. Definitely a perfect date place or if you’re grabbing a bite with your colleagues.
Rumba focuses on a cooking method using a charcoal oven which infuses smoky flavors into the chef’s specialty dishes. The paella is cooked to perfection using a cast-iron casserole and is placed inside the Mibrasa charcoal oven using 100% charcoal imported from Spain. “We don’t call our charcoal rice, paella, because we don’t use a paellera,” Chef Alfredo explains. “90% of our dishes are cooked in the said oven including French-style free-range chicken, local squid (lumot), lamb chops, duck confit, octopus, shrimp, cheeses, and the mouth-watering cochinillo or suckling pig.
An open charcoal grill, meanwhile, sizzles with other fares such as salmon, tomahawk steak, and tenderloin. There is also a pasta section with choices such as vongole, carbonara, and lobster pasta, along with risottos in choices of seafood or foie.
Chef Alfredo brings his culinary expertise to other Mediterranean favorites such as hummus, lamb, and chicken gyros. He also gives a nod to his Spanish heritage with out-of-the-ordinary takes on traditional food, with croquettas, scallop ceviche, tuna and scallop empanadilla, Spanish cod omelette, and gambas that are not the typical style. The open kitchen provides an inviting feel and connection between the guests and the chefs.
Rumba is located at The Shops at Ayala Triangle Gardens. For reservation or inquiries, call +639158564264,
Zatanna is bringing her magic to the Victorian era where she must track down the notorious Jack The Ripper in the new digital comic from Webtoon and DC, Zatanna and The Ripper.
Webtoon has just revealed the trailer for this new title they’ve created with DC. Watch the video below:
Some mysteries can only be solved backwards. Zatanna & the Ripper only on WEBTOON.
Popular DC heroine Zatanna Zatara is attacked by a mysterious sorceress on her 21st birthday. Her father saves her at the last second, sending Zatanna back to 1888 at Whitechapel, London. Zatanna soon discovers that the serial killer Jack The Ripper is lurking on the streets and so she sets out to capture him with the help of the denizens of Whitechapel and the assistance of John Constantine while trying to find her way home.
Created by writer Sarah Dealy and illustrator Syro, Zatanna and The Ripper is the latest title under DC and Webtoon’s partnership, joining Batman: Wayne Family Adventuresand Vixen: NYC. You can now read the first three episodes of Zatanna and The Ripper for free on the Webtoon website.
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Bringing a special Hallyu Market in partnership with SM Southmall, a three-day bazaar featuring all things Korea and K-Culture! Hallyu Market is also coming to a city near you as it plans to hold more Hallyu Market bazaars in Pasay, Cebu, Pampanga and Davao towards the latter part of the year, with an aim to make Hallyu reachable to fans all over the Philippines.
Snag the hottest K-merch, update your K-beauty routine, and shop til you drop while sipping on an iced Americano from our K-Cafe selections. What’s more, K-collectors can visit the designated Photocard Station where they can trade, auction, buy, and sell all-day, nonstop!
More exciting activities and swag await, so make sure to be at SM Southmall on July 29-31, 2022! See you there!
Hallyu Market is an original production of MAKEITLIVE, with special thanks to SM Southmall.
The campaign visual for the AW22 collection is created based on the concept of “Shadow”, using monotone black and white colors.
The supple movement and the elegant posing of the models, were inspired by designers of the Japanese fashion scenes in the eighties.
Through this campaign visual, Onitsuka Tiger pays tribute to the eighties when the Japanese aesthetic of “purity and austerity” blasted Western aesthetics.
This collection is about those years and is delivered with an active and contemporary take. Layering, typical of Japanese ceremonial dress, is pivotal in conceiving a style that expresses an original and genderless collection.
In addition to the ultra-oversized T-shirts made of heavy cotton and graphically embroidered kaftans (overdresses), the only distinctive embellishments in the collection are the flame and flower prints on the hems of various apparel items. The collection has a slightly Gothic & girly style, with a modern rock star twist and presents various items such as velour dresses, and mini dresses with a drawstring waist. Layer these items with nylon jackets, maxi Bermuda pants, midi-length pleated skirts, and multi-pocketed waistcoats, and add balaclavas on the head.
For footwear, the PETAL™ model is a classic court style shoe with an ankle-height upper that complements a wide range of styles, while ACROMOUNT™ KNIT model, with a subtle print accent on a minimalist, simple design, symbolizes the theme of the collection: Shadow.
Stranger Things‘ Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Vecna in the show, is seeking forgiveness from Eddie Munson’s actor Joseph Quinn and his fans for killing off the character in the season four finale.
In a video released by Netflix, Bower and Quinn go face to face, with the former making a humorous apology for Vecna’s behavior during the latest season of the show. Watch the clip below:
Jamie Campbell Bower wants to apologize to Joe Quinn — and to viewers — for Vecna's behavior in Stranger Things 4 pic.twitter.com/XT7GioDUPh
“Today, I’m here to apologize,” says Bower. “But my apology isn’t just for you. It’s for the main victim of all this.” Joseph Quinn enters the scene to face Bower, who continues to do his spiel. While it seems like Quinn isn’t ready to accept his apology, Vecna’s actor gives him a gift which he happily accepts.
In the finale of Stranger Things 4, the misunderstood Hellfire Club founder Eddie Munson sacrificed himself to further distract Vecna’s Demobats, following his epic performance of Metallica’s Master of Puppets in the Upside Down. In the end, the gang won against Vecna but not without consequences. Besides Eddie losing his life, Max almost lost hers while the Upside Down seems to continue to bleed through Hawkins.
Stranger Things is set to have its epic conclusion next season, but details about its release are yet to be announced. Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things also stars Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, and Sadie Sink. You can stream all four seasons of Stranger Things exclusively on Netflix.
“Jollibee always aims to spread joy to our customers, whether for dine-in, take out, drive-thru, or delivery. We continuously innovate our services to deliver a levelled-up customer experience,” said Jollibee Philippines President Ferns Yu, Jr. “We are piloting new innovations and technology in select stores, and are excited to roll them out to more branches in the future.”
These innovations complement the company’s signature Alagang Jollibee brand of service. “We’re very proud of our store teams’ trademark warm and joyful service—that’s what sets our teams apart in the fast-food industry. These new features contribute to an even better level of customer convenience, and increased efficiency for our operations as well,” Yu added.
Here are the store innovations to check out at select Jollibee stores:
Jollibots. First on the list is the viral Jollibots which netizens spotted months before in Jollibee’s SM Aura branch in Bonifacio Global City during the pilot stage. Dining robotics were once considered futuristic, but the Jollibots have now started to serve and delight dine-in customers at Jollibee SM Aura, Taguig and Jollibee Glorietta, Makati. Soon, they’ll be present at Jollibee SM Seaside Cebu as well.
Jollibots conveniently dispatch food to customers’ tables, helping out the store team especially during peak hours. These are present in Jollibee SM Aura, Taguig and Jollibee Glorietta, Makati, and soon in Jollibee SM Seaside Cebu.
The Jollibots may be considered as the store team’s on-ground assistants, ready to extend a helping hand in dispatching orders straight to customers’ tables — allowing the crew to focus on other important tasks or attend to special requests of customers especially during peak hours.
“With the Jollibots, our store teams in select stores are experiencing the benefits of serving their customers even more efficiently. While these Jollibots are welcome additions, we have maintained and will continue to keep the same number of crew in these branches as they remain integral to our day-to-day operations and in delivering our Alagang Jollibee brand of service,” Yu shared.
Jollibee introduced Smart Lockers where customers and aggregator riders can pick up orders safely with zero wait time. These can be found in Jollibee Angono Bayan, Rizal, Jollibee P. Tuazon, Quezon City, and Jollibee Northbay Boulevard, Navotas.
Smart Lockers. Waiting to pick up food orders will soon become a thing of the past, thanks to the new smart lockers. Designed to also complement the convenient Order & Pick up feature of the Jollibee App, this makes the customer’s journey even more seamless and hassle free. Jollibee customers on-the-go can conveniently place their orders via the Jollibee App, then wait for the store to confirm their transaction and inform them of the smart locker pick up process. Once in the store, customers can go directly to the smart locker, key in their order number, and the corresponding locker will automatically open. Orders are guaranteed safe and secure, and there’s zero wait time as well. Check out the Smart Lockers at Jollibee Angono Bayan, Rizal, Jollibee P. Tuazon, Quezon City, and Jollibee Northbay Boulevard, Navotas.
Whether it’s peak hour or not, the Rider’s Area in Jollibee GMA Cavite ensures that riders are given a safe and convenient place where they can get customer orders.
Rider’s Area. Where to wait and sit while waiting to pick up your customers’ orders in a jampacked Jollibee store? Riders of aggregator partners servicing GMA Cavite will worry no more as Jollibee’s branch in the said city has a new Rider’s Area—a dedicated and safe waiting and pick-up area where partner riders can rest comfortably as they wait for the orders of their customers. With this, crowding is avoided inside the store especially during peak hours, ensuring the safety of partner riders and customers alike.
Customers can enjoy their meals in an open-air setting Jollibee GMA Cavite’s new and improved al fresco dining area.
Al Fresco Dining. With more people continuing to take extra safety precautions especially when dining out with their family and friends, Jollibee will soon be allotting more floor space for an Al fresco area. The newest and levelled up al fresco dining area—adorned with nice murals and plants—are already welcoming customers at Jollibee GMA Cavite.
Jollibee president Ferns Yu shares that eating at Jollibee has always been associated with great bonding times in a place where you can be yourself and just feel at home. “So regardless of one’s new dining preference in this new normal, they will be able to continue enjoying the same treasured Jollibee experience over their favorite langhap-sarap meals.”
Self-Order Kiosks, which are available in 129 stores nationwide, allow customers to order their langhap-sarap favorites in 3 easy steps – order, pay, and claim!
Self-Order Kiosks (SOKs). Jollibee first piloted the self-order kiosks or SOKs back in 2018 to provide a faster and more efficient ordering process in stores. Now, more than 300 SOK units are present at 129 Jollibee stores nationwide. With a huge touchscreen menu board, choosing what to eat just became easier. Customers can go cashless and use their debit or credit cards to pay using the SOK terminal, or they can opt to pay cash at the counter. With the SOKs, Jollibee favorites can be enjoyed in just three easy steps – order, pay, and claim!
The Dual Lane Drive-Thru in Jollibee Petron SLEX allows the store to serve more customers and cuts down turnaround time.
Dual-lane Drive-Thru. Jollibee also improves the drive-thru experience with dual lanes, sensors, and food conveyor belts, increasing the store’s drive-thru capacity, shortening the turnaround time for customers, and making dispatching food faster and fuss-free. The Dual-Lane Drive-Thru is present at Jollibee Petron SLEX, Laguna and will soon be experienced by customers at Jollibee Shell SLEX, Laguna. Meanwhile, food conveyor belts are operational and have been making order dispatch even faster at Petron SLEX, Shell C5 Heritage, Taguig, and Ayala Center Cebu branches.
Jon Villanueva, the Vice President of Restaurant Systems of Jollibee, hopes that these new innovations will help customers have an even more enjoyable experience whether they prefer to have their Jollibee favorites in store, at home, or even on the road.
“We’re very excited about these cutting-edge innovations in our stores, some of which are firsts in the local fast-food industry. The future of Joy is here, and we continue to be committed to making our customers’ Alagang Jollibee experience even better as we roll these out in more stores nationwide,” he said.
Mornings at Italianni’s just got perkier with the addition of new breakfast dishes. And for those who live near Greenbelt, this branch now serves breakfast daily while Italianni’s Bonifacio High Street is open for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays only.
Avocado Toast
Jumpstart your day with an item or two from this selection: French Toast and Fruits, Italian Sausage Scramble, Smoked Salmon Scramble, Granola & Mixed Fruits; Avocado Toast, Pancetta & Potato Hash, Croquette Madame and Breakfast Grilled Pork Chop.
Croquette MadamePancetta & Potato Hash
Of course, there are the breakfast mainstays such as waffles and pancakes, omellettes, salads, Continental Breakfast selection, local favorites and coffee, tea, fruits and juices
Italian Sausage Toast
Bring your Bistro BFF Card and enjoy 20% discount on breakfast fare on Saturdays & Sundays.
