On Little One Valenzuela’s Birthday: Cake, Cookies, and Sweets (Part 1 of 3)

Cake by Mirage Cakes

“Ma, can I have a Little Mermaid cake?” asked Little One Valenzuela with pleading eyes. But Max’s package already got a cake with it! Ugh. With hubby’s approval, One Valenzuela searched the web for customized cake suppliers in Valenzuela. There she found Mirage Cakes.

Weeks before the birthday, One Valenzuela and Little One Valenzuela went to Ristoretto to meet Christine Janer, the cake artist and owner of Mirage Cakes, personally. Christine asked them for the details of the cake. One Valenzuela also gave Christine some cake images that she found online to make things a bit easier. They decided to come up with a one layer cake and 36 cupcakes based on the well known Disney film.

Come the day of the party, Christine brought the Ariel cake at the venue ahead of schedule. Whoa, it looked sooo good! The colors are so vivid and eye catching. Little One Valenzuela took her time to stare at the cake and cupcakes with awe and delight. 

Little Mermaid themed cake and cupcakes by Mirage Cakes

A closer look at the Little Mermaid themed cake by Mirage Cakes. 

The Little Mermaid themed cake was such a gorgeous work of art. If you will look closely at the photo above, high attention to detail is given to each embellishment. Mom and daughter loved every inch of the cake! On the other hand, the cupcakes were topped with various shells and starfishes. When it was time to distribute them to the guests, the cupcakes topped with Flounder (Ariel's best friend in the movie) were the first ones to go.

The cupcakes were so pretty that Abbey even got hold of the Flounder topped cupcake and asked the photographer to snap a shot.

Christine of Mirage Cakes and Little One Valenzuela pose for a shot.

How about the taste? It really took a while before the cake was eaten. It's too beautiful! Three days after the event, Little One Valenzuela shared the cake with a few close friends in a post party merienda. One Valenzuela carefully removed the mermaid on top before slicing the cake (PS: Saved the pretty lass! No mermaid was harmed during the process. ^_^).

Yummy noms! The cake base flavor is banana chocolate chip. One Valenzuela highly recommend that you also try this too when you order at Mirage Cakes.

Thank you, Christine for the fantastic cake and cupcakes!

Mirage Cakes

Owner and Cake Artist: Christine P. Janer

Contact Number: (02) 444-5530   0917-5602719

Address: Ristoretto 119D Mc Arthur Highway, Marulas, Valenzuela City (in front of Fatima University, near Jollibee)

Check Mirage Cakes’ Facebook page here.
UPDATE as of May 4, 2015: Do take note that Mirage Cakes is now temporarily based at Novaliches but they still do free meet ups at South Supermarket (Malinta, Valenzuela City). Mirage Cakes also makes deliveries to clients. Contact Mirage Cakes at 0917-5602719.

Under the Sea Cookies and Chocolate Lollipops by BakeEat

To match the cake, One Valenzuela also surfed the web to look for personalized cookies and chocolate treats. She found BakeEat, owned by Ms. Aura Santos, via Sulit. Since her residence is conveniently located in Malinta, One Valenzuela easily met Aura, discussed the orders, and marveled at how cute her pink oven was!

Blue starfishes and pink clams by BakeEat

One Valenzuela took her orders a day before the party. Aura was so nice that she even made extra shell shaped chocolate lollipops and gave them for free. Thank you so much!

These set of cookies were given as tokens of appreciation to close friends and relatives who rendered sweet messages to the birthday girl. 

Pink and blue chocolate lollipops were placed in the pail.

The cookies and chocolate lollipops were wonderful additions on the DIY cookie buffet. Good thing, One Valenzuela already kept a few pieces before the party started.  The guests loved them so much that these were gone in minutes!

BakeEat
Owner: Aura Santos
Contact Number: (02)352-1088 and (0933)622-9373

Address: Malinta, Valenzuela City (near Andok’s)
Check out BakeEat's Facebook page here.

Writing this made One Valenzuela crave for something sweet to munch on. Haist! Kindly check out Part 2  and 3 of this post for more sweet and delish treats.

See also:
Max's Restaurant Puregold Valenzuela Branch
Under the Sea DIY birthday invitations

Fortune Cookies by Ms. Fortune Cookie
Sweet Treats from SM and South Supermarket Valenzuela

Tarpaulin by Hyram Digital Printing

Photography and Video Coverage by Lei-Onne Studio

Lechon by Jhun’s Lechon

Projector Rental in Valenzuela City

Belle Mascot and Bubble Show

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Had a birthday party for your kid too? How was it, fellow Valenzuelano?
Write a sweet note below. Would love to hear from you.

Little One Valenzuela’s Birthday: Party Venue and Guest Invitations

Birthdays are very special. It is the time when you, usually together with a group of relatives and friends, reminisce and celebrate the day you were born.  One Valenzuela and her family would usually have a good time and eat out on such affairs, always opting for a simple celebration. And, uhm, they were not fond of big parties.

This particular occasion broke their usual mantra. To celebrate Little One Valenzuela’s birthday, they decided to make it extra special. Hello, children’s party! (Woooh, pressure!)

One Valenzuela tried her best to contact and coordinate with birthday suppliers within the city though she still had to source some stuff from neighboring places and, yeah, Davao too!. In this particular post and the next write ups to follow, she will be discussing their experience in putting together this not-so-little event for Little One Valenzuela.

Party Venue at Max’s Restaurant Puregold Valenzuela

Max's Restaurant Puregold Valenzuela Branch

One Valenzuela’s hubby said that you can never go wrong with Max’s. True enough, their family has eaten at their branch in SM Valenzuela for quite a number of times and has since been satisfied with whatever they order. They initially chose the branch in the mall but after inquiring, they learned that Max’s SM Valenzuela do not have a big space to cater for parties. The staff suggested that they try out the branch which has recently re-opened at Puregold Valenzuela.

Each table can seat up to ten adults. 

One Valenzuela adding a pail of fortune cookies from Ms. Fortune Cookie to go along with the table set up of Max's.

Max’s Restaurant in Puregold Valenzuela has Maximo Hall, a function room that can accommodate up to 100 people. They have various packages available for baptismal, wedding, and birthday parties. The family chose Max's Princess Palace birthday party to fit the Little Mermaid theme that Little One Valenzuela requested. Amenities include free use of the function room for two hours, birthday theme cake, party loot bags, invites, name tags, party hats, game prizes, mascot appearance (not available in this branch), and party host.

Max's cake

Party hats fit for the princes and princesses in the party.

For the food, they opted for Menu 2 which included the following: Nachos with Bangus Spread, Soup of the Day, Pancit Canton, Halabos na Hipon, Beef Caldereta, Bagnet with Poqui-poqui, Open Fresh Lumpia, Max's Regular Fried Chicken, Buko Pandan, Rice, and Drinks. For the kids, they chose Set B which included a piece of chicken, spaghetti, juice, and ice cream (click link for Max's Official Website. You may also download their birthday party brochure from the site).

Sarap to the Max! Food waiting to be served.

Hello, kids! Enjoy the food. :)

The food was good and overflowing! The guests even got to take home some of the leftovers (One Valenzuela agrees with Anabelle Rama that food should not be wasted!). Everyone went home with happy tummies.  Special mention goes to Sara who served as the host of the party for being accommodating, staying cool under pressure, and being very easy to talk with.

Ms. Sara of Max's

Max's pink loot bags

The birthday package could have been perfect if Max's Restaurant Puregold Valenzuela only had the mascot which was said to be included in the amenities (Sara promptly informed us while still in the process of inquiring that they do not have a mascot. Hubby later on asked One Valenzuela to look for a mascot for the party.) and if the design of the delivered cookies  was correct (Got baptismal designed cookies at the end of the party which did not jive with the theme. Still, the cookies were really yummy!). Amidst those minor areas for improvement, hubby said that Max’s Puregold Valenzuela has delivered what he was primarily aiming for. That is, to make the guests happy and busog (full) to the Max.

Max’s Restaurant Puregold Valenzuela

Contact Number: (02)287-6600

Address: G/F Puregold Arcade, Mc Arthur Highway, Brgy. Dalandanan, Valenzuela City

Message in a Bottle Invitation

Although Max’s already had thirty invitation cards included in the package, One Valenzuela still made that extra effort to make Message in a Bottle invitations to go with the Little Mermaid theme. This is a DIY project that One Valenzuela made herself together with some help from good friends (Thank you, Sir D and Kaloy!). Some of the materials used in the invitation such as the bottles and shells were from Divisoria while the paper twine, sticker paper, and cardboard came from South Supermarket Valenzuela. She bought some sand too for that extra oomph.The “Under the Sea” related images for the invitation came from the web.  Judging from how some invited guests described it, One Valenzuela guesses that the end product was quite decent.

Under the Sea inspired invitation

Wait for One Valenzuela's next posts!

Up Next:

Cake by Mirage Cakes

Under the Sea Cookies and Chocolate Lollipops byBake Eat

Fortune Cookies by Ms. Fortune Cookie
Sweet Treats from SM and South Supermarket Valenzuela

Tarpaulin by Hyram Digital Printing

Photography and Video Coverage by Lei-Onne Studio

Lechon by Jhun’s Lechon

Projector Rental in Valenzuela City

Belle Mascot and Bubble Show
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Where did you celebrate your kid's birthday this year, fellow Valenzuelano?
Got a tip or two? Please leave a message below. Thank you!

Just Reached the Doorstep: Valenzuela Ngayon Magazine

When One Valenzuela  was about to throw the garbage bag yesterday, she was a bit puzzled to see a glossy magazine sealed in plastic in front of their main gate. Errr, what was that? Did not subscribe to any magazine so far. After picking it up, she exclaimed "Wow, Valenzuela Ngayon! Bongga ah. Lume-level up!". 

Front cover of Valenzuela Ngayon: Ang Magasin ng Makabagong Valenzuelano

One Valenzuelano liked how the magazine  delivered so much information about the city's progress on various concerns which basically dealt with the five pillars of good governance: education, health, work, housing, trade and industry. Scanning through the 43 pages of the magazine, One Valenzuela realized that she has missed quite a lot of activities in the city (blame it on her 8 to 5 work that she loves). 

The lay out of the magazine is easy on the eye.

The DVD that one will also find in this issue includes short video clips which discuss many of the points that you will see in the magazine. One particular program which stuck on One Valenzuela's mind is 3S Plus (Simple, Speed, and Service, Plus for Technology).  Mayor Rex and the narrator explained how it works and the advantages that it brings to Valenzuelanos.  Other videos that she can still remember after watching the DVD last night were about Valenzuela Trabaho.gov.ph, the Disiplina Village located at Ugong as well as the new village soon to rise at Bignay.

This particular issue (Year 8, No. 2, June 2014) has a DVD inside.

What else would she like to read about in the next issues to come? One Valenzuela hopes that a need for a public library be realized soon. She has faith that someday, the city shall have a resource center where children can attend to regular storytelling activities and watch short videos, teenagers can check out growing up novels in both digital and book forms, adults can enjoy some quick reads and catch up on the latest trends, and senior citizens sipping coffee while reading newspaper in the morning. A good friend has also mentioned that a housing program for city government employees should also be carried out in the future, knowing that many still do not have their own houses. A mother One Valenzuela met expressed her wish to help her husband to earn more if only there was a safe place to leave her toddlers. One Valenzuela believes that every Valenzuelano has an idea of his own on how to make the city better in every way.

Still, we should always remember that successful cities are not built overnight. Each of us are accountable in Valenzuela City's progress. Ano pa bang maiaambag ko para sa bayan ko? The simplest acts of caring such as not throwing your candy wrapper on the streets and following traffic regulations can go a long way. Though the said acts do not get published in newspapers or announced in the television, these certainly help our city's development.

To sum it up, Valenzuela Ngayon magazine is a medium that Valenzuelanos can check out to know more about the various happenings in the city. It is among the dependable channels of information that one can rely on for more information about Valenzuela. If One Valenzuela were to give it a rating, she would say that it has exceeded her expectations. 

Until the next post, fellow Valenzuelanos!

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Have you read the magazine too?