It’s another Hump Day giveaway and the prize is still $62 for one lucky participant. This week, we’re focusing on Google+ and Google Friend Connect. But, we joined here for Certified Foodies Google+ page. Please add us to your circles, eh?

The winner from our last Hump Day giveaway hasn’t been announced yet since we’re still verifying the entries. We’ll keep you posted on this.

This time, it’s just one group and one $62 prize at stake. Here are our fellow sponsors for this round:

We decided to join a group of bloggers who love hosting giveaways to give you Hump Days where you can win $50. The mechanics are usually just focused on one task, and for this week, it’s subscribing to email or RSS feeds of the hosts’ blogs.

There are 2 groups this time so that means you get 2 chances to win $50.00. We’re part of group 1 and here are our fellow hosts for this giveaway:

Here are the rest of the hosts from Group 1:

REMINDERS:

- On the first MANDATORY entry, make sure you enter Certified Foodies as your referrer. Once you complete this and the second mandatory task, others will then be revealed to you.

- You can subscribe through email directly or through your RSS reader.

- You can only join once and you will only get a maximum of 33 entries. If you exceed that, we will check the validity of your entries.

- Make sure you use only ONE name and email address for your entries.

- By joining this giveaway, you agree to the Terms and Conditions on the bottom of the form. Contest is open from Wednesday, January 25th, 12:01am EST to January 26th,10:59am EST (January 25th, 1:01pm Philippine time to January 26th, 11:59pm Philippine time).

Ready? Please wait for Rafflecopter to load after the jump. Good luck!

I have something to confess. I haven’t been to Boracay. Supposedly, after Ken’s graduation from Nursing (yes, he’s an RN and an RM too! ), we were going on a vacation there. But, I was sick so they went without me. I’m pretty jealous of the stories I’ve heard from them and from my friends who’ve been to Boracay because of their stories about the beautiful beaches, the people, activities and, of course, the food. One of the restaurants I’ve heard people raving about was Aria Cucina Italiana.

Briefly, Aria Cucina Italiana is an Italian restaurant in Boracay (D’Mall) known for its modern and contemporary take on the flavors of Italy, particularly inspired by the coastal regions of the Mediterranean.They opened in 2003 and became popular for their homemade pastas, salads, woodfire oven-baked pizzas, and excellent wine list.

A couple of days ago, we received news that they’re coming to Manila. They are finally opening a store in Bonifacio High Street Central in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig on January 28, 2012. Along with the news was an invite to dine at their restaurant. So, we just can’t wait for Aria Cucina Italiana to open its doors this coming week.

Here are a few teaser photos of the food you can savor at Aria Cucina Italiana:

Fettucine Nere in Crema di Mare

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR, fellow foodies! 2011 has been a very fruitful year for us and we can’t thank you enough! We’ll be doing a separate year-ender post of our favorite food / dishes / restos for 2011 PLUS our blog’s new theme. For now, though, we’re excited to bring you another giveaway where you can win Php 5,000 CASH from Unionbank My Easy Loans.

Some of you may ask how we came up with the name of our blog. Why Certified Foodies? It’s truly because we love everything and anything related to food and its enjoyment.  The discovery of different flavors, how it affects our mood and even relationships, how every one of us has our own capacity to tolerate certain levels of a certain flavor, the welcome modern twists that we now see being applied on traditional cuisines, the wonderful memories a dish or even a certain aroma can bring back, and the adventure of challenging your tastebuds or just trying out something new are among the reasons why this blog came to existence.

With that, we’ve got good news for you fellow certified foodies! Tell us about your love for food for a chance to win Php 5,000 in CASH in Unionbank’s My Easy Loans Twitter contest. It’s not yet too late to treat your friends or family to an ultimate food trip!

CONTEST PERIOD: January 2 to 8, 2012 (yayyy for the new year!)

PRIZE: Php 5,000 CASH

MECHANICS:

1. Eligibility: This contest is open to Filipinos residing in the Philippines for at least a year, at least 18 years of age at the time of joining, and must have a Twitter account with at least 15 Twitter followers.

I know, it’s December and the cool breeze we get now even in the afternoon might not put you in the mood for anything iced or cold, but I just got to tell you a promo Gelatissimo is offering to anyone who’s subscribed to their newsletter – a free scoop of their featured gelato for every scoop you buy.

Currently, you can avail of their buy one, take one promo on their 16 chocolate gelato flavors with their Christmas of Chocolate promo. Take note that this is only available until January 8th!

These are the 16 chocolate flavors you can choose from: Veronese Chocolate, Chocolate Fondant, Chocolate Sorbet, Belgian Chocolate, White Chocolate, Chocolate Truffle, Black Forest, Milk Chocolate, Chocolate Almond, Chocolate Orange, Chocolate Ganache, Chocolate Rum Cake, Chilli Chocolate and Sugar-free Chocolate.

You MUST present the voucher that they send out to their newsletter subscribers for you to avail of this. Simply go to the Gelatissimo website and click on the register link under “Join our Mailing List” on the right. If you’ve already subscribed and haven’t received the voucher yet, leave your email below and we’ll forward it to you.

Last October, Ken and I were invited to try out C2 Classic Cuisine Restaurant’s Signature Series featuring Pinoy Favorites like their own version of Kare-kare and Bangus Belly (our post about this is up next!). Since the closest to us was C2 in Cravings Katipunan, there we went.

As soon as we entered the restaurant, this display of cakes made us look forward to the end of our meal. Our invite from C2 didn’t include desserts, but we found out Cravings has an Unlimited Cakes and Coffee promo for only Php 150 per person. How can we pass that up?!

Their unlimited menu includes a wide selection of cakes, but you can only order their four featured cakes at the time you were dining in. When we were there though, we had five different cakes because we had to stay a bit longer as Ken prepared a list for our shopping for our birthday celebration.