At the risk of sounding whiny, I'd like to share my lamentation about the state of convenience…read morestores in the country. Japan really ruins a lot of things for you, and after being exposed to their convenience stores some 12 years ago, I have come to call our version - inconvenience stores, because they contained practically nothing. Fast forward to ten years later, and I could not be happier about the changes in the convenience stores category. The entry of Family Mart and Circle K have helped shake up the competition, and we are seeing greatly improved store operations with better offerings for us consumers. Circle K is one or the newest entrants in the category. A US brand, the chain is being operated by the same group as Zuellig. The inside is roomy and very premium. The food offerings like the hotdog and sausages are imported yet reasonably priced. The ice cream is a favorite! I like the stand-up tables that let customers have a quick meal - encourages fast turn around of consumers and yet allowing them a convenient place to have a meal. This is a good convenience store concept.

Convenience stores, like coffee shops, are sprouting like crazy in Bonifacio Global City. I think…read morethis is a sign that the market here is booming as more and more people decide to work and live in the area. Among the first ones to get a whiff of the booming trend was Circle K, an international brand of convenience stores that was one of the pioneer establishments of its kind in BGC. It is situated in front of a park and near the busy Bonifacio High Street, so it's often filled with customers buying water, energy drinks, and snacks. Compared to the big convenience stores that we are familiar with, Circle K's layout is a bit different. I noticed that it's focus is more on giving customers more choices and options for freshly prepared meals and quick bites than selling items off the shelves. The layout of the store is proof to this. The portion dedicated to meals prepared on the spot is a lot bigger than the area alllowed for display racks of junk foods and ready-to-eat items. If you are looking for office supplies, cleaning materials or even personal hygiene products, this is not the place to go. But if you want affordable and delicious siomai, good cup of coffee or pocket-friendly combo rice meals, then this is the right convenience store for you.

Nice convenience store. Stopped by here to get some bottled water. They had a buy 1 get 1 UCC…read morecoffee for 53php. It was good.

Our original plan was to buy some bottled water, but the cookie display near the cash register was…read morecalling me. I had to answer that call. I was happy with the width of the Chocolate Walnut Cookie Php42 and its height was reasonably thin. After closely observing the texture of the cookie through the food display's glass, my gut told me it was chewy; not chunky. And I hit the jackpot! Around halfway through, I was getting a bit bored with the overall flavor. I might've appreciated this more with a glass or bottle of milk (so I can dunk it)!

This is one interesting 7 Eleven…read more It's so tiny and yet twenty people can fit in this place. You'll hear a lot of "Excuse me" and "Ay sorry po!" 'cause people tend to step on each others' feet when a place is small. People insist on coming here because this 7 Eleven has a great selection of drinks. And I'm not talking about the regular beer and vodka and Tanduay Ice. They have legit drinks. The kind you usually buy at big groceries. For those who can't seem to give up smoking and have switched to Esse Pop and are fooling themselves, it's a pretty light cigarette, well, this 7 Eleven always has Esse Pop. They never run out. While you're at it, you can pay all your bills in this little shop. I've seen people pay for their water, electricity and sometimes their cable.

I bought a 7-11 card a few months back, and since then, I've gotten 60 points from it. Take note, a…read morepoint is equivalent to 50 pesos, so I've spent approximately 3000 pesos on 7-11. Considering that the bulk of what I actually buy from 7-11 is mostly just nuts and coffee, and I only remember to give my card around half the time I go there, I'm kind of amazed at how much I've spend at 7-11 in such a short time. And that in itself is a testament to how 7-11 is fucking everywhere. By everywhere, I mean literally, I have come across a situation where we were in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Pampanga and the literal only thing for like a dozen kilometers that you could find was a small gas station and a 7-11. I was very confused upon seeing it, but there ya go. You know what's in 7-11. They have decent food, every convenience item in the books, and just recently got surprisingly good coffee machines in pretty much every stall. Really, 7-11 is like an all-powerful overseer of the world that takes care of us. Or something like that.

There are many ways that Good Day Premium Convenience Store can make your day, uhm, good. Located…read moreat the ground floor of Pacific Star Building in Makati Avenue, this establishment offers first-rate items that may not be available in other 24/7 stores. This branch has a small floor space but it's jam packed with hard-to-find brands of cup noodles, chips, and chocolates. I'm particularly impressed that they have a wide variety of imported instant coffees, including Japanese brands. The White Owl coffee packets are my favorite, they come in different flavors and blends. Good Day's delicious and relatively affordable meals, salads, pasta, and breads are another reason to like the store. The Chicken ala King and Chicken Curry rice meals are golden finds. But if you're famished, having just one of their rice meals may not be enough to satisfy your hunger because of the small serving portions. On a final note, Good Day offers additional services that include ATM's and a Western Union kiosk.

There's a shortage of convenience stores in the area of Pacific Star for those who are too lazy to…read morecross the expanse of Makati Avenue or Buendia. This is why I was so happy when I discovered Good Day in Pacific Star's Times Square - now I don't have to run across multiple lanes, trying not to end up as roadkill, just to get myself an iced coffee. Even though Good Day's a bit small-ish compared to the nearby Mini Stop and 7-11, it has everything you need to keep yourself away during another long day at the office. I usually exploit this to the fullest extent all the damn time.

Budget Mart is a newly opened (currently on its soft opening) convenience store near my place. Its…read moretarget market is obviously the masses, and everything about its branding screams a "masa" version of Mini Stop. I thought it was weird though. Isn't Mini Stop not masa enough? What is this store trying to accomplish? Then again, I look at their tagline and its location. I finally get it. If I was one of the target market, it'd feel more of my place. For one, the brands of products they carry here are mostly local. When you usually find korean stuff in Mini Stop and 7-Eleven, they have all-Filo products. The prices are little less like a few pesos, but every peso counts in the Philippines, anyway. I wouldn't be too sure about its fate though, after all, as I mentioned, it's still on its soft opening. But basically, it's just another convenience store with a new name. I wish it success though. It'd suck if they close down. That would mean I would need to walk twenty steps more to reach Ministop and get the day's bag of tube ice!

I used to be a 7-Eleven girl, for reasons such as they have decent fruits, soy milk, and a good…read moreselection of fruit juices. However, when Family Mart hit the metro, I'm sorry 7-Eleven, but this place has much better options for vegans. For vegans, it used to be just their fruit bowl, brewed coffee, Korean kimchi noodles, fruit beverages (they have a lot of good bottled juices like cranberry, grape, etc), and cold soba noodles. But, around 2 months ago or so, I noticed that they had something very promising on their prepared meals shelf, which is the Veggie Sticks with Hummus! Okay, so don't expect hummus as good as Beni's or anything, as it's pretty thick in consistency (imagine a paste), and paired with celery, jicama and carrot sticks--it makes for a decent snack. When I get this, I also get either the Vitamilk soy milk (energy drink variety as this is vegan and the plain one isn't) or their brewed coffee. Their coffee is actually UCC, so you can be assured that it is pretty decent for just around Php 60.

I'm so happy that I get to pass by this particular Family Mart on the way to work. I find myself…read morewalking along Makati's near empty streets during early mornings and I walk into this place to buy lunch. The nice thinking about my work is that lunch is on the house. I can basically buy what I want and have my employer reimburse me for it. Family Mart has a huge collection of food that I haven't tried. The best thing about their selection is that it has sushi. I can now eat sushi on a daily basis without having to worry about the cost. I tried their garden salad during my first day. The only thing I have to say is that I wish they added a little bit more dressing. After splashing all the dressing on my greens I saw that there were more veggies than dressing, not that it should be the other way around mind you, but there's just not enough the stuff to go around. I ended up enjoying other bites more than some of the others simply because it had more dressing than the rest.

Guadalupe Nuevo is one of the busiest MRT and bus stops along the northbound lane of Edsa. People…read morewho live in nearby barangays, such as Pinagkaisahan, Pitogo and Cembo, usually pass this area on their way to and from work. Thus, it's not surprising that there are a lot of establishments in the vicinity that are open 24 hours. One such place is the JK Humanbond Mart and Pharmacy, located at the ground floor of Hotel Sogo Guadalupe. It is open 24/7. I usually stop by the mart to buy water or candies before riding the bus plying along Edsa. The store isn't big, but they sell necessities like bottled water, food items, and toiletries. Since it's also a pharmacy, you can buy medicines here. But I noticed their stocks are mostly limited to over-the-counter and commonly prescribed medications. There are parking slots for about three cars in front of the establishment but since Magsaysay Avenue is a busy and narrow street, getting in and out of the parking slot may be a challenge especially during rush hours.

My area is one of the busiest but most convenient places in the Metro. I'm actually lucky to be…read moreliving here. The traffic of potential market for most businesses is incredible, and it's literally a street that never sleeps. (Right now, there are still tawaran sessions happening at the market downstairs at 1 AM, get a load of that!) And one of the places that literally never sleeps is this JK Pharmacy store which I still refer to as "K2 Drug". (Self, get on with the times, will ya?) That used to be its name, actually. I don't know what happened. It was renovated and stuff, etc. and re-opened as JK Mart. ANYWAY, I love that this place is so near. When my cats get sick, I just do a cartwheel and I have a bottle of Amoxicillin drops ready to save their lives. I can even get away without prescription (Well, I ask my vet friends and they tell me to go buy whatever through phone. Ain't nobody got time for prescriptions!) I just tell JK Mart I need this for my cats, and viola. I have the drugs. I don't really know if that's good or bad, or am I just an exception because they know me or something, though... They are forever open, so I go here for midnight snacks and emergency Yakisoba (Spicy Chicken) hoarding sprees. They're a hybrid of convenience store and infant/pedia/generics shops that it's provided Guadalupians a place to run to late at night for (hopefully) not too grave necessary medicine buys. Let's face it, even if another nearby similar store, Mercury Drug towards Edsa has a lot more to offer, it just takes ten thousand years! (And it has never changed for the 20 years I've been going there, really). I love this place, and I give it five stars because it's awesome.

Are you craving for Korean food, want to shop for them for your grocery stock at home and basically…read moreteleport to Korea for a while? Go to Wang Mart! Yes, folks. That's the name. Don't wear it out, haha. I can practically hear some of you snickering while reading the name (LOL) but let's all be mature adults here and focus on the important thing. The food! Get this, it's an affordable restaurant AND a grocery store that especially sells authentic Korean food and goods. Whattt? Yes, please! They sell literally everything. You can order cooked food like vegetable pancakes, rice cake, kimbap, Ramyun (spicy noodles with seaweed & egg plus unlimited kimchi), bulgogi and many more. They also have a bakery. For the groceries, they have pickled chilies, tofu, different kinds of mushrooms, sesame oil, Korean chips and drinks...you name it. Korean ice cream is the best so watch out for those (I loveee Melona & Samanco). I also always buy their kimchi. My family loves it especially my dad. He can eat kimchi with anything and everything! And it's open 8am - 2am! If you need a Korean food fix late at night or early in the morning or any time of the day really, this grocery store-slash-restaurant is perfect for you.

Whenever I need or want some sort of Korean ingredient or snack, I head over to Wang Mart. Located…read morein what is known as Makati's Koreatown, Wang Mart is actually much bigger than any other Korean grocer or convenience store I've been to. Inside are rows of shelves stacked to the brim with goods straight from Korea. There's also a chiller at the back of the grocer thats got a lot of frozen meats for your next big Korean home-cooked feast. Aside from the grocer, Wang Mart also houses a small restaurant although I've never actually seen anyone eat here. What I love most about Wang Mart is that it's open till very late, so in case you're craving for some good Korean ice cream in the early hours of the morning, you know where to go.