Authentic Kulawo at Sulyap Gallery Cafe

I have to say it straight away. Nobody cooks Kulawo better than my aunts and uncles back in Sta Catalina (Sandig), here in San Pablo. Their kulawo has a very earthy, very countryside flavor that can't be replicated here at home or found at restaurants.

That said, the next best thing is Sulyap Gallery Cafe's version at Brg. Del Remedio, Cocoland Compound, San Pablo City.

There are two types of kulawo that's made here. One is made from eggplant and the other is made from banana hearts, the latter being my favorite.

We ordered Sulyap's version of the banana hearts kulawo, which comes with a generous helping of awesome, awesome grilled pork belly. We had also ordered their eggplant version previously which is also very good, but I just really love the banana hearts one.

If you haven't tasted kulawo yet, it's basically the aforementioned main ingredients cooked with vinegar, onion and coconut milk squeezed from toasted coconut meat shavings. The authentic way is to put the shavings into a metal pot, throw in some live coconut coals and just let it burn the shavings. After that's done, remove the remaining coals, let it cool and then squeeze the milk from it. It is quite unlike anything you've tasted before.

Another thing we ordered was their Ginatang Sugpo, or large shrimp cooked in coconut milk. It's pretty common to have so much food cooked with coconut milk here in San Pablo due to the abundance of coconut. Sulyap's version is very very good. It's just like how your mom would make it.

Any visitors to San Pablo wishing to taste authentic Southern Tagalog dishes ought to head to Sulyap Gallery Cafe, not only for the food, but for the incredible ambiance. Their dining rooms are spread out among restored Spanish style houses nestled in beautiful gardens. None of the dining areas are air conditioned but it's so pretty and so oozing with history and culture that you wouldn't mind.

Sulyap is not only a place you can eat, but they also have rooms available if you want to stay overnight. They have a pool, and they have a museum! This is truly one of the must visit places whenever you go to San Pablo City.

Sulyap Gallery Cafe's website:
http://www.sulyap.net/

Tomoe Japanese Restaurant, San Pablo City

A new Japanese restaurant has just opened here in San Pablo within the last couple of months, the Tomoe Japanese Restaurant, Tepanyaki, Sushi, Ramen House. It's on the second floor of the Shell gas station almost across Shakey's restaurant along Maharlika Highway.

Since it's new, of course me and Ilyn just had to check it out. Well, me mostly. I'm the one most excited about Japanese restaurants anyway. This place is far easier for me to access than the other new Japanese place at San Benito near the San Pablo City/Alaminos boundary. It's far easier to commute to and from the place because it's nearer the city proper.

And of course, this may well be the first Teppanyaki restaurant in San Pablo. I had to look up what that means. It means the chef cooks your food in front of you using a large steel plate. The last time I ate at this kind of joint was in Greenhills back in 1995.

There is an inside section with two huge tables which include the cooking plates and an outside section for non-Teppanyaki fare. We prefer to sit outside because it was cooler, specially with the Christmas cool air already coming in. It was a bit hot inside with all the cooking going on. Outside I had a full view of the Teppanyaki chef doing his thing. He's the only one with the full chef get up and he's the only one in red. He's so fascinating to watch. He's quite a showman. Very entertaining. He's sort of a cross between a samurai, a chef and a juggler.

Well, what about the food? Whenever I try a new Japanese restaurant, my order is always pretty standard: The Miso Soup (pictured above) and some kind of Sushi or Sashimi Platter. There wasn't a Sashimi Platter so I ordered the Nigiri Sushi Platter.

It's a nice selection of standard Sushi stuff: Salmon, Tamago, Tuna, Crab, Shrimp, some kind of roe, which I haven't seen on any Sushi platter before.

The Miso Soup was better than most I've tried. It captured the perfect balance of flavors that I prefer in Miso soups. The serving was also quite ample. It was actually enough for two people.

All in all I enjoyed the meal. The waiters were very attentive. I've really got nothing to complain about.

However, I did eat my sushi the way I wanted it, and not the way some Sushi etiquette police may want me to eat it. Yeah, so I made a thick soup of my soy sauce and wasabe dib. Yeah, so I dipped my sushi RICE SIDE DOWN. I dipped the sushi in there so long the rice was DRENCHED in it. I then ate it whole, pulled my head back and enjoyed the amazing wasabe jolt that streaks through my nostrils. An amazingly intense experience! Do I offend your delicate culinary sensibilities? Well, what do YOU care? Why does ANYONE care? This is my private space, my private time. Stop getting in my face please! I'll eat my sushi the way I want to!

So there!

So yeah! Tomoe Japanese Restaurant! I'm definitely coming back and try the Teppanyaki!

Satori Japanese Restaurant, San Benito, Alaminos

SATORI, a new Japanese restaurant just opened in San Benito, just a few steps from the San Pablo boundary next to Honda San Pablo. I'm always excited when a new restaurant opens. I'm even more excited when it's a Japanese restaurant because I just love Japanese food! Yes, there have been a few Japanese type restaurants in (or near) San Pablo before, but although they were just OK, to be honest, they're just not worth writing about. But Satori is, so here we are.

The first thing I ordered was their Miso Soup, and then their Sashimi platter, which they call "Sashimi Moriawase" (Mixed Sashimi). Based on their menu, this platter should contain Norweigan pink salmon, tamago, sea urchin, crab stick and tiger prawns. The menu didn't say, but there's tuna in there as well. Price was P360 for the platter. As sashimi platters go, this was on the less expensive side (compared to other Japanese restaurants in Manila).  The salmon and tuna were just excellent. They're of course, my favorite sashimi cut. The sea urchin was rather curious. I've had sea urchin before at Haru Sushi Bar in Kapitolyo, and it looked nothing like the sea urchin in this platter. I remember it being really disgustingly slimy like brain matter. But it tasted delicious. I assume the sea urchin in this platter is the one on the far right, which is kind of a dried, preserved version I think. Not as delicious. But just OK. Could it have been eel instead? I don't know. That's what I get for the price I guess, so that's just all right. All in all, I was very satisfied with it.

I also loved their Miso Soup. Not too salty. Not as subtle as I would like, but it's better than most I've had.

Ilyn was with me and she ordered the Beef Curry toppings. She has an issue with the presentation of it, insisting that when a dish is called "toppings" it should be in a rice bowl with the toppings on top. This was on a plate with the toppings on the side. It's cosmetic, of course, but sometimes, presentation does affect your enjoyment of it. Personally, I didn't like the look of this. It should have been better if it had been in a bowl as toppings, or maybe the rice and curry be served in separate bowls. Taste wise, she said it was just OK.

Me, I don't go to Japanese restaurants for curry. It's the raw fish that makes or breaks it for me. I wouldn't mind going back here for another round. If you're looking for the best Japanese restaurant in the San Pablo area, this is definitely it.

Looking around online for other reviews of this restaurant, I came upon this blog. They said when they went there, they were given free soup while they waited for their order. What? Really? We didn't get any. Was it kind of an opening promo? I really don't know. It's just interesting to note. Reading through their blog entry, they got OTHER free stuff. WTF. We're definitely missing out.

SOI at New Glorietta, Makati

We weren't planning on eating at Soi when we went to Glorietta earlier today. In fact, I had decided Ilyn and I would eat at MU Noodle Bar, but that plan went to bust when inattentive waiters made us feel unwanted so we left. Sorry guys. Seminar for your waiters, I guess.

Ok so we wandered around and settled on Soi. I guess we were up for some Thai food. We remember eating at this awesome Thai restaurant in Malate some years ago and that was fantastic.

Anyway I ordered Grilled Squid that had a one pepper rating in terms of spiciness. They call that "Mild". A two pepper rating is considered "Hot". I think I can take mild, no problem. For drinks, I had Pandan Soda.  Ilyn had Thai Kangkong and for drinks Thai Ice Tea.

Our lunch started off pretty nice with a nice complimentary plate of nuts and chips, and a steady stream of cold water. At least here the waiters are far FAR more attentive.

Things started to turn sideways when the drinks arrived. Granted they had some really interesting drinks on the menu. When they arrived, they still looked interesting. After we tasted them well.... Ilyn didn't like the Thai Ice Tea. She said it was a little too heavy and there's something like chocolate in it. Well, that's fine... it's probably really like that and she just doesn't prefer it.

My drink, Pandan Soda, however.... when you order "soda" you have a certain set of expectations. You expect it to be fizzy and bubbly, and you expect it to be cold. When I tasted it however, it was actually kind of warm. Sure there was ice floating on top, but the liquid at the bottom of the glass where the straw reaches... it was WARM. Well OK, maybe that's the way the Thais like it I don't know. But the part about it being "soda", well, that wasn't true. Look, I know soda. I know the texture of soda. This wasn't soda. It wasn't fizzy, and there were no bubbles. Nothing about this drink was soda. It was just pandan tea that was warm with ice on top.

Things got worse when the squid arrived. You know, when you order something "grilled" you have a certain set of expectations. Well one, you expect it to be hot, being fresh from the grill. You might even expect to see it smoke. When it arrived, it didn't look hot to me. I actually touched it and you know what? It wasn't hot at all. In fact, it wasn't even warm. It was room temperature. Like it had been grilled an hour ago and was just served to me. I know that might not be the case, but how else can you explain this squid not being HOT?

Also, the spicy rating was a lie. There was nothing spicy about it. No, my tolerance for spiciness is very low so just a little amount of pepper in dishes I will notice. There was practically no hot pepper in this. It wasn't spicy at all. NOT AT ALL

Thankfully enough, it actually tasted nice. The sauce that came with it was very nice. It's just disappointing that it was neither hot nor spicy.

Ilyn didn't like her Thai Kangkong as well. She said it was too oily. I tasted it and although it also has a "Mild" spiciness rating, there was also nothing spicy about it.

As much as we felt bad about it, we never finished our food or our drinks. I usually gobble up squid because it's a favorite of mine, but this one... I just couldn't. I was just too disappointed.

I didn't finish the drinks too. I was so frustrated that after lunch I went out and got myself a can of Sprite just so I can get that soda fix I didn't get from this so called pandan soda.

No, not returning. Sorry guys. Your waiters are nice though.

Jambalaya

I've cooked this once before but I wasn't in a blogging mood back then. I decided to try again and now I thought I'd write everything down. This recipe is more or less heavily inspired by Chef John's Jambalaya Recipe without much modifications aside from doubling the quantities.

I didn't make any adaptations to make the recipe more Filipino by replacing ingredients with more familiar ones. I didn't replace the sausage with longganisa for instance. As far as I know I've used  ingredients they do use from its place of origin.

For instance, I would not have attempted to do this without Andouille Sausages. That is the one ingredient a true jambalaya can't do without. So when I found a couple of packages of Andouille Sausages in a deli in Manila, I decided I'll cook this recipe again.

These are my ingredients:

500 grams Andouille Sausages, cut into circles.
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
400 grans can Capri whole peeled tomatoes
2 large green bell pepper, chopped into cubes
4 sticks celery sliced thinly
1 bunch green onions, sliced thinly
2 cups rice
6 cups chicken broth
750 grams shrimp, peeled and cleaned

This is how you do it:  At medium heat melt the butter in a deep pot and sautee the Andouille sausages for 3 minutes. Add the paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper and continue stirring for the next 2 minutes. Add the bay leaves, salt and the tomatoes. Break up the tomatoes with your big spoon and let simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the bell pepper, celery and most of the green onions (reserve some for toppings later). Stir for a couple of minutes.

Clean the rice and add it to the pot. Add the 6 cups of chicken broth, cover, and allow to simmer at low heat for 45 minutes.

There is a danger that rice will stick at the bottom of the pot so it might do you well to stir this every once in a while. 6 cups of chicken broth to 2 cups of rice might seem a lot, but you'll be surprised how all that liquid will get absorbed within the next 20 or so minutes, so much so that you might want to add small amounts of water here and there so it won't dry out completely.

Keep tasting it if you need to add salt and to check if the rice is cooked or not.

Once you think the rice is just about to be cooked, add the shrimp, and keep stirring  for the next few minutes.Medium sized shrimp should be cooked in about 3-4 minutes. Just keep cooking until the rice is completely cooked and soft.

Once it's done, place your Jambalaya on a serving dish and sprinkle on the remaining green onion on top.

David's Tea House, San Pablo CIty

My mom has been bugging me about eating at this new restaurant that was under construction for the past few weeks at Puregold, San Pablo City. It came to the point that she was bugging me almost everyday why the place wasn't open yet and of course I had no answer.

Personally, I'm always on the lookout for a new place to eat here in the city, and when I saw that David's Tea House was the name of the restaurant, I immediately looked it up online. It's one of many branches of a Chinese themed restaurant, and their menu looked really promising. To be quite honest, I was very excited. We do have a few Chinese themed restaurants in town, but David's Tea House looks like it's the most hardcore of the bunch. Hardcore meaning their menu is very deep with a lot of exotic and authentic Chinese dishes.

When I learned it had finally opened yesterday, I immediately set a date with the family to have lunch the following day, today.

I was so excited that I probably ordered more than we could possibly eat, but I wanted to try a lot of things and of course, we could have leftovers bagged for dinner. Some of the things had aside from the Seaweed and Century Egg pictured above were:

Hot and Sour Soup

One Half Fried Chicken

One Half Yang Chow Fried Rice and Beef with Ampalaya

Dimsum Platter

Hakaw

Shanghai Spring Rolls

Steamed Lapu-Lapu

WHEW! That was a lot huh? But I tasted them all, and all of them were pretty good.

I do have to give special mention to the Seaweed and Century Egg, which was just fantastic. I've never had seaweed before, at least not like this one. I was half expecting the green rubbery stems with tiny little balls, so this was some other kind of seaweed. It was served cold, which was a surprise. But as I said, it tasted quite extraordinary. Everyone on the table liked it.

Also, the the Century Egg was thankfully free of the ammonia smell that usually accompanies this type of egg. And that's how I like it. As dishes go, I give this 5 stars. I don't give this often, so that's probably saying something.

As for the rest, as I mentioned, they were perfectly good. I liked everything, specially the Hakaw and other items on the Dimsum Platter. The Hot and Sour soup was subtlety sour and not overpowering.

Their house tea (which is a complimentary item) was very nice. I was surprised it was Jasmine Tea. Normally, I hate Jasmine Tea because it smells like a Filipino wake. You know that smell. Similar to Sampaguita. That smell creeps me out now and depresses me. I don't want to be drinking anything that smells like that as well. But this Jasmine tea was nothing like that. When told it was Jasmine, I did start to notice subtle hints of it, but it wasn't enough to bother me.

I've really got nothing to complain about. The wait staff was very very attentive. They were very nice and even helped my mom and dad place food on their plates. The food arrived in a timely manner and we didn't have to wait for too long.

The only thing that disappointed me was that they didn't have any duck dishes. In fairness, it's not on their menu. It's not even on the menu on their website. But they do have a photo of it at that same website so it only made me wonder. I asked why they didn't have it, and they said that not enough people order the duck and the stocks just go to waste. Oh well.

Nevertheless, we had a great time. The food was great, and now my mom can stop bugging me.

Yep! Looks like we're a pretty happy bunch, specially my mom.

We definitely plan on coming back, specially me and Ilyn, to try their other dishes.

Food Network, San Pablo City

Food Network is a very new restaurant that opened practically within the last few weeks here in San Pablo City. I first noticed the place walking down Barleta St. coming from either Simple Treats or Middle Eats. It's located just a few meters down Barleta Street from the Q9 Tapsilogan.

I immediately noticed the very nice interiors, furniture and lighting. The place didn't look cheap. And when a place doesn't look cheap, to me that means the owners care about the quality of not only the ambiance of the place, but of the food as well.

Tonight Ilyn and I decided to go and try the place out. Inside it was even better. The place looks very nice, and very very clean. It's furnished very simply but elegantly. As I said before, the place didn't look cheap, but the food was surprisingly not that expensive.

Their menu is pretty extensive. They offer a lot of things, and I sense no particular theme. They have pizza, burgers, pasta, sandwiches, rice dishes, grilled dishes, salads, steaks, etc. It was so hard to pick because there was so much stuff that seemed interesting.

So how was the food?

Ilyn and I both had their House Blend Ice Tea, recommended by the waiter. We also both had Asparagus Soup. Ilyn had the Creamed Shrimp, while I had Roasted Chicken with Garlic and Mushroom.

The Asparagus Soup was pretty straightforward. There was nothing extraordinary about it, but it tasted nice and was served very hot. Which is just perfect because it was cold and raining outside. I really can't ask for more of any kind of soup.

The Iced Tea was kind of unusual. It was very frothy and seemed more like a shake rather than a straightforward drink. It tasted different but very nice.

We also both had the Paco Salad, which is a salad I recently cooked myself. So yeah, I guess my standards are pretty high right now when it comes to Paco Salad because I think I made a pretty good one. I'm not sure if they blanched the pako, which isn't really that big of an issue. It can be eaten blanched or not. It was actually very nice. The dressing was very light and didn't overpower the taste of the Pako. The only thing I wish it had was some sort of white cheese, either Kesong Puti or Feta Cheese. That would have made their salad extremely good.

The food didn't take too long to arrive, which is great. Ilyn really liked the Creamed Shrimp, and I really liked their Roast Chicken. I appreciate the effort they take in plating the food, which actually does affect your enjoyment of it although it doesn't really affect the taste in any way. The chicken was soft and very tasty and because I finished it all I must have really liked it.

After our meal they were very nice to offer us a complimentary plate of their special Nachos Salad. We must have liked it a lot too because even though we were already full, we still finished the entire plate. Ilyn thought that this could be better with a third dip that was spicy. I agree because I like spicy myself.

I wanted to have coffee afterwards but was told they only had 3-in-1. I think they would do well to invest even in a simple coffee maker or coffee press. Good brewed coffee in places like this is kind of expected nowadays.

All in all it was a very satisfactory first try. We had a nice time. The staff was very courteous and attentive. I definitely see myself coming back. The place seems a little too small now. At my count it could probably fit 12-15 people inside, plus a few more in the table outside. But it's good to start small, and just expand later on. If they continue to maintain their standards and improve a few more things here and there, I have no doubt they'll develop a loyal customer base from local San Pablo citizens who are looking for a better dining experience that what is locally common.

Their standards are up to there with places like Simple Treats and Middle Eats, and I think it's very nice that more and more of these type of home grown restaurants are popping up in San Pablo.

Food Network is open from 10am to 10pm.

Seafood Bopis

I still do eat meat once in a rare while, but I absolutely no longer eat "lamang loob" or organs. I mean things like lungs, hearts, gizzards, intestines, livers, and the like.

Since "BOPIS" is primarily made of pig's lungs, I've pretty much resigned myself to not being able to eat it ever again.

That is until I made my "Lapu-Lapu Badjao", and I noticed a familiar texture when I chopped up the tahong and halaan together. I thought hey, I could make bopis out of this if I wanted to!

Today was the day to test the theory out.

Here are the ingredients I used:

1-1/2 kilo halaan*
1-kilo tahong*
2 cups coconut milk
4 tablespoons white vinegar
4 green chili peppers (siling haba) chopped finely, seeds removed
2 bird's eye chili chopped finely
1 red bell pepper chopped finely
1 medium sized carrot chopped finely into small cubes
3 tablespoons atsuete (annatto) seeds steeped in 1 cup warm water
5 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, grated
salt
ground black pepper

First thing you do is to steep the atsuete seeds in 1 cup warm water and just leave it as you prepare the other stuff. The atsuete liquid that you would get from here would give the bopis its distinctive yellowish hue.

Steam the halaan and tahong in a steamer until the shells open. This will take only a few minutes. Once cooled, remove the meat from the shells and chop the meat finely. Set aside.

*Take note that the 1-1/2 kilo halaan (clams) and 1 kilo tahong (mussels) are weighed including the shells. You can't get around this as you can't really buy fresh clams and mussels from the local market that already shelled. You will get around 3/4 kilo to 1 kilo meat, which is just perfect for this recipe.

Sautee your garlic and onions in a little bit of oil in a large wok for a few minutes. Add the ginger. Sautee for another minute. Add the halaan and tahong meat. Add 2 teaspoons salt and a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Add your chopped green chilies and chopped bird's eye chillies. Stir. Add the one cup atsuete liquid (don't include the seeds). Stir. Add the vinegar. STOP STIRRING.

Remember when cooking with vinegar, specially on a dish like this, you need to let the vinegar just simmer for a while, un-stirred. So just leave this alone at low heat, covered, for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, add the carrots and 2 cups coconut milk. Now that may seem quite a lot of milk to put into it. You're thinking, holy crap, this looks like soup now. But don't worry. Bring the heat to medium high and bring to a boil. You need to constantly stir this every 30 seconds or so to prevent the meat from sticking to the pan. The heat is on high so that you will slowly reduce the milk, concentrating its flavor into the meat.

After 10 minutes, you will start to notice the milk reducing considerably. Add the red bell peppers at this point and keep stirring.

Taste for salt. At this point I realized I needed to add a little more so I added a pinch more. Continue stirring until the milk is considerably reduced until you have the thick consistency of what bopis should be.

After around 8 more minutes I decided mine was OK and took it off the heat.

I served it with a few chopped green chilies on top and it tasted great.

As an experiment I would say this was an awesome success!

Salmon Spumante at Simple Treats, San Pablo City

"Simple Treats" is a restaurant here in San Pablo City that my wife Ilyn and I go to regularly, but for some reason, I haven't written about it beyond a short mention earlier in this blog about coffee. Yep, they make the best coffee in San Pablo City.

It's about time I talked about their food, which I have enjoyed quite a lot.  Tonight I had "Salmon Spumante" (pictured above), which includes grilled salmon in cream with aioli pasta. The salmon, combined with the cream, was just delicious. The aoili is what I would expect aoili to be, pasta in garlic, olive oil and peppers. It was very nice, although I would have loved a bit of parmesan cheese on it.

Ilyn  had "Grilled Salmon", a dish we've been ordering for a long time. It came with rice and a lemon-butter sauce. It's very nice, as we've always experienced it to be.

Although we did notice both dishes were on the salty side. Perhaps it's our less sodium diet that's affected our taste buds, but that's how it seemed to us.

But beyond that, both dishes were just excellent.

It's the weekend, so there were preparations from some musicians as they set up to start performing at 7pm. They usually have musicians come in Friday to Sunday, who play simple music. One dude just plays guitar one day, and the next day a couple of dudes are on keyboard and violin. They're pretty good too.

Simple Treats is located at the Malinaw Lodge, Zulueta St. Corner Azucena in San Pablo City. It opens at 8am and last orders are taken at 12 midnight.

Simple Treats on Facebook.

Lapu-Lapu Badjao

Holy crap, this is a BIG one. My mom brought out a really old book entitled "The Flavour of Manila" Edited by Kenneth Mitchell, which lists the specialties and recipes of several high end restaurants in Manila popular in the 1970s. My eye gravitated towards this dish called "Lapu-Lapu Badjao", which was the specialty of this restaurant called "Badjao Inn". I don't know if that even exists in Manila anymore, although there is a place with the same name in Palawan. I don't know if it's the same place.

But anyway, I was intrigued by it. I've never seen anything like it, and I've never tasted anything like it. There were no ingredients that were too difficult to find so I decided to attempt doing it. "Attempt" being the operative word.

In any case, I'm posting the recipe here so that probably means it was a resounding success.

Here are the ingredients, slightly modified from the book.

Main dish:

olive oil (for frying)
1 medium sized onion
6 cloves garlic
1 large Lapu-Lapu
1 kilo halaan (the book specifies clams)*
1 kilo tahong (the book specifies mussels)*
1/2 kilo shrimp*
1 green pepper (siling haba)
2 red bird's eye chili**
1/2 inch ginger
8 leaves fresh basil
2 tablespoons kinchay
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
Banana leaf
Aluminum foil

For the garnishing:

olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
8 leaves fresh basil, chopped
10 cloves chopped garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 lemon

Preparation

Steam the tahong and halaan until they open. Take half the halaan, remove the meat and place in a container. Take half the tahong, remove the meat and place in the same container. Take around 3/4 of the shrimp, Remove the shells, devein, and then place in the same container. Allow the halaan and tahong to cool down a bit. Put them all on a chopping board and chop all finely. Place back in the container.

You have some remaining unshelled shrimp and half of both the halaan and tahong still in the shells. Just set them aside for now.

Take the green pepper (siling haba), remove the seeds and chop finely. Chop around 8 big leaves of fresh basil. Chop the same amount of kinchay. Grate the ginger finely with a cheese grater. Chop two red bird's eye chili. Put them all in the same container with the halaan, tahong and shrimp. Mix well.

Cooking

Sautee the garlic and onion in olive oil in a pan for a few minutes on medium-low heat until the onion becomes soft and the garlic becomes slightly brown. The reason why this can't be on high heat is because it will brown the garlic quickly and make it bitter.

Turn the heat to medium high and then throw in the shrimp-tahong-halaan and vegtable mixture you made into the pan. Add the ground black pepper and salt and stir for several minutes until the shrimp is cooked. This is now your stuffing for the fish. Allow to cool for several minutes.

In the meantime, prepare your Lapu Lapu. Cut the stomach side of the fish so you can open it up like a book. Carefully remove the backbone. You can have them do this in the market or do it yourself, although the former is much MUCH easier. Salt the outside of the fish on both sides.

Place a large piece of aluminum foil on a flat surface. Take your banana leaf and pass it carefully and quickly over the fire on your stove to make the leaf more pliable. Place the banana leaf on the aluminum foil. Place the fish on the banana leaf. Open the fish and stuff the cavity with your stuffing. You don't have to jam all the stuffing in. If it's already full, you can set aside extra stuffing in the ref for the meantime (you can make tortang talong out of that if you like at a later time).

Carefully close the fish back up again, and if it doesn't close all the way, that's OK. Wrap the banana leaf completely over the fish, and then wrap the aluminum foil over everything. Make sure it's completely sealed in the foil.

Place the wrapped fish in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for 45-50 minutes.

Garnishing

While the fish is baking, take the tahong and halaan  that's still in the shell that you set aside earlier, and remove half of the shells that do not include the meat.

In a pan, place a small amount of olive oil in a heated pan, add the butter and allow the butter to melt. Add the garlic and stir for a few minutes. Throw in the shrimp and stir until it is almost cooked. Throw in the tahong and halaan, sugar, salt, ground black pepper and chopped basil. Stir on high heat for a few minutes. Turn of the heat and pour in the sesame oil. Stir it well. Set aside to cool.

Slice to lemon into circles.***

Serving

Once the fish is done, carefully remove from the oven and transfer the fish, along with the banana leaf into a serving tray. Decorate the the fish with your tahong, shrimp and halaan, along with the lemon. You can further garnish it with some kinchay leaves and pepper (like in the picture!)

That's it! I was pretty nervous how it would turn out, but it turned out great! Everyone loved it!

****************

*The recipe specifies 100g each of cooked mussels, clams and shrimp. It doesn't take into consideration that when buying from the market, you have to include the weight of the shells, which in the case of tahong and halaan, is quite substantial. It also doesn't take into account additional tahong, halaan and shrimp that's needed to garnish the dish. I added quantities of each accordingly.

**Bird's Eye Chili is different from Siling Labuyo. If you've seen "siling labuyo" sold in the market that's longer than an inch, it's not actually labuyo but Bird's Eye Chili which originates from Taiwan. The true "siling labuyo" is far shorter, and packs a hotter punch.

***The lemon is not just for show. You can use that the squeeze lemon juice into the fish while eating. It gives the fish a much fresher flavor.

Fathers' Day at Savory Restaurant

Of all the restaurants here in San Pablo City, Savory Resturant is my dad's favorite. I think it may even be his favorite restaurant of all time, I suspect for sentimental reasons. He loved eating at this joint back when he was still working in Escolta, Manila, where there was this Savory Restaurant just across from his office. Dad would always wax sentimental about "Miki Bihon Binondo", but he could explain just how different it was from the regular Miki Bihon.

So come Fathers' Day, it was only natural that he'd pick this place to have lunch. SM San Pablo has a branch of it, a rather frustratingly small one, but at least there is one. I say frustratingly small because it is small, almost like just a hole in the wall.

And yesterday during Fathers' Day, the place was already packed as early as 11am with a long waiting list. Hey Savory, time to expand, I think. Take a chunk of McDonald's next door, which is a little too large. They already have several branches in San Pablo already. FOUR branches? They have too much space!

Anyway, we got seats soon enough and we ordered the following:

Dad of course had his favorite Miki Bihon Binondo. The rest were:
1/2 Fried Chicken
Lo Han Chay (Kind of a mixed vegetable stir fry thing)
Shrimp Relleno Roll
Nido Soup

I actually wanted to order their "Kaylan with Garlic" but it was unavailable.

The interesting thing is, this is the first tme I'm eating Nido Soup, also called "Bird's Nest" soup in a restaurant. I've eaten plenty of this through instant packs here at home. But I've never had one made from scratch. The interesting thing is, the main ingredient of this soup is this solid membrane like substance, which turns out to be bird saliva. wtf. For real? Yes, apparently, for real. It tastes interesting, like biting into really soft edible plastic. I know that sounds horrible, but it actually isn't. It's actually very nice.

This ingredient was also prominent in the Lo Han Chay, which as I said was kind of a vegetable stir fry. It included mushrooms, bamboo, mung beans sprouts, young corn, tofu, cabbage, etc. Very nice. Like Chop Suey without the meat, but with more variety of veggies. As usual, it's that sauce that puts it together, a taste that I get only at Chinese restaurants. I can't put my finger on what it is.

Fried Chicken at Savory is always nice. I don't know how they fry their chicken, but the difference with their is that the flesh is amazingly soft, almost like it was slow roasted. The gravy is also unique, but this time I think I know what they put in it, which must have been star anise. It's not too overpowering, but it does give that unique Chinese taste and aroma.

Their Miki Bihon Binondo I found too oily, which is a problem I have with a lot of their dishes. At other times I ordered fried fresh lumpia, and kikiam, and they too were kind of oily. I know they were fried in oil, but still, when I would do it at home, they're never that oily. Perhaps they don't drain the oil in paper towels before serving? I don't know.

The Shrimp Relleno Roll was also nice. My mom liked it a lot. Ilyn didn't so much. I thought it was just OK.

I didn't order it this time, but at other times I've been ordering their Chicken Mami quite a bit, and I like it. It comes with plenty of chicken and the soup tastes really nice. Ever since Chowking stopped serving Chicken Mami. I found I'm eating more at Savory just for Chicken Mami. Sorry Chowking. You may have Ser Chief, but if you don't have Chicken Mami, I'm out of there.

Gumbo at New Orleans, Resorts World

I was at Newport Mall,  Resorts World for a thing a few days ago and while I was killing time I watched some awesome Flamenco Dancers from Spain and enjoyed this Gumbo from Murray's New Orleans Bourbon Street Ribs, Steaks and Oysters.

I myself had cooked some Gumbo not too long ago, sticking to what was purportedly an authentic New Orleans recipe, complete with some creole sausages. It tasted pretty good. I wish now I had written the recipe down or at least took a picture for this blog.

But I wanted to taste one from a restaurant that seemed served authentic New Orleans food, as authentic as one can find it here in the Philippines, that is.

I ordered their standard gumbo dish, which is described as "Creole Cajun stew, shrimp, shellfish, oysters, blackened chicken, andouille sausage, Holy trinity, tomatoes and okra." All right then!

What did I think?

I thought it was pretty good, although I found it a little bit on the salty side. Very salty. It's just probably my taste buds which has been used to less sodium for the past several years. But the taste of the thing was very nice, specially the sausages. The okra was surprisingly crunchy, which was kind of unexpected. All the vegetables were actually kind of crunchy which indicates that they were just perfectly done and not overcooked. However, I thought the shrimp needed a little more cooking time. It was just almost there, and had a bit of a slimy bland taste to it.

I did bite into a piece that turned out to be something like a gob of peanut butter? What the? Peanut butter? That's what it tasted like that is. Perhaps it wasn't mixed in the soup properly? Was it supposed to be a thickening agent of some sort? Upon realizing it was something like peanut butter, I went ahead and crushed it and blended it into the soup. And that worked just fine. The taste was surprisingly complementary to the whole thing.

Based on what I've seen of New Orleans food, it's something I feel I would naturally be attracted to. Jambalaya, for instance, is something also enjoy quite a lot.

I don't mind coming back. I'm hoping I can request for less sodium next time around.

Serendipity Tea Bar, San Pablo City

I finally got around to checking out Serendipity Tea Bar here in San Pablo City. I've been passing this place regularly and always wanted to try them out. If you're looking for it, it's right next to that big Indian temple that's being constructed near the corner of the San Pablo Diversion road and Maharlika Highway, walking distance from SPC Medical, 7-11, and Liempo Republic.

The first thing I immediately noticed was how young the clientele was. Practically every customer in there was clearly 20-25 years younger than me. I guess it's safe to say it's a hit with the young adults because the place is almost always full with them. Irrationally, I felt kind of out of place for a brief moment. But I guess that's just silly.

True to it's name, it's a TEA bar, not a cafe. So there's no coffee in here. Their specialty is their milk tea, which I hear is very good. I say "hear" because there's probably not a chance that I'll ever check it out for myself, being lactose intolerant.

Ilyn ordered Yakult Peach with Nata De Coco. She said it was very good although she came away with the feeling that it was spiked with something because half an hour later her adrenalin shot up and was pretty much bouncing off the walls for the next hour. I don't mean "spiked" in a bad way of course. Perhaps it had caffeine? Whatever it was, Ilyn was kind of a little too excited and talkative for a while.

As for the food, I ordered Seafood Pasta:

It had shrimp and squid and as a whole it tasted quite nice. It's not something I would lose my head over, but it was good enough for me to want to come back and try what else was there.

Ilyn had Seafood Pesto Pasta:

She said that it was OK, not overwhelmingly awesome, but was simply all right. I tasted a bit of it, and it tasted like pesto. Like I expected anything more.

Now I almost didn't want to write this review because I already had a feeling I wasn't going to rave about it, but I thought well, I can't just rave about things on this blog. I really have to be honest.

And so yes, here are some of the not so nice things I experienced here.

The staff was friendly and helpful enough, so I had no problem with that. The first problem is probably the fault of my own expectations. You see, Ilyn had written down the menu on her notebook the first time she ate here some weeks ago so she can show it to me.

What I immediately noticed was they had a "Garden Fresh" burger. I assumed it was a vegetarian burger because other dishes from other restaurants with the "Garden Fresh" tag was vegetarian. Like Greenwich's Garden Fresh Pizza for instance.

So I looked forward to ordering that, along with their onion rings, which Ilyn said was very nice.

Imagine my disappointment when it turned out the Garden Fresh Burger had a beef patty, but just had a lot of greens and other vegetable stuff in it. No fault to them, of course.

However, they also told me that their onion rings was unavailable. Ouch. You see when reviewing restaurants, I have a scale that goes from 1-10, 10 being excellent. As soon as I enter any restaurant, they have an automatic 10. Points would be subtracted every time I was disappointed.  When they don't have an item available that's listed on the menu, that's a major disappointment for me. So I subtract one point.

I thought OK, I'll just have a pasta. I chose Pasta Bolognese. Also not available. OUCH. Subtract another point. This wasn't looking promising.

So I settled on the Seafood Pasta. I also ordered Chef's Salad, but I didn't like the dressing too much. In fact, I wasn't able to finish it.  Subtract half a point. At least I was able to finish the pasta, which I actually liked. It's not something I want to try again though, but it was pleasant enough for me to try other things on their menu.

One last thing. They didn't have a change for my money. I don't know, maybe it was just me, but I swear I could hear the dude in the kitchen in kind of a pissed off voice saying that they couldn't possibly have change for my money. I didn't want to make an issue of it, so I let it pass. Subtract 2 points.

In fairness the dude who served us was very nice, and very friendly. In fact, he remembered Ilyn from the last time she visited.

All in all, I wouldn't say it was a completely awesome experience. But it was an OK experience, and like I said, I wouldn't mind trying it again. I just hope that I no longer hear "not available" anymore. That's actually one of the big no-nos a restaurant can commit. And yes, always have change. I hope they can fix that.

[Video Recipe] Baked Blue Marlin Steak

I've been seeing the technique of cooking fish wrapped in aluminum foil and baked in an oven quite a few times in You Tube and other places. I've actually been doing this technique for a while since then, and I thought I'd finally put a recipe I've come up with down on paper (as it were).

I saw some really nice frozen blue marlin steaks at a local grocery and I thought these would be perfect for this demonstration.

These are the things you would need:

1.2 kilo blue marlin steaks (which to me yielded 3 pieces)
3 square-ish sheets of aluminum foil
cold butter
olive oil
6 calamansi (or 1 pc. lemon)
salt and pepper
dried basil leaves
6 cloves chopped garlic
chopped parsley for garnishing

Check out the video for the procedure.



There I specified 20 minutes baking time at 200C, but that's not absolute. You can cook at a lesser time if your fish is smaller or if you use a type of fish that cooks faster like dory.

Tuna Kilawin

"Kilawin" is a style of cooking where you actually don't cook the food with heat. You cook the meat by marinating it in vinegar and calamansi juice in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. What is calamansi? Click here.

Sound interesting? It is! Sounds weird? To someone who hasn't tried it, yet it is! Does it taste great? Of course it does! Here is what you're going to need:

1 kilo tuna. Fresh is best, but frozen would be good also. As long as it's sashimi grade. The tuna I used was crazy cut Frabelle frozen tuna that I bought at a local Puregold. Crazy cut is ok because I'm going to cutting the fish anyway into smaller pieces. No please don't use canned tuna. It's just not gonna work.

2 big red onions, chopped. I suppose you can use big white onions, but I like the red ones for this particular dish.

1-1/2 tablespoons of grated ginger. Yes, I like grating ginger. I do that so people don't have to bite into pieces of it. It's never a nice experience.

Vinegar. I didn't even measure the vinegar that I used. I bought the liter bottle and I used around over half of it. I'll write how much you need later.

1/2 cup calamansi juice. Or Lemon juice, if you don't have access to calamansi.

4 long green chili peppers, chopped. Or cut into tiny sections with scissors. I'll explain later.

Salt and Pepper. To taste, as always.

Ok, here's how you do it:

First thing you do is to chop the tuna into smaller pieces, if they aren't already are, and put it into a bowl.

Next is you pour enough vinegar over it to somewhat cover the meat. With a spoon or with your hands, gently wash the tuna over with the vinegar. Leave it there for a couple of minutes and then drain the vinegar completely.

Now place your tuna in your serving bowl and pour about a cup of fresh vinegar on it. Add the chopped red onions, calamansi juice, ginger, salt and pepper (I ended up using around a 3/4 tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of ground black pepper).

Finally, get your green chili peppers and what I like to do is to cut them into small ring sections using scissors. Now I can do this on a cutting board with a knife, but I generally try to avoid as much contact with the insides of the pepper with my fingers (I'll probably tell the story one day as to why) and scissoring the pepper directly over the food works well with me.

With a spoon gently stir all the ingredients around until the vinegar, calamansi, ginger, salt and pepper permeate the entire thing. Cover and put into the refrigerator for at least two hours. Once or twice take the bowl out and stir, just to make sure the vinegar does its job on all parts of the tuna. After all, it is the vinegar and calamansi juice that will cook this dish.

After two hours, the dish is ready to serve. Make sure to serve this dish cold!

Chili Prawn and Chili Kangkong

My trip to Singapore definitely influenced my recent cooking experiments. One of the dishes I came up with is this Chili Prawn, inspired by the famous Singapore Chili Crab. I tried cooking Chili Crab earlier using Belacan (solid shrimp paste) I bought in Singapore, but my I didn't like the results too much. I decided to try again, this time with prawn, and using a local shrimp paste called Bagoong Alamang.

Chili Prawn Recipe:

1 kilo prawns, peeled and deveined
1 big white onion coarsely chopped
5 birds eye chillies coarsely chopped
1 medium sized green bell pepper chopped
1 medium sized red bell pepper chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons Bagoong Alamang
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
chopped green onions or kinchay for garnishing
Cooking oil

Procedure:

In a blender, blitz the onion and bird's eye chillies together for 30 seconds or until the mixture becomes a somewhat chunky paste. Saute this in oil, add the bagoong alamang and cook for a couple of minutes or so.

Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, sugar, and vinegar. Stir and allow to boil for a couple of minutes.

Add the bell peppers, then add the shrimp. Cover and allow to boil until the shrimp is cooked.

Garnish with chopped green onions or kinchay when serving.

The amount of bird's eye chilli is really up to you. In my original recpie I used 7 chillies, which was a mistake because the dish became a little too hot. The next time I would go for around just 5.  But I think I got a good balance of ingredients which made for a really nice tasting sauce.

At the same time I did this, I also did some Chili Kangkong.

Chili Kangkong Recipe:

5 bunches Kangkong (this measure is based on the bunch that's available for purchase at the local market).
1 bulb onion finely chopped
5 pcs Bird's Eye Chillies finely chopped
2 tablespoons Bagoong Alamang
1 tablespoon toasted garlic for garnishing

Procedure:

This is my approximation of the Kailan Sambal recipe I tasted in Singapore. I tried to make it less spicy, with simpler ingredients, and using a local equivalent of kailan.

In a wok or large deep pan, saute chopped garlic in oil and let cook for a bit (do not brown). Add the bagoong alamang and chillies and mix well. Add the kangkong. Lower the heat and cover for 5 minutes to allow the kangkong to cook and settle in the steam.

After 5 minutes, take off the lid and mix thoroughly until the garlic and chillies are well distributed throughout the kangkong.  This is pretty much done.

Garnish with toasted garlic upon serving. I usually get my toasted garlic from the local market where they sell siomai. I can do it myself, but it's time consuming, and sometimes I don't really get the best results.

Seafood Platter at Red Plate, San Pablo City

Tonight was probably my third time eating at Red Plate, a little restaurant along Mabini Road here in San Pablo City. I think they've been in operation only for a few months, if I'm not mistaken. If I visit a place more than once, then that probably means I like eating there. Or at the very least, my first experience there was good enough for me to want to come back and try other things on their menu.

Now this Seafood Platter (pictured above) is NOT on their menu for some reason. I only knew that they served it after seeing a photo of it at their Facebook page. I had wanted to order this because it looked really good and I wanted to try it.

Now I do want to say that after eating at the now defunct Hi-Kari restaurant in Ultimart a couple of years ago, I developed a really violent distaste for anything that's breaded. I avoided breaded anything. Squid. Shrimp. Specially breaded fish. Most specially breaded dory. It also put me off eating breaded chicken, but there have been exceptions. I still like KFC for instance.

Anyway, with this in mind, I don't know what possessed me to try this dish, specially after seeing it laid out in front of me and seeing everything was freakin' breaded.  But it looked pretty nice. And it was a LOT. I think this would have been enough for Ilyn and me. I didn't even need rice. If I had been a drinking man, this would have made awesome pulutan.

I tried everything, and I thought it was pretty good. My distaste for breaded stuff seemed to have taken a break. I particularly liked the breaded gindara. I never knew gindara tasted so nice. It was the first time I'm tasting this fish. I might go ahead and buy some of these ginadara steaks I see at groceries and try cooking them for myself.

This dish is a bit expensive at 600 pesos, which I only found out after I got the bill. Like I said, this wasn't on the menu. But I think it's only appropriate for the amount of food on it. And as I said, it's a lot. I wasn't even able to finish it. I had at least half of it wrapped to take home.

As for drinks, I wanted to try their house blend ice tea. The flavor of it was interesting. It reminded me of aratiles. Aratiles actually tastes very nice, but having grown up eating it, I got sort of sick of the flavor after a while.

Later, I had their house coffee, which is also interesting. As I've mentioned in other posts, I always try to taste the coffee of all the restaurants I eat in. The coffee beans were freshly ground and brewed so that's a plus right there. The coffee did come in packaged, meaning they already included cream (or milk?) and sugar and chocolate sprinkles on top when they give it to you. It was just OK, but I do like to have the choice whether to add cream on it and how much sugar. I really don't take cream or milk in my brewed coffee. But their coffee tasted nice so I really have nothing to complain about.

Ilyn had the Beef Stew, which she really liked. Although she did say it was slightly "ma-sebo". I don't know the exact translation. The closest is probably "fatty".  Whenever I cook beef, I pre-boil the beef for a few hours to soften the meat. And then I would put it in the ref for a few hours or overnight. The following morning, you can see that all the fat had solidified on the surface of the liquid. That is something I take out because that's what gives beef the "ma-sebo" taste.

It's an ample amount of serving for 130 pesos. Everything is cooked absolutely soft, specially the beef which is just right for something like this.

Next time I go back, I will try their Burger, which I hear is pretty good.

Chili Lobster at Harbor View

I've never had lobster in my life. I think I tasted a bit many years ago in Escolta, but that doesn't count because I only tasted a small bit. I never really had lobster properly. Today was the first time.

I wanted to try it just once in my life (that seems to be my motto nowadays), taste it and experience it, and never have it again. Because really, it's just too expensive to really indulge in.

I browsed the Internet on where to find the best lobster in Manila, and it pointed me to this Chili Lobster from Harbor View Restaurant, near the Quirino Grandstand. I thought, yeah OK, I'll try this.

Today me and Ilyn had an opportunity to visit Mapua in Intramuros, and I thought this would be the best time to go to Harbor View for lunch. I didn't even look at the menu too much. I knew what I was going to order.

Within 20 minutes our Chili Lobster finally came, looking really awesome.

What's the verdict?

My immediate reaction was that it was pretty good. It tasted like a cross between crab and prawn. The chili sauce that went with it made the entire dish really really good. But I thought it wasn't the earth-shatteringly awesome taste experience I spent a large part of my life expecting.

But as the day wore on, I can't help but think of the lobster, and how good it was. If I kept thinking about it, then it must have been better than good, right? Because for the better part of the day, I just couldn't get it out of my mind. I want to have it again, but well, I just can't afford it.

I think I can approximate the chili sauce that went into it, so I guess I'll just cook it with these really big prawns I usually see in the local market. I'd do it with crab, but it's such a hassle eating crab. We'll see!

Harbor View itself enjoys a nice spot over the shores of Manila Bay. It's an open restaurant,  no air-conditioning. That allows you to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Manila Bay. Going there at lunch time probably wasn't the best time to go because I could see how dirty the seawater really is. The good thing is, polluted as Manila Bay is, it didn't smell bad so it didn't ruin the experience.

It's become a habit to order the house brewed coffee at restaurants I eat, just to see what their coffee tastes like. It's part of my never ending quest to find the best coffee in the country.  Ling Nam's coffee wasn't that good. See the restaurant review here. But Harbor View's coffee was actually pretty good. It's actually pretty thin and not really dark, but as long as it tastes good, I have no complaints.

Will we return to Harbor View? We definitely will. But we'll just have something else next time.

Burong Dalag, OMG

Ok, this is probably one of the nastiest things I've ever eaten. Basically, it's fish and rice that's left to rot for a week and then sauteed in oil, garlic and onion. That's basically what Burong Dalag is.

"Buro" is a process of fermentation that originated probably in Pampanga, an area of the Philippines noted for its cooking. And eating decomposed food too apparently.

Strangely enough, I actually like it. In fact, I love it. I couldn't get enough of it.

This Burong Dalag was just given to us by someone who knows how to do it well. My mom has attempted to do this twice and it's always ended in disaster. Apparently, there's a fine line that separates well done Buro and a totally fetid piece of horse vomit. And our attempts resulted always in the latter.

We just couldn't stand the awful smell as the thing decomposes during the week. We were told it was supposed to smell that way, but holy crap, the thing was just nasty. We ended up burying the thing underground.

I guess we'll just have our friend do it for us.