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.

Beef Pares

Beef Pares is a dish that's quite common in Manila, but not so much here in San Pablo City. In fact, I've never seen it made and sold here. I could be wrong of course, but since I couldn't find it easily here, I thought I'd just cook it myself.

This is a recipe I came up with late last year. I'm putting it on this blog for my own future reference.

Recipe/Procedure


Boil 1 kilo beef for 3 hours until meat is very tender. Watch out because after 15-20 minutes dark brown scum will form on top. Remove it!

If using a pressure cooker, it's up to you how long you boil it. I don't have one so I have no idea...

After boiling, let it cool then refrigerate for a couple of hours. Fat will solidify on top of the liquid... remove it!

Drain from broth but don't throw broth away. Marinate beef in 1/2 cup soy sauce, pepper and 1/2 cup sugar. Marinate overnight!

Sautee 1 bulb crushed garlic, 1 big onion and around 1 inch grated ginger. Place beef. Let it fry a bit. Place broth, and let simmer for a while. Add back the marinade, and 2 pcs. star anise. Boil some more. Add salt to taste.

Dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in 1/2 cup of broth and place slowly over stew while stirring. Once the sauce is thickened, this is done. Optional: Before serving, add a few drops of sesame oil.

Make sure to remove the star anise before serving so no one gets to bite on it.

For the soup: You can get this from the extra broth. Just remove any remaining scum, reheat and add salt (to taste), and before serving, mix in a few drops of sesame oil and chopped green onion.

For the fried rice: Fry chopped garlic in a wok until it's slightly browned. Add 1 pc. chopped chorizo. Let it fry a bit. Add 2 battered eggs. Mix it around until egg is cooked. Add cooked rice and salt to taste. Mix for around 5 minutes. Before serving add chopped green onion.

For toasted garlic (you can prepare this earlier): Chop one bulb of garlic very very finely. Fry in oil using very very very low heat. You don't want to rush this. This is toasted slowly so that it won't be too bitter. It will probably take 15-20 minutes before the garlic is browned enough. Remove from oil and drain on some paper towels.

On the serving plate just add the garlic and some more chopped green onion on top.

Kinulob na Manok V.2 Chinese Style

Ok! It's time again to do another version of my Kinulob na Manok! This time... Chinese Style!

Ok, I'm only SAYING it's Chinese style. I don't know if the Chinese do Kinulob na Manok, at all, actually. The reason I'm calling it that is I'm adding ingredients that would play up some Chinese flavor to a dish I've done previously.

That means adding more Hoisin Sauce, and adding Chinese Sausage and Star Anise, and removing other ingredients like ketchup, and pineapple juice.

The ingredients I've used are as follows:

1 whole chicken
120 grams bacon
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 star anise
4 bay leaves
1 chicken cube
3 cups chicken stock
1 Chinese sausage, chopped
1 big white onion chopped
1/4 kilo chicken gizzard (optional)
1/4 kilo chicken livers/hearts (optional)

As with the previous dish, put all of these ingredients in a deep casserole. Me, I put them in an aluminum pot from an old rice cooker. It comes with a lid so it's pretty handy!

Bring that to a boil on high heat, and once it's boiling, turn down the heat to medium, and boil for the next hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours.

I used low sodium soy sauce, decreased the amount of bacon and removed the need for the flavor mix because the additional hoisin sauce would bring in  a lot of additional sodium already. I only used one Chinese sausage this time because well, I only had 1 available. I would have used two if I had it.

The gizzards and livers are optional, although I think once the liver softens and bits of it disintegrate into the sauce, I think it would make for a much flavorful dish.

As always, I love boiling my food for a long time because it makes the flavor fuller and richer. I've learned that boiling chicken for a long time really makes any dish you make taste better. If you boil too long the chicken would start to fall apart, so you need to be careful.

After two hours, take the chicken out of the stew and set aside. Let the sauce continue to boil for 10-15 or more minutes, depending on how much liquid is still left.

At this point, my chicken is close to falling apart, but that makes it easier to cut into. And yeah! This one came out pretty nice as well.

Long Lasting Kinulob

My Dad loves my Kinulob na Manok recipe so much that he absolutely refuses to let go of the leftover sauce, long after the chicken's gone. He digs into that sauce for almost every meal ever since I cooked the thing. Looks like I'll be cooking that again.

Although I've written the recipe down and I know I can practically do it identically next time, I think I'll do a different version of this dish with a different set of ingredients. I'm thinking of playing up the Chinese flavor of it next time by increasing the amount of Hoisin Sauce, Chinese Sausage, and add a few star anise seeds along with soy sauce and sugar. In my mind that sounds interesting... and mouth watering!

I can most likely make a collection of Kinulob na Manok recipe variations, and of course, I'll write them all down in this blog!

Eric's Last Stand

Or more specifically, Baked Potato and Mushroom Cheese Casserole. But I've used "Eric's Last Stand" for the title of this thing for like maybe 8 years now, ever since my pal Jonas Diego asked me what it was called and back then I absolutely had no idea. "Eric's Last Stand" just popped into my mind.

Full disclosure though, I got inspired to do my own dish based on something I tasted at the old Kenkoy Cafe in Malate. I think the dish was called "Dynamic Duo". I couldn't begin to guess what was in it, except the more obvious mushroom, potato and bacon, so I just winged it and came up with this, whatever was available at the local mall. In our case, that's Ultimart, Puregold and SM San Pablo, and of course our own immortal local market.

My ingredients:

1/2 kilo baby potato, cleaned (but not peeled).
2-200 grams whole button mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
120 grams bacon
1 bulb garlic, crushed
250 ml Nestle Cream
Perfect Italiano "Pizza Plus" Cheese
Monterey Jack Cheese (optional)
Parmesan Cheese (optional)
kinchay, chopped
salt and pepper

You can of course get a bigger can of whole button mushrooms instead of buying 2-200 gram cans, but the strange thing about buying mushrooms in cans is that the bigger the can is, the bigger the mushroom, I kid you not. The small cans contain really really small mushrooms, and the big cans contain giant mushrooms. So it's better to just get 2 medium sized cans for medium sized mushrooms, which are perfect for this dish.

Perfect Italiano "Pizza Plus" Cheese is readily available at our local SM Grocery and I really like using it. It's a three cheese combination of grated cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan, which just works great. Of course, you can just use one big slab of the regular quick melt cheese, which would also be ok.  The Pizza Plus packet comes in 500 grams, and I use about half of that for this dish.

Montery Jack and other brands of Parmesan are also available locally, and because I'm a cheese freak, I use some of both, but this is optional.

Procedure!

First is cook the bacon in a pan until crispy. Chop, and then set aside. If you're a vegetarian, you can do without the bacon, it's fine.

In a pan, stir fry the baby potatoes in oil on medium heat for around 10-12 minutes. Add the butter, mushrooms, garlic,  salt and pepper (to taste). Stir fry for another 5 minutes. One bulb of garlic is a lot, but I love garlic so it's fine to me. But you can use less garlic if you want to.

In a baking dish, put a thin layer of cheese at the very bottom. Place the mushroom and potatoes on it. Make sure to spread it all evenly. On top of this, evenly place the chopped bacon and some kinchay. Pour on the cream evenly on top, and on top of that, add the cheese.

I grated a bit of Monterey Jack and added it on top, as well as a sprinkle of additional parmesan, but as I mentioned this is optional. Add some more kinchay on top.

Place in an oven at 180 degrees C for around 30 minutes or until the cheese has completely melted and is browning on top.

Let it cool for at least 15-20 minutes before serving.

And there you go!

Kinulob na Manok

Whenever I pass this certain restaurant near the SPC Medical Center, I see them advertising one of their specialties called "Kinulob na Itik". Being the food freak that I am, I immediately became curious. I've never heard of that dish before, and I was wondering if I could do it with chicken. (But of course.)

So I went online looking for recipes to Kinulob na Manok, and I found several. The strange thing is, they're all completely different recipes with completely different ingredients.

But the thing that was similar to all of them is that you cook the chicken whole in a deep pan or casserole, and boil it with various ingredients until the chicken is done. That's pretty much it.

So in short, "Kinulob na Manok" is in fact "Stewed Whole Chicken".


I took bits from a couple of recipes, added a few flourishes of my own, and I came up with this recipe:

1 whole chicken
1/4 kilo chicken gizzards
250 grams tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons margarine
240 ml pineapple juice
250 grams bacon, chopped
2 pcs. Chinese sausage, sliced into coins
1 big white onion, chopped
4 pcs. bay leaves
1 chicken cube or 1 sachet ginisa flavor mix
2 cups chicken stock
1/3 cup soy sauce
black pepper (to taste)

As you may notice, I no longer added any salt as the sodium would come from the soy sauce, chicken cube and hoisin sauce.

Place the chicken in the center of a deep casserole or any deep pan that you can cover. Add all other ingredients in the casserole. Make sure the casserole is small enough for the liquid to completely cover the chicken. Turn on the stove at high heat. When it boils, turn down the heat to medium, and cooked, covered, for at least an hour and a half.

That's kind of long and the chicken is close to falling apart, but it tastes great!

Remove the chicken and place on a serving tray, but let the remaining liquid to boil for 10-15 minutes to allow it to reduce into a thick sauce.

On the plate, surround the chicken with the sausages, gizzards, bacon and pour the sauce generously over everything.

I must say, this particular dish came out a screaming success.

The Best Coffee in San Pablo City

To be more precise, the best coffee I've ever had in my life. Period.

Of course, taste differs from person to person, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the one I like best. This is the simple brewed coffee from Simple Treats Cafe, located at the end of P. Zulueta St, here in San Pablo City.

I've tasted a lot of coffees all around, including those of Starbucks, Figaro, Coffee Bean, Seattle's Best, Gloria Jeans and so on. I've even had some Starbucks in New York when I went there many years ago, and none them tastes as great as this coffee right here.

You can also get this coffee from CDC Cafe, also here in San Pablo City, which is owned by the same guy who owns Simple Treats, and both cafes operate the same type of coffee machine, using the same beans.

I'm not for fancy coffees like lattes, cappuccinos, frappes,and things like that. I like just simple black brewed coffee. That's coffee at its very basic. That's how you can tell if it's really good when it tastes great without any sort of additional flavor enhancers.

Next time you're in San Pablo, and you want some really good coffee, try this out!

Roast Herb Chicken

Roast chicken is one of my favorite dishes to cook. But the thing is, I really don't have a set recipe. It changes from time to time, depending on my mood, and what I remember from the last time I cooked it. The results therefore varies. Sometimes the chicken is fantastic, but sometimes, not so much. I always thought one day I really ought to write it down! Today I had such an opportunity.

Recipe is as follows:

1 big Chicken
half a stick of butter
salt and pepper
thyme
rosemary
ground black pepper
5 pandan leaves
baby potatoes (optional)

For the gravy:

1 cup water
3 tablespoons flour
1 chicken cube
1 beef cube
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 tsp white pepper

The chicken I chose is a pretty big one. It's one of those jumbo chickens that you can buy at the local grocery. And it's huge, like a small turkey. I chose that because it's going to be feeding 7 people and 2 dogs today, so it had to be pretty big.

I began the thawing process 24 hours before by placing the frozen chicken in a container out of the freezer and down the ref. It's become a habit of mine to do this, as opposed to taking the chicken out and dumping it on water an hour before cooking. I do it the long way to prevent unnecessary bacteria from developing on the chicken by allowing it to thaw while still inside the ref.

A couple of hours before I start cooking, I already took out a stick of butter from the ref to allow it to soften. Now that it's gotten really soft, I rub it on the chicken using a brush. I make sure I brush the entire chicken, including the cavity.

Inside the cavity I place and rub on at least a tablespoon of salt.  I then fold and jam the pandan leaves inside.

I then sprinkle salt, black pepper, thyme and rosemary all over, making sure I cover much of the chicken. How much spices you put really depends on you.

I then place the chicken in a deep metal baking dish or bowl, which is deep enough that I can cover it with aluminum foil without the foil touching any parts of the chicken.

I then place the bowl inside a a preheated oven at 200 C, and just leave it there for two hours. I then remove the foil, place the baby potatoes along with the chicken and place the foil back on. I continue baking for another hour, after which I removed the foil.  I let it continue baking for another hour, for a total of 4 hours. The last hour the chicken is baked uncovered to brown the surface.

Now I know that takes a lot of time, but I had to consider how large the chicken was, and the heat generated by my oven. Through trial and error, I learned that my oven usually takes longer to cook certain things, and for a chicken this size, I learned that I had to cook it for at least 4 hours, at that particular temperature.

Your oven might not behave the same so make sure you check your chicken once in a while.

Ok, for the gravy.

Once you've taken the potatoes and chicken out of the baking bowl, slowly try to remove as much of the oil as possible. You can't remove it all without removing all the good chicken droppings so you need to leave a little bit in. Place one cup of water in that same bowl, add the chicken and beef cubes, the flour, pepper and butter, and place it on a stove on medium-high heat. Mix it thoroughly and quickly so that the flour doesn't form into balls. You need to mix this while the mixture isn't too hot yet so the flour would integrate better.

Allow it to boil to cook the flour and for the mixture to reduce a bit. Pour the gravy on serving bowls through a strainer.

Cooking the chicken for 4 hours like this makes the chicken really easy to carve up.

It turned out 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.

Chicken Lucban Longganisa Attempt #1

Lucban Longganisa is a popular sausage in the Philippines originating from Lucban, Quezon. It's very small and quite garlicky. It's actually my favorite longganisa of all time.

But since I started cutting down on my pork and beef intake, I've been replacing them with chicken in recipes I cook. Today I attempted to do the same with Lucban Longganisa.

I found a recipe online and went about preparing it. One of the things I decided to take out was of course, the pork back fat, which are the white little cubes that you can find in the pork version. For a long time I was kind of put off by so much fat in the longganisa because it seemed so unhealthy. So out it went.

I also took out the casings, which is composed of pork intestines. I also didn't want to use artificial casings so i just decided to do the longganisa skinless.

Using latex gloves I formed bits of the meat into more or less longgansia shapes. Everything went really well, and I was kind of happy how they turned out, at least visually.

But when the time came to taste it I was like..... wow. I'm not liking this. At all.

It certainly did taste like Lucban Longganisa, but it was dry. Terribly dry. Desert dry. I didn't like how it crumbled in my mouth.

And then it hit me... THE FAT. The pork back fat is what made the pork version delicious. Apparently when you fried the pork back fat, it released oils that kept the sausage moist.

I find it depressing that the one thing that makes my favorite dishes delicious is also horribly unhealthy.

Why are the awesome tasting things in life have to be BAD for you? I don't get it.

It's been suggested by my wife Ilyn that I also need to curb the amount of spice. Chicken probably needs less spice than pork to achieve the same taste. I'm also told that I could replace the pork back fat with chicken skin, which may well also produce the proper amount of oil to keep the sausage moist.

Since there is still a batch of the meat mixture uncooked, I will modify it for another attempt.

But for now, Attempt #1 is a FAIL. I'm not putting the recipe here until I come up with something I'm very happy with.

YouTofu , The Tofu Restaurant

YouTofu is a specialty restaurant located in Brgy Del Remedio (Wawa), San Pablo City. As you can probably guess from the name, Tofu is a predominant ingredient in most of the dishes. You're probably thinking TOFU? Ew! But let me tell you. I'm not a huge fan of tofu myself, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good these dishes were.

The first time I visited this restaurant was a few months ago. Try not to be put off by the location and by how the place looks. At first glance it looks like a hole in the wall on the side of a warehouse. Well, in lots of respects, that's what it really is. There's no aircon and the place doesn't look classy at all. But the place is clean and bright. But as soon as you taste the food, you'll most likely forget about what the place looks like and just marvel at how awesome the food is.

And the best thing is, the food is inexpensive. Food that tastes like this would cost double or triple in fancy restaurants in Manila.

Check out their menu at their Facebook page here: YouTofu Menu.

It's amazing to find a place like this in San Pablo, which really doesn't have too many specialty restaurants like this. After eating there a couple of months ago, I still can't get the place out of my mind. So today I decided to have some dishes delivered here at home for lunch.

What I got was their Silken Tofu, Fish Fillet and Tofu, Fried Chicken Jellyfish and Century Egg, and Fried Rice and Egg.

The Silken Tofu (to the right of the Fried Chicken) is a particular favorite. It's whole tofu with this special sauce and century egg. It's AMAZING.

Vegetarians will find that not every dish here is meat free, as they do serve chicken, pork and beef, but there are lots of options for them that are meat free. I recommend one of the patola dishes. We had that the last time and it was terrific.

If you find yourself in San Pablo City, this place comes highly recommended from me.

YouTofu can be found in Barangay Del Remedio, beside the old Coca-Cola plant, in front of the old BLTB Terminal. There's a huge YouTofu sign along the Wawa road (going to Los Baños). You can't miss it!

My History with Ling Nam

Ling Nam is a Chinese restaurant that has been operating in the Philippines since 1950. It's first branch is still operating and is still located at T. Alonzo Street in Binondo, Manila.

In the mid 90s, I was part of an Architectural firm that was responsible for designing and constructing several branches of Ling Nam across Metro Manila.  The branches I had a hand in are all closed now, but they were located at People's Park (now Trinoma), Divisoria, and Recto.

The branch in Recto (near National Book Store) I had a big hand in because I was the main designer. I also had the demented idea of putting a tromp l' oeil on the curving ceiling of the restaurant, depicting the bright blue sky with clouds. Since none of the painters could do it, I had no choice but to do it myself. So there I was for a couple of days in painter's gear, painting the ceiling.  It turned out pretty nice, I thought.

I feel kind of sad that the Recto branch was eventually closed. I had planned on taking photos of it, but I never had the chance.

I'm glad to see that Ling Nam is still going strong today. The branch I visited earlier today is next to Tiendecitas in Pasig. When I saw it, I knew I had to eat there!

I had Chicken Noodle, Hakaw and Ilyn had Sweet and Sour Fish and Garlic Spinach. Now Ilyn is pretty picky when it comes to Chinese restaurants, but she seemed to really like the food at Ling Nam.

As for me, I thought the noodle tasted as nice as I remember it back in the mid 90s. It's not earth shatteringly awesome, but it tastes better than a lot of chicken noodles I've eaten at similar restaurants. The Hakaw, which is I believe steamed shrimp dumpling, was also pretty nice, although the other covering seemed a little to chewy. The inside tasted pretty good though.

Like Ilyn, I too like it better than say,  Chow King or Hap Chan. Don't worry, I won't leave it at that.  I think they both deserve their proper reviews in this blog one of these days.


As for Ling Nam, I wouldn't mind coming back, although whatever branches are available aren't easily accessible to me.

Coffee Snob

Sometimes I can be such a coffee snob. I'd settle for nothing less than brewed coffee, so much so that I went ahead and planted my own coffee and cocoa plants. I had planned on growing the beans, roasting them, grinding and brewing them myself. Well, the coffee plants died out but the cocoa plants survived. They made for some awesome chocolate later on.

What I most commonly brew are barako beans I get from town, which is very very good. Very strong.

But then brewed coffee isn't always available, and when I get the urge during those times, I'd be perfectly happy with the instant stuff. I've tasted a lot of the instant coffee brands out there, and I think I've settled on two that I really liked.

Nescafe Gold: My favorite of all the Nescafe variations currently available. Nescafe used to have an Iced Coffee packet that they seemed to have phased out. It's too bad as I really liked it. 

Kopiko's Kopiccino: Instant cappuccino! Surprisingly good for something instant. I've seen this idea executed elsewhere, but it's nice to see it in a local brand.

Once in a while me and the wife would just go out and try out the cafes in town. I will probably write about my favorite coffee spots at some future article.

Dinner at Donovan's

Once in a while I'll be posting restaurant reviews on places I visited before I began this blog. This is one of those things that makes me realize I should have done this a long time ago.

Anyway, the restaurant in question is Donovan's, located at the Gaslamp District of San Diego, California. This was last year when I was invited to be a guest of the San Diego Comics Convention. Since SDCC 2012 is this week, I was reminded of my experience back there and my experience at this particular restaurant.

I wasn't sure if I was ever going to go back to the US again, so I thought I would love to experience what it's like to eat in a really fancy American restaurant at least once in my life.

A  month before my trip, I went to their website, to see what I would expect, and yes, to make a reservation. It looked like for the first time ever in my life, I would have to wear something rather formal just so I could eat a restaurant. I made a reservation for 7pm on July 24, 2011.

I looked at their menu to see what I could possibly order, and I decided upon a 10oz Filet Mignon and their Seafood Chowder. No wine! I have to be careful about ordering too much because I only had a limited budget for this. I also had to keep in mind the mandatory 15% tip at US restaurants. I figured I'd be spending at last $60-$80 for this thing alone. Maaan. I'm only ever doing this once, and I would like to experience it at least before I die. So I bit my lip and went with it.

I went to SM and bought myself this formal jacket, which I most probably won't be wearing at any other time here in the Philippines because it would be so damned hot. But it looks nice and would be perfect for the occasion.

In the days leading up the date, I actually found myself practicing my order, like I was actor memorizing a line for a movie.

"10 ounce feelay minyon meedyum well and a clam chawder please. Just water."

At the comics convention I met people, co-workers and friends who would ask to go to dinner, and I always blocked off the night of July 24 as I had to go on an "important meeting". But of course.

July 24 rolls along and at my hotel room, I got myself ready.

Comic-con booked me at the Marriot, which was convenient as it's just next door to the convention, and a nice walking distance to Donovan's at the Gaslamp District. I had to be careful to go to Donovan's Steak House and not Donovan's Seafood, which is a different place.

I was early so I puttered around a nearby gift shop getting stuff for people at home.

At exactly 7pm I entered Donovan's.

I was kind of dark inside... not really dark, but perfectly lighted to be conducive to privacy and well, eating. It's like entering a library. It's as if you had to speak softly and tread lightly. It was actually pretty nice. I got into the mood right away.

I already knew what I was going to order, but I made a pretense to look over the menu nevertheless. Besides, I'm one of those people who actually love looking at menus. Once in a while there would be an item there that's not in their online menu.

I ordered my steak and sat back and took in the ambiance. At a table nearby, another comics pro was there with his wife talking about future projects. Based on what they talked about, I could get an idea of who he was.

Shortly after, the waiter brought in a huge piece of bread and some butter. Probably their complimentary appetizer.  Oh man. If I eat that bread I'd already be full for the entire night. I just took a little bite, and felt bad I was leaving too much uneaten.

The clam chowder arrived and to be honest, it's one of the best soups I've had in my life. It was just terrific.

Shortly after that, the steak finally arrived.

A little side note to say that I really don't eat much pork or beef anymore (for health reasons), but this is one of those times I'd made an exception. This is one of those once in a lifetime things that I just want to experience once, just to say I've done it. I was also curious what American steak tastes like, after seeing so much of it in American TV and film.

The steak came in with some mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. I like my steak medium-well. I wasn't brave enough to try it medium-rare.

And the verdict?

It's the softest piece of beef I ever had in my life. It was insane. It was as if I was eating cotton, it was so soft. Outside was somewhat crunchy, but the inside just practically melted in my mouth. The taste was interesting. It tasted somewhat different from the beef I normally get to eat here in the Philippines. It wasn't on the salty side, and perhaps it's lack of saltiness made me appreciate it kind of less. Taste wise I've had better steak here at home, but the softness of it just blew my mind.

All in a all it was a rather memorable experience, and I don't regret a single moment. It most likely won't ever happen again, but at least I have the memory of it.

Once You Pop, You Can Stop

I saw this potato chip brand LIGO on the shelves not too long ago and I was intrigued. The people doing the  canned sardines are now doing potato chips? Apparently, they are, based on their website.

I have tried their sardines many times in the past and it's OK. I don't see any big difference compared to other sardines brands out there like 555 or Toyo or Master. Someone out there might take issue to that, but I guess when it comes to canned sardines, my taste buds aren't really that particular.

But I did want to try out their potato chips. I bought three right away, I don't know why.

I barely got past one before I realized one thing. Once you pop, you can stop.

Sad to say, I didn't like it very much, although I really wanted to. I thought I might have just opened a bad cylinder, but all three tasted the same. So it must really taste like that. How to describe it? It tastes kind of old. It's as if the oil they were using was old. Now I don't know that for a fact, but that's how it tastes to me. The saltiness also seems kind of off. It's as if the kind of salt they're using is kind of off.

I could finish a tall cylinder of Pringles in one sitting, but this one, I can't even finish one small cylinder.

Perhaps it's just not for me. There are people out there who most probably love this, so I guess it's just a matter of taste.

Quick Fried Rice

Fried rice is actually very simple. Just fry some chopped garlic, add cooked rice, add some salt, mix it around, and that's pretty much it. That's how you cook your basic fried rice.

If you want to add some flourishes, it's really up to you. Here is an example of a simple flourish that I did just tonight.

First thing you do is chop a whole head of garlic. Yep, a whole head. Now if you think that's too much, you can do just half. But me, I love garlic, so a whole head of it it is. You need to chop that rather finely so you don't end up with big pieces in your fried rice.

Take one or two eggs (or more if you have plenty of rice), and beat them in a bowl.

Put some oil in a pan, turn on the heat and when it's hot enough, put the beaten egg in it. All you need to do is to make sure all the egg is cooked. Mix and chop this up as much as you like so you end up with little bits of cooked egg. Take it off the pan.

Add some more oil to the pan, then place the garlic in it. Place a bit of salt into this, or flavor mixes of your preference then fry it until the garlic is somewhat browned. I do this so that if by chance you bite on a piece of garlic, it has actually has some taste to it. Salted fried garlic has actually a nice flavor if you do it right. It usually works better if the heat is on low.

Now you can take whatever leftovers you have in the ref, perhaps some leftover chicken or fish, or whatever meat stuff you have lying around. If you have things like bacon or ham or hotdog, that would be just great. Ideally, the best thing to add here is a chopped good quality chorizo. But I don't have that at the moment.  I found a piece of hot dog, and that's the one I used. Chop them into little pieces and then add them into your frying garlic.

Mix that all around until the meat is well heated.

Now add the rice. Rice has to be already cooked of course. Add a little more salt (not too much because you already added some earlier on in the garlic), set the heat to medium high,  then mix it well so that the garlic flavors get evenly distributed.

Add the chopped egg and continue mixing for a few more minutes.

That's pretty much finished as it is, but you can definitely add more flourishes to this. You can add a couple of tablespoons of oyster sauce, or ketchup, or barbecue sauce, depending on what you like. Just make sure you no longer add salt to the rice if you intend on adding these as it would probably make your rice too salty.

You can also add chopped bell peppers, or green peas or chopped green onion to give some color to it. You can also add some toasted garlic on top of it for additional flavor.

Add some turmeric if you want it to turn yellow. It actually looks pretty nice that way.

Toasted garlic, by the way, is kind of an art. Do it wrong and it would taste bitter. I can do it myself by frying chopped garlic on very low heat, but it takes a long time. I just buy prepared toasted garlic in the local market.

The Lumpiaco

This is a dish that combines the traditional Pinoy lumpia and the Mexican taco into one. So naturally, it's called the Lumpiaco. (I know, I know)

Anyway, I arrived at this from an inspiration from a dish I tasted when I visited my old college classmate Weng Dayrit's house in Pampanga in the mid 80s. I believe it was her birthday and a bunch of classmates went there for a visit. One of the dishes served was this curious taco that used lumpia wrappers in place of the traditional taco shells.

I tried it myself when I got home and it was great. It was rather difficult to shape the lumpia wrapper into the taco shell shape. And unlike the somewhat flexible taco shell, the fried lumpia wrapper is rigid and brittle, which made eating it rather messy.

So today I decided to try again, this time instead of shaping the lumpia wrapper into taco shells, I thought I'd just wrap the content like a traditional lumpia.

The contents are as follows:

1/2 kilo ground chicken sauteed in garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and 3 tablespoons Old El Paso Mild Taco Sauce.

Chopped tomato, white onion and cabbage.

Grated cheese.

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.

Kulawo: Proudly San Pablo Made

This is a reblog from my main blog (I've been posting food articles there once in a while, which helped me decide to put up a separate one here).

 **********************

I've been talking about Kulawo on Twitter for quite some time now. When I was younger, I didn't appreciate this exotic dish which my mom used to make a lot. Only later when I got older and my taste for food had gotten more evolved did I appreciate it. I also learned only recently that the Kulawo most likely originated right here in San Pablo City (as far as I know), and it is still very much largely unknown as a dish outside of Laguna.

Today, I decided to cook it myself.

Kulawo has been generally cooked using either of the two main ingredients: Puso ng Saging (banana heart) or Eggplant. I decided to go with eggplant. If you would like to try to cook it yourself, these are the ingredients that you will need:

4-6 large eggplants
coconut gratings from 2 coconuts
coconut shell charcoal
1 cup vinegar
4 medium sized onions
1 tsp salt
dash of pepper

First, I grilled four large eggplants in a charcoal grill. You can also grill it over a stove if you like:


Yes I grilled some Bangus as well. Don't mind it. hehe. Recipe later.

When they're all done grilling, they would look like this:



Set them aside for a while to let them cool. In the meantime, place the coconut gratings in a metal pan.

Place live coconut shell coals right on top of the coconut gratings. Keep fanning to keep the coal alive. Occasionally move the coal and sift the coconut to cook as much of it as you can. It's inevitable that you will burn parts of it, but that's all right. That's what we want.



After the charcoal has died out, carefully remove the burnt charcoal with tongs. If they had completely gone out, you can do this by hand. Make sure you sift the gratings to evenly distribute the cooked and burnt areas.



Pour the vinegar on top of the gratings and set aside for a while.

Chop the onions:



By this time the eggplants have cooled enough for you to handle them with your hands. Carefully remove the blackened skin, slice, then lay them over a pan like this:



Go back to your gratings and then squeeze the milk out of them. Add the onions to the milk, then place it all in a cooking pan. Add the salt.



Slowly cook the coconut milk on medium heat. It is generally a rule to not stir any stew with vinegar in it to allow it to cook, but to prevent the milk from curdling, you do need to stir once in a while. Let it boil for around 5 minutes until the milk and onions are cooked. Remove from heat, then pour the mixture over the eggplants.



You can eat this already if you're really hungry, but we generally refrigerate it for a while, probably an hour just to let everything settle and blend together. And here it is with the grilled bangus:



How to do the grilled Bangus? Here's a quick recipe.

Get a large Bangus from your local market. You can usually request that they clean it and cut it for you, "daing" style.

In a medium sized bowl, mix 1 large chopped onion (or 2 medium sized ones), 1 large chopped tomato (or 2 medium sized ones), 1/3 cup oyster sauce, thumb sized ginger: grated, dash of pepper. Mix well. Place inside the fish cavity and then close it. Wrap fish inside aluminum foil and then grill, arond 12-18 minutes each side, depending on the size of the fish.

All right! there you have it! You have your San Pablo City style lunch, wherever you may be. Serve with hot rice!

You're Funny, KFC!

Dear KFC...

Ha! ha! You're so funny. I saw this on TV and many other places... your new burger with the cheese on top. Ha! ha! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Thank you, And I mean that.  But aren't you a little too late on this April Fool's joke?

Because really... this HAS to be a joke, right? I mean, who'd be crazy enough to actually believe this is the real thing? I mean cheese on top? What sense could there be in it?

I mean... even Jimmy Kimmel thinks it's funny!



See the press you're actually getting from this? SHEER GENIUS, KFC!

No Spaghetti at the Spaghetti House

I'm writing this for the benefit of my friend and fellow Komikero Ryan Toledo, who visited the Spaghetti House in San Pablo City during lunchtime on July 1, 2012.

Before anything else, let me just preface this by saying Spathetti House is a favorite hang out of the Komikero Artists Group. Whenever we have a meeting during the last Sunday (or first Sunday) of the month, Spaghetti House is one of the places we visit. In fact, we've been eating here ever since it opened at it's old location along Mabini Street.

This photo was taken at the old Spaghetti House along Mabini Avenue in 2003 (or 2004).  That's how long we've been visiting the place.

We love going there because, well, we... I personally think their spaghetti is very good. In fact, I just love it. I love the chicken that goes with it, and when it still served Japanese food I would always buy sushi and tempura whenever I could.

Make no mistake... we WANT to continue going there. The fact that we're still going there some 10 years later, has got to mean something.

But when you start to say that so and so item is "not available" because you have "no cook", we start to get disappointed. And when such items are becoming "not available" a little too often, this is where you start to lose customers. I certainly started going there less when they stopped serving Japanese food. But I still went once in a while. The spaghetti after all, was still marvelous.

But when you start saying you don't have spaghetti (like what Ryan experienced today)... the one thing in your menu that you shouldn't run out of... the one item that's the NAME OF YOUR RESTAURANT, then something is seriously wrong. To me that sounds like you're losing your dedication. There seems to be no foresight and planning. Worse, it's starting to seem like you no longer care. And that's really bad.

 It might have been wiser not to open at all if your cook didn't come to work. I mean, that's only logical.

This is one of the of the worst things, if not THE worst a restaurant can do: your banner menu to not be available. That's just unthinkable. The Spaghetti House is on the verge of losing members of the Komikero Artists Group as loyal patrons, specially since there are so many options now. There's Red Plate, CDC, Simple Treats etc. in the nearby areas. After almost 10 years, this is just sad.

It's not too late. But a few more incidents like today, we just might not come back.

READ THIS FIRST

This is not a paid food blog. I don't get to eat for free for writing reviews of restaurants I eat in. And as you can see, there's not a single ad in this blog. This is a place online where I can wrote honestly about the food I eat and the restaurants I visit.

I do this because I just love to eat, and I've long wanted to write about it. So now I'm doing it.