Feijoada

Feijoada is a dish I've learned of only recently through a long time online pal of mine from Brazil, Bira Dantas. I finally met Bira in person early in October during a comics festival in Algeria. Like many cartoonists I met at the festival, Bira was extremely proud of his culture and he wasted no time sharing all the great things he loved about Brazil. Food was of course, one of those things.

He invited me to visit him in Brazil and if ever I found myself there, he would cook Feijoada for me. He described it to me and the bean and meat lover in me immediately stood at attention. I love beans and I love meat, although they really don't love me back. These things are full of uric acid you see, and uric acid is something I'm trying avoid. It's the cause of gout and other arthritis-related ailments. And I've had a problem with gout for quite a while.

Nevertheless I wanted to try this out. Feijoada is composed mostly of beans and assortment of meats from bacon, to smoked ham, to sausages, etc. So yeah, in this house this is alternately called "Uric Acid Surprise".

I don't have access to a few authentic ingredients so I decided to just replace them with what's available here in the Philippines. These is is the set of ingredients I decided upon:

150 grams black beans
1/4 kilo bacon
300 grams kielbasa sausage
5 pieces San Pablo longganisa
1/4 kilo smoked ham
1 piece chopped T-bone
1 big white onion chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
chopped parsley for garnishing

I had difficulty finding black beans locally. What's available mostly are red kidney beans and pinto beans. I've had to go to Healthy Options to find a bag of black beans which were organic (which is I suppose, a good thing) and kind of expensive (oh well). Of course I could have just as easily replaced the black beans with some other kind of bean, but if I can get black beans then I would rather go with that since that is what is specified traditionally.

To add a Filipino touch, I used locally available sausages like the native longganisa. I also had a frozen T-bone steak lying around so I thought I'd just throw that in.

OK, here's how I did it (with some tips from Chef John of Food Wishes):

I first submerged the black beans in water overnight. The following day, I drained the beans, placed them on a deep pot with 4 cups of water. I chopped up the T-bone and threw that in (including the bones) and boiled it for 2 hours. I brought the pot to a boil in high heat then brought down the heat to low as soon as it started boiling. In the first few minutes of boiling, scum rose to the top so I removed all of that.

Around 15 minutes before the 2 hours are up, I chopped the garlic and onion. I sauteed that in some oil (you can fry up some bacon and sautee the garlic and onion in that if you like). I chopped the meat into bite size pieces. I cooked the longganiza in oil until it was browned and chopped that. If you are using uncooked meat at this point, you better cook it first before throwing it in.

At the 2 hour mark, I placed the sauteed onion and garlic into the pot of boiling water and beans, threw in all the meat, added one and a half cups of water. I turned the heat to high once again, and once it starts boiling, I brought the heat back to low. I continued simmering for another hour, with occasional stirring.

Before the hour is up, I mashed up some of the beans in the pot with a potato masher. This will help make the liquid a bit thicker.

I served my Feijoada topped with chopped parsley with rice. (Traditionally topped with orange peels so you can go with that if you like.)

Chawarma at Algiers, Algeria

Ilyn and I recently had an opportunity to travel abroad. We visited two countries, Algeria and France. Being food nuts we were excited at the opportunity to try authentic dishes from both countries.

In Algeria we stayed at the Hotel Safir, which is known as an "International" hotel, As such, they normally serve international cuisine. We were in Algeria for a comics festival and our meals there were "set" meals. Meaning, what they give you, that's what you eat. For the most part, they served attempts at international cuisine. Steaks, pasta, all all that kind of stuff. And honestly, they weren't really that good.

Ilyn and I decided that if we ever want to taste authentic Algerian food, we have to go out of the hotel and eat where the locals eat.

So during our last day in Algiers we went for a walk and found this place that had this familiar vertical meat spit. Here in the Philippines that meant "shawarma".

I thought, hey, I have to see what shawarma in Algeria tastes like! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch the name of the restaurant, but I did see a big sign inside the store that said "CHAWARMA", so I guess that's what they call that there.

Algerian people speak French and a local native language, none of which I know. So it was pretty difficult to communicate. But all I did was point to the spit, and the dude (pictured above) immediately knew we wanted to eat. We proceeded to sit at one of the tables. The dude approached us and asked us what we wanted and we said well, "Chawama".... and he was making all these kinds of gesticulations with his hand and saying stuff we don't understand. Apparently, he's asking us something specific about what we wanted. He was drawing circles in the air and my best solution is to just say yes to everything.

He then asked us to move and transfer to another table. I didn't understand at first why. Then we moved to another table. And then he asked us to move again. I was scratching my head at this point because he was pointing us towards the wall. He wanted us to go to the wall? What?

And then I saw that next to the wall was a very small stairway going downstairs. They wanted us to go downstairs? But why? I hesitated for a moment, and then I went ahead downstairs... and then I understood. The downstairs area was airconditioned. Ah OK.

We were all alone downstairs in this basement dining area for a while before the dude brought us our food. And it was on a plate. Apparently, they serve chawarma two ways. On a bread or on a plate. That was what he was tying to ask us earlier. When he drew circles in the air, he was drawing a plate. So when I said yes, he understood that to mean we wanted our chawarma on a plate.

That was just fine. We loved all the little side dishes that came with it! There were beets, olives, carrots, cucumber, pickles, chopped cabbage, fries, and well, mayonnaise. They don't use that creamy and spicy garlic sauce that we use over here.

And man, the meat was just incredibly nice and flavorful. Ilyn and I both loved it. And the side dishes complimented the meat perfectly. It was one of the best meals I've had in Algeria. We took our time eating it because it was quite a lot! I was already full halfway through. Computing it to our money here in the Philippines, one set of the plated Chawarma  and Fanta drink amounted to something like P250 pesos, but it's definitely worth it! Specially since it came with a complimentary plate or bread.

More food adventures in Algeria and France coming soon!

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.

Jollibee's Ultimate Burger Steak And Why I No Longer Want It. (UPDATED)

UPDATE (December 2014): Hey, what do you know? They now include mashed potatoes with their Ultimate Burger Steak! YEAH! Now I like it again. I recently tried it and I loved it, although it still included fries, and the mashed potatoes just wasn't enough. I wanted more! Hopefully, I can order extra next time!

Yes! I'm back from a bit of a hiatus on this blog, and I'm back with a RANT! Yes, a RANT. You know I kinda like Jollibee's burgers, and this Ultimate Burger steak is no exception. I really like it, apart from the damned soggy fries.

Whoever thought it would be nice to put the burger steak on top of fries and drown it in gravy must have confused "fries" with "mashed potatoes", which is well, NOT THE SAME THING.

Drown mashed potatoes in gravy YES. That's AWESOME. More gravy, please!

Drown fries in gravy? Well, that's just STUPID. Who wants to eat soggy, limp fries? I don't know. Certainly not me!

I solved my problem by asking the clerks at the counter to separate the fries when the prepare it for me. That really shouldn't be a problem, right? Well, yes, for the most part. The couple times I was able to request this I came away really happy.

Well, a while ago, I went back to Jollibee (this is the branch here in San Pablo City next to the SPC Medical Center), ordered Ultimate Burger Steak and requested the same thing. Please separate the fries.

The manager downright said "NO". And then offered to separate the gravy instead. Huh? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? I don't get the logic. I don't understand what sense that makes. Are they saving on paper (the paper bag that comes with separating fries)? But then they are using an extra plastic cup if they wish to separate the gravy. Again, I don't understand.

We told the manager we were able to ask to separate the fries before and then the manager went off and angrily scolded his staff for separating the fries. "WE DON'T SEPARATE FRIES!!"  wtf. I mean, wtf.

Jollibee SPC Medical has just earned its special place in Bizarro world.

I complained about this online to Jollibee's customer service, but not having received any reply, I'm posting this here for everyone to read.

I'm not buying any more Ultimate Burger Steaks in that branch. Or maybe not at any branch anymore.

You know, I can be asked the same thing. What's the difference if Jollibee wants to separate the gravy instead? Well, genius...it's the fact that they refuse to grant a customer's request, which is in my opinion, not really unreasonable. I can pay for the God damned extra paper bag if they want because that's HOW I WANT IT. I eat my food how *I* want it, and not how *they* want it.

Maybe I'll just stick to the CHAMP. Sorry Jollibee. Your twisted sense of logic has lost you an Ultimate Burger Steak customer.

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.

Sizzling Tofu at Simple Treats, San Pablo City

Photo by Jonas Diego

My pals Johnny Danganan, Jonas Diego and his gf Ysa Arce, along with me and Ilyn met for lunch earlier today at Simple Treats here in San Pablo. We weren't able to take any photos except for the one above, which is perfect because that dish is what I really want to talk about.

Simple Treats, easily one of my favorite food places here in the city, seems to have quietly added a few things on their menu. One of them is this dish called "Sizzling Tofu".

Since I am a fan of tofu (YouTofu is after all, another one of my favorite San Pablo restaurants), I thought this was interesting so I wanted to try it out.

I wasn't expecting much, actually. After all, tofu is tofu and you can only wring so much flavor from it. I considered it simply an appetizer for my main dish which was a Tropical Pizza.

When the dish came in it was yes, sizzling hot. I took a few tentative bites (I didn't want to burn my tongue), but pretty soon I must have finished a quarter of this. It was quite simply AMAZING. Jonas himself commented: "Ang pinaka-masarap na tofu na natikman ko ever!". And I have to be honest and say he's not exaggerating. All of a sudden I just wanted to eat it and order another one, and have rice with it.

Even when my pizza came in (which was nice), it wasn't as nice as this tofu so as I was eating the pizza I wished I was eating more of this tofu!  Why did I like it? It came in with bell peppers and this really nice creamy sauce that complemented the tofu on a hot plate extremely well.

I feel like I want to come back to Simple Treats as soon as tomorrow just to taste this again. Yep, certified AWESOME!

Simple Treats is located at the ground floor of the Malinaw Lodge,  Zulueta cor Azucena, San Pablo City. They're open from 8am to 12 midnight.

Facebook Page Here.

I wrote about Simple Treats before here and here.

Pako Salad

I've attempted to do salads before, but they always end up big screaming fails. I guess I just didn't take the time to really study how greens are prepared, and more importantly, how dressing is made, which is (as I've learned) more than just an afterthought.

After watching so many videos online, I've finally come up with a salad that I think I do pretty good. A salad of Pako (or Fiddlehead Ferns) is a particular favorite locally. Although you don't get to see this salad often in common restaurants, they do turn up at high end Filipino themed restaurants and are very expensive. But pako isn't really expensive. In fact, it's ridiculously cheap. I decided to create one of my own.

Ingredients for the dressing:

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Juice from 10 small calamansi (less if you're using big ones)
1 tsp mustard dissolved in 2 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar

How to put the dressing together:

Place all ingredients in a ketchup squirt bottle, close the tip and then shake vigorously for a couple of minutes. That would be enough to combine all the elements in there that normally wouldn't want to combine. Put the bottle in the ref for the meantime.

Ingredients for the salad:

4 bunches pako*
2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
2 red (salted) eggs (itlog na pula), sliced
kesong puti or feta cheese

*When buying pako at the palengke, they usually sell it by bunch. 4 bunches would be enough to feed at least 4 people. It might seem like a whole lot when you buy it, but take note: you only use the tips of the pako. That means probably around 2" to 2-1/2" measured from the very tip.

Here in San Pablo, one bunch of pako is 5 pesos. Four bunches therefore is only 20 pesos. Crazy, right?

Putting the salad together:

Place the pako in a pot of boiling water and cover. Now, quickly get some ice cubes from the ref and place them in a bowl of water. By the time you get back to your boiling pot, the pako would be ready. This should all take less than a minute. Drain the water and place the pako in the iced water to stop it from cooking. Place the pako in a colander for a minute to allow it to drain.

Take out your dressing in the ketchup squirt bottle and shake it again vigorously for a minute.

In a large serving plate, squirt some of the dressing on top of the plate. Place the pako on the plate. You can now add your other ingredients. add the tomatoes, the red eggs, and the cheese. Generously squirt the dressing over the salad. You can either serve this immediately or you can keep it in the ref for a while covered with cling wrap.

In the photo above you can see some grilled green bell pepper. That's just a little side dish which is very simple to do. Just slice the bell pepper in large slices and grill them on a stove top grill or a fire grill. Grilled green bell peppers are very nice. Try it!

Two New San Pablo Restaurants

A new restaurant is always cause for celebration in San Pablo City, well, as far as I'm concerned. I still remember when Pizza Hut opened in San Pablo some ten years ago. People went nuts. The crowd on that first day was insane. Pizza Hut ran out of pizza sometime after lunchtime. And it was crazy crowded for the rest of that week. It's almost always like that when a new place opens. Specially a popular one.

Me, I'm always just looking for a new place to eat. We have tons of restaurants here in San Pablo, but pretty soon, I get used to the food and I start looking for something else.

Two new restaurants have opened/just about to open that I found.

One is YATSKY, which is located where the old Circle Cafe used to be, in that food center near SPC Medical. It's a Tapas Bar of some sort... well, basically a bar. Bars are really not my thing so I really haven't tried it out. Maybe one of these days. From the outside, it looks kind of dark inside. Perfect for drinking, I guess.

Another one is DAVID'S TEA HOUSE, which I'm very excited about. It's not a local restaurant. It's Manila based restaurant and looking at their website, my mind (or rather my stomach) is just blown. Finally, a pretty decent Chinese restaurant. Yeah, I know we have Hap Chan and Shanghai Palace, but I haven't been happy with Hap Chan's duck both times I ordered it. And well, readers of this blog would know I have a thing against Shanghai Palace. It's a shame, as their food is pretty good, although their menu is not enough for me to consider it a really authentic Chinese restaurant. No duck, for instance. And their white chicken is not up to scratch.

David's Tea House is located at the local Puregold, near Sambat. I don't know when they will open, but you can be sure I'll try it out within a week of its opening. And you can read all about what I think here.

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.

"Magic Sarap" and Chefs

Ok, time for something different. I just wanted to make a long winded comment about Maggi's "Magic Sarap" seasoning granules.

I am by no means a chef, but I'm a student of cooking and cooking things right. If there's one thing I learned, if you intend to be a "real" chef, you create everything from scratch as much as possible. If you're making sinigang, you don't buy a sinigang mix. You make that sinigang from scratch with fresh tamarinds.

If you're making something something simple, even something like adobo, you don't buy a ready made adobo marinade mix. You just use soy sauce, vinegar and garlic.

I think that's a great way of cooking because you are aware of and are in control of everything that goes into the food that you serve.

"Magic Sarap" replaces salt in that it provides sodium and many other flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate (MSG), iodized salt, spices and stuff like "meat powder". It's a flavor enhancer that's supposed to enhance the taste of food.

Chefs are not supposed to need "flavor enhancers" because they can do all of this from scratch. Because as chefs, that's what they're supposed to do. That's what they have studied to do and have trained to do. It's what they're supposed to be proud to do. They don't take shortcuts.

So this is why I'm puzzled why a lot of local chefs, even one I've respected for years, go and peddle "Magic Sarap". There's Judy Ann Santos, and there's even Sandy Daza. I mean, SANDY DAZA?

What really drives me to a rage is this Marvin Agustin ad that seems to show Knorr's Ginataang Gulay mix tastes better than one made from scratch. I mean wtf. Peddle that shit all you want, but when you start to say shit like this is better than one made with real ingredients, then you're out of your God damned mind.

I believe chefs cannot separate their training and what they do in their own restaurants, and the persona they present to us in commercials. They're professionals in that what they practice in their cooking is what the should practice when they try to sell us "products". Is Sandy Daza trying to tell me that he uses Magic Sarap in the food that he serves at his restaurant? And is he happily telling me to don't cook from scratch, just use these shortcuts? Is that the kind of cooking knowledge he wants to pass on to me? To all of us? How does that reflect on him as a chef?

What do I have against Magic Sarap? Not too much, actually. It's just that I had this idealized idea of what a chef is like, and they would never and should never use something like this.

But additionally, Magic Sarap contains MSG, which can exacerbate allergic reactions from susceptible people. READ THIS FOR MORE.

Magic Sarap also includes vaguely described elements like "meat powder". What is that? What kind of meat are we talking here? This means anything cooked with Magic Sarap, even if they're vegetables, cannot be considered meat free. Vegetarians beware.

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.

Gerry's Chili

Yep! I like my own chili so much that I decided to name it after me! It's one of the very few things I cooked that I'm proud to attach my own name to it.

Chili is one of my all time favorite dishes. It's not a traditional Filipino dish by any means, but I don't mind. The first time I tasted something like this was at Wendy's, and it seemed interesting. I decided to try it whenever and where ever it popped up on a menu. One of the best chilis I tasted was in restaurant in Detroit, but I've forgotten the name of the place. Its distinct quality was it was fine, thick and soupy, as if all the ingredients have completely dissolved into one consistent goop. It was awesome.

The next best chili I tasted was the one in Mile High near Camp John Hay in Baguio. The waiter was a bit of an ass, but we put up with him because the chili was awesome. Very different kind of chili. You can still see the meat, vegetables and beans in a relatively thin soup, but all together it was very nice.

I didn't like the chili of both Chili's and Johnny Rockets. TOO OILY.

I decided to try to make my own and after several attempts, I finally found one that suits me perfectly. These are the ingredients I used:

1/2 kilo lean ground beef
200g smoked bacon, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 big onion, finely chopped
8 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon rock salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves
1 400g can Molinera red beans
1 400g can Molinera white beans
1 400g can Capri whole peeled tomatoes
1 small can Molinera pimientos
5 pcs. green finger chili peppers (siling haba), seeded and chopped finely
2 tablesooons Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce
2 sticks celery, chopped
2 medium sized green bell pepper chopped
2-1/2 cups water
cheese (for toppings)

First, throw in the chopped bacon in a deep pot on medium high heat. Let it cook for a few minutes to render out the fat. Add just a little bit more oil and then throw in the garlic and the onion. At this stage you need to add the chili powder, cumin and oregano. Stir very well until the spices are absorbed by the onion and becomes soft.

Throw in the ground beef and add the salt and ground black pepper. Stir very well. Now I know the bacon will already bring a lot of saltiness, but I think you need this additional salt for the entire dish. Don't add anymore salt until you've tasted it much later.

Add the whole peeled tomatoes. With a masher or big spoon, mash the tomatoes very well. Add the pimientos, celery, green bell pepper, green chili peppers, and beans and stir very well. Add the chipotle pepper sauce, garlic powder and water. Stir and bring to a boil.

Once it's boiling, turn the heat down to low and allow to simmer for an hour.

After one hour, taste it. If it's not salty enough for you, feel free to add more salt. If it's not spicy enough, feel free to add more chipotle sauce.

Spoon over onto a serving bowl, top with your favorite cheese and there you go!

*I specified Molinera beans and Capri tomatoes, but feel free to choose any brand you wish, if those brands are not available in your area. I used the green chili peppers that are commonly available here in San Pablo, commonly called "Siling Haba", but if I had my way, I would use fresh jalapeno peppers. The closest thing I can get to that is Tabasco's Chipotle Pepper sauce (Chipotle is smoked red jalapeno), which is available at the local SM.

That's it! I hope you give it a try and let me know what you think.

Home Made Pork and Beans

Who else is frustrated when they crack open a can of pork and beans and see only a small sliver of pork fat amidst all the beans? Ridiculous right?

I wanted to finally set things right by making my own home made pork and beans, and jam it with a ton load of pork, with a big dose of smoked bacon. REVENGE.

Here are my ingredients:

Two 400 gram cans of cooked beans (I used pinto beans)
1/2 kilo pork liempo, sliced into bite size pieces
200 grams smoked bacon, cut into 1 inch strips
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon molasses
1 cup tomato ketchup
1 tsp mustard
3 cups water
1 tsp ground black pepper

The first thing to do is put the bacon in a deep pot on high heat and let it sweat out its oil. If the oil isn't enough, add just a little bit more and fry until the bacon for a couple of minutes. Add the pork and stir for another few minutes.

Add the sugar, ketchup, molasses, mustard, black pepper, beans and water. Stir until everything is properly mixed and then bring to a boil. Once it's boiling, bring the heat down to as low as it goes until it's just barely bubbling. Cover, and let simmer this way for the next 3 hours. Longer if you like.

I cook it that long because I want everything to be almost falling apart. It will probably already be fine after 2 and a half hours, but no, I want the pork to be incredibly soft.

Notice I no longer added salt. That's because the bacon already brought in a lot of sodium, but if your taste buds call for more salt after tasting it, then by all means.

I also used canned cooked beans because raw beans are really so difficult to soften up. It takes overnight dunking in water and a few more hours of boiling... I thought the cooked can beans would do the job just fine.

It turned out great! Everyone loved it! Me too!

Home Made Ciabatta

I was inspired to try making my own bread after seeing a seemingly simple video recipe from Chef John of Foodwishes.com.

My first attempt a couple of weeks ago ended in a disaster when I "adjusted" the ingredients slightly. I remembered Wolfgang Puck commenting once, "Baking is like an architect. You measure everything VERY exactly."

Baking is like an architect. RIGHT. But I get the essential gist of it, so this time around, I measured everything exactly.

4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast
2 cups warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
cornmeal (for dusting the pan)

I mixed all of that in a big aluminum bowl with a wooden spatula. Now as you mix this, you may start to think the dough is a little too dry. The last time I panicked and added more water. That ended in disaster. Don't add any more water. Just keep mixing this and it will come together eventually. Just expect to exert your arm a little bit.

Cover the bowl with aluminum foil. Now Chef John specified 18 hours for the dough to rise. Since I used a fast rising yeast, I went down to 6 hours. Now I don't know if that's right or what, but that's what I did.

At the end of 6 hours, the dough did indeed rise quite a bit. I transferred the dough to a large baking pan previously dusted with a generous amount of corn meal. I formed the dough into shape, using a bit of flour on my hands and on top of the dough. I then covered the dough and the pan with a towel and allowed it to rise for another hour. (Chef John specifies 2 hours).

I then put the pan in an oven, pre-heated to 220 degrees C for 45 minutes.

At the end of 45 minutes, it turned out pretty well! Well, I think it's around 90% successful. The crust was wonderfully crunchy, but although the inside was quite cooked, it was still a bit moist and slightly dense. Now perhaps I should have allowed it to rise 18 hours and an additional 2 hours in the pan. I will try that next time.

KFC's ZINGER VS McDonald's McSPICY

Ok, having recently noticed the McSpicy's uncanny resemblance to KFC's Zinger, I decided to try both sandwiches one after the other just to see who exactly wins.

I got my Zinger sandwich from the recently opened KFC branch at the San Pablo City town proper, while I got my McSpicy from a new branch of McDonald's just a couple of blocks up Rizal Avenue from KFC.

The results, may I say, were surprising.

Zinger had been my favorite for such a long time. For for one reason or another, they don't seem to put as much care into making them as they once did. The recent sandwich I got didn't seem as fresh as I would like. It was a bit dry and parts of it were quite tough. Yes TOUGH.

The McSpicy however, was soft and juicy all around, much more consistent in that regard. And it seemed newly cooked. It also had lots of lettuce. Much more greens than the Zinger usually has.

So yeah, I guess as of today, McSpicy wins it. I feel kind of bad because I liked Zinger for such a long time, but I guess that's just sentiment talking. I'm not giving up on it completely though. I will still try it from to time. I hope KFC doesn't disappoint me or else, I'm switching completely!

My Favorite San Pablo City Longganisa

I'm a hardcore longganisa fan. Whenever I go to Manila, I try to get some of the more exotic local sausages from all over the Philippines. And by this time I've tasted a lot. My all time favorite may still be Lucban Longganisa, but this one I found right here in San Pablo comes really close.

The meat sellers at the local palengke have their own versions of longganisa, with slightly varying recipes and tastes. The general characteristic of San Pablo longganisa is that it's "hamonado" or that it's generally sweet.

The one I like most is the one from the stall of Vivien Laurel. They have two kinds of longganisa, Regular and Smoked. I like them both a lot, but I think their "Regular" longganisa (the whiter one), has a distinctive edge because it has a more subtle taste, and it seems more garlicky than the other. Yes, I'm a garlic fan. That's probably why Lucban Longganisa is my all time favorite.

The person at the stall said that the Regular Longganisa needs to be stewed in a bit of water first, while the Smoked one can be fried directly. I stewed both in water first because it's really only the proper thing to do with longganisa. The purpose of this is to soft cook the sausages, allowing some of the fat in them to melt and come out. By the time the water evaporates, the sausages will be fying in their own oil. If the melted oil isn't enough, you can always add a little bit more.

Also, the stewing in water allows the sausages to be cooked so that you don't have to fry them for too long. The problem with frying anything with sugar content is that sugar tends to burn quickly and you will soon end up with a pan with lots of burned and caramelized sugar.

There you go! Longganisa comes best with fried rice and sunny side up egg. If you buy from Vivien Laurel, them them the Internet sent ya!

Corned Beef From Scratch: Sinigang

If you're visiting this site for the first time, this is PART II of my Corned Beef From Scratch series. It's probably best if you read PART I first where I talked about creating corned beef from scratch in full detail.

I took half of the corned beef I cooked yesterday, put in on the ref with the stock and kept it there overnight.

Today, I made sinigang out of it.

Ok, now here's where I admit that I did not make the sinigang out of scratch. I used a combination of instant mixes of Sinigang sa Bayabas and Sinigang sa Sampalok. I know... I KNOW. If I had bothered to make corned beef out of scratch, then I should have taken the trouble to make sinigang out of scratch as well.

Well, I throw up my hands and say that you're right. But being only 60% happy with my corned beef, I wanted to know right away how it would do with sinigang and I really couldn't be bothered to go through the trouble. Perhaps when I'm completely happy with my corned beef, I'll be happy enough to do sinigang from scratch as well.

With perhaps around a liter of water from the wash water of rice, I threw in some crushed garlic and quartered tomatoes. I put the mixes in (I want really sour soup so I put more than what is usually indicated in the package), brought everything to a boil, added my vegetables which are okra, labanos, sitaw and the beef. I had cut the beef into smaller cubes, being very careful not to break it apart because by now it's so soft it's really falling apart. After boiling for some 5 minutes (you don't need to boil longer than that because the beef is already cooked, and the vegetables cook quickly), I added kang kong leaves on top, boiled for a minute more, and turned off the heat.

How was it? I was definitely happier with this, than I was with the Corned Beef Hash I made yesterday!

Corned Beef From Scratch

After tasting some awesome home made corned beef at Cafe Juanita, it pretty much inspired me and challenged me to create some of my own corned beef, from scratch of course!

Looking through recipes online, at first it seemed rather complicated, but after reading up some more, it really wasn't. It would just take a long time to do. Which is perfectly OK.

I ended up buying half a kilo of kalitiran, which is actually Blade Chuck if we're going by cow terms. I'm not sure if it's the best cut of beef for Corned Beef (it isn't, it's actually Brisket).

BRINING

Brining pretty much means submerging meat in water with a variety of spices. For this stage, these are the ingredients I used:

A container to brine the meat in.
Half a kilo blade chuck
2/3 cup rock salt
1 teaspoon pink curing salt
1 tablespoon pickling spices*
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 liter water

*Pickling spice is a combination of equal parts the following spices:

all spice
mustard seeds
coriander seeds
cardamom (crushed)
a bit of cinammon stick (crushed)
bay leaf
ground ginger
whole black pepper corns
whole cloves
pepper flakes

You would need at least 2 tablespoons of pickling spice. You will use one now for brining, and one for later.

I sealed the container well and placed it inside the refrigerator.

SIMMERING

After 7 days I removed the beef from the brine and discarded the liquid. I washed the beef a little bit to remove remaining brine and spices that stuck to it.

I placed the beef  in a deep pot or dutch oven with around 2 liters of water. Turn the heat to high and bring it to a boil. Remove any scum that rises to the top. Once the scum is removed, I added 1 tablespoon of the remaining pickling spice. I brought the heat down as low as it goes, until the liquid is almost barely bubbling. I covered it and let it simmer like that for 3 and a half hours, or until beef is fork tender, but not disintegrating.

I then cut the beef and half, reserving one half for Corned Beef Sinigang (for tomorrow!) and the other half for Corned Beef Hash (for tonight!).

CORNED BEEF HASH

I sauteed some chopped garlic and onion and oil for a few minutes, added one finely chopped small potato.  and fried it for several minutes until the potato was just about soft and sticking to the pan. I then added half the beef and pulled the beef apart in the pan itself with a couple of forks which was easily accomplished since the beef was extremely tender. I added 1 large pinch of salt, some ground black pepper, and sauteed everything for a few more minutes.

I garnished the dish with a few sliced onions.

What's the verdict?

Well, it could have put more curing salt (I only used one teaspoon) to make the meat more red. The camera somewhat enhanced the color of the meat in the photo above. But I was wary of using too much of it.

I was also kind of puzzled that the meat didn't come out salty from the brining that I had to add additional salt in the cooking. Perhaps I should have just left the beef in the refrigerator after simmering it and used it a few days later to allow the taste to develop? I don't know.

Also, I probably used too much cardamom or some other spice.... because it seemed to be too noticeable in the finished dish.

As an experiment, I would say this was around 60% successful. I will try again!

Tomorrow the Corned Beef Sinigang!

Kinulob Style Afritada

I had this one whole chicken in the freezer waiting to be cooked and this time around I thought I'd do Afritada, with a few special adjustments. I would be cooking the chicken whole, stewed in my favorite Capri canned whole peeled tomatoes, pimiento, pepperoni (left over from pizza I made earlier), and the standard afridata ingredients potato and carrots.

These are my ingredients:

1 whole chicken
1 400g can Capri whole peeled tomatoes (doesn't have to be Capri, as long as it's Italian)
1 113g small can Capri pimientos (also doesn't have to be Capri), chopped
1 tsp dried tarragon
1/3 cup sliced pepperoni (cut from sausage, not the precut kind), or any smoked sausage
1 green bell pepper sliced
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 big white onion, chopped
1 large potato, cubed
1 small carrot, sliced
2 cups water or chicken stock
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more or less, according to taste, also optional)
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 teaspoon brown sugar

I first sauteed the garlic and onion in oil in a medium sized deep pot or dutch oven (I actually used a rice cooker pot), added the chopped pimientos and tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes with a potato masher or if you don't have that,  a large spoon will do. Add the tarragon, bouillon cube, 2 cups water, teaspoon salt, sugar, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, pepper flakes and the pepperoni. Now I like putting pepperoni or some other smoked sausage so it will give the afritada somewhat of a smokey flavor (which I like).

Place the chicken at the center of the pot. Most likely the liquid won't cover the entire chicken but that's OK. Add the cubed potato, sliced carrot and bay leaves around the chicken.

Put the heat on high and once it starts boiling, turn the heat down to low and continue simmering for the next 45 minutes. Turn the chicken over, and then continue simmering for another 30 minutes. Most likely you would no longer need to add any more water. Before the 30 minutes ends, maybe 5 minutes before you take the chicken off the heat, add your sliced green bell peppers. Taste the sauce to see if you still need more salt or if you want it more spicy.

McDonald's McSpicy Burger Taste Test!

Ok, sorry, I wasn't able to take a photo of the burger myself. It was an unexpected thing, walking into McDonald's one day and I saw this new burger. I asked the counter person if it was chicken and she said YES.

So yeah! I just had to order one. Like I said, I wasn't able to take a picture, but the one I got actually generally looked like that photo, except of course mine wasn't THAT thick. It was thick, but not that thick.

I had given up  the standard McChicken Sandwich after KFC came out with their Zinger sandwich which I reviewed here. Up to this point my favorite chicken fast food burger was the Zinger. Now it was time to see if I'll have a new favorite.

What did I think?

I thought the McSpicy was just awesome. Well, as awesome as KFC's Zinger sandwich is. In fact, it tastes very much like a Zinger with that crunchy breading on a chicken fillet with just the right amount of heat that I can tolerate and still enjoy. The only real difference is that the McSpicy came with lots more lettuce. So is the McSpicy my new favorite burger?

Let me just call it a tie. I love them both. I'll eat them both if I can. If I'm in McDonald's I'll eat this one. If I'm in KFC, I'll eat the Zinger. That's pretty much it!

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.

Cafe Juanita: I Died and went to Food Heaven

Yesteray Ilyn and I went to Manila and finding ourselves in the Barangay Capitol Hills area, we decided to eat at Cafe Juanita. It's a restaurant I've heard so much about. In fact, it's been voted many times as the best that serves traditional Filipino food.

Oh yeah? We went ahead to try it out.

The first thing you notice upon entering the place is the visual assault of the many things that decorate the interior. I can't even begin to describe it. Here's a photo, showing just a small segment of the dining area.

Ok, that didn't even begin to show how crazy the decor is so I'll just leave it at that. The food is the important thing anyway. So how was it?

Ilyn and I ordered two things: Corned Beef Sinigang and Laing.

Seemed simple enough. I tasted the Laing first (pictured above). The Laing was presented in quite an ordered way, unlike the usual mush of leaves stirred endlessly together. They rolled the leaves over a meat of some kind and sliced it. I took a bite of one of the slices and oh my God, it was so awesome. I've eaten laing so many times before from so many different places. I don't understand how they can make it taste even better, even spectacular. My eyes were literally rolling in their sockets. I tend to do that when I taste something awesome.

I was eager to try the Corned Beef Sinigang next.

Ok, so they didn't just open a can of corned beef and made sinigang out of that. Apparently, they made their own corned beef but it still looked like whole pieces of beef, cut into thin slices. And once again, oh my God, the beef was probably the softest that's ever passed my lips (softer than that Donovan's steak). It's so soft that the mere pressure from a fork crumbles the beef into shreds. The soup itself is perfectly tart for sinigang, but it has something else in there that makes the taste so soft to the taste. Perhaps bayabas? I'm guessing it is.  Whatever it is, it's brought this dish right to the edge. Once again, I can't believe I'm saying this... I've tasted corned beef before, I've tasted sinigang before, but I'm not kidding when I say this is the best damned corned beef and sinigang I've tasted. It's kind of insane.

The nice thing about their sinigang is, they actually give you a small cup with some of the soup for you to preview its tartness and saltiness. The would ask you if it was all right or if they need to turn it up a little bit or lessen it. I've never seen anyone do that before.

Cafe Juanita, I love you, dammit! I'm coming back and next time I'm bringing my mom and dad.

Cafe Juanita is at 2 United Street, Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig. Be sure to call to reserve a table at peak hours because apparently, we were lucky to find a free table when we came in. All the tables had "Reserved" on them! (02) 632-0357