Wonderful Lunch at Mio Cucina, Los Baños

Whenever Ilyn and I want to go out on a "special" date, but don't feel like going to Tagaytay or Manila, we opt for Mio Cucina located in Los Baños. It really is one of the best restaurants in that town, bar none. It's a very small, very pretty restaurant from the inside. It also feels very homey and cozy and it's the perfect place to bring a date to.

For a small, quaint restaurant, it also a bit classy without being alienating. And although the food is generally something you see from other Filipino-themed restaurants, the quality of the food is so much better. We've ate here for many times now, trying different things and we have yet to be really disappointed.

Any meal comes with free appetizer (picture above) which includes Bonete and a variety of spreads. The last time we were here one of the spreads was something called "Sinantolan" made from finely chopped and mashed santol but santol might not be in season so we got butter and some kind of tomato salsa. It's very light in flavor and in the stomach. What more from an appetizer can I ask for? Some restaurants go crazy with their appetizers that it makes you quite full by the time your main meal arrives.

For our salad, we ordered Ensaladang Ampalaya (P165). Normally we would order Ensaladang Pako, but it was unavailable so we chose this instead. But having had Pako before, in the back of my mind I wanted to try something else so I was glad that it wasn't available. And it's a good thing too because this Ampalaya salad was just excellent. Not too many people know how to prepare Ampalaya right. People complain that it's too bitter, but it's only because it wasn't prepared properly. This Ampalaya, if I'm not mistaken, was pickled so it's a bit sweet. Combined with the tomato and kesong puti, it was so nice that I finished half of this in no time at all.

Feeling a bit hungry, I actually ordered another appetizer. This one is called Crispy Squid (P285). I wanted to try something else because I was a bit tired of the usual mushroom and garlic or the breaded calamares. I didn't know what to expect when I ordered this from the menu. It's a bit pricey but it's an experiment. Who knows, I might like it. And I did! The first bite of this was amazing. It's crispy because it's coated in caramelized sugar, which makes it tastes a little bit like dilis, but with that unmistakable squid flavor. Although I absolutely loved this, it's something I could not eat a lot of.  Medyo nakakaumay, would be the Tagalog term for it.

Ilyn's main dish is the Tortang Talong (P165). We were surprised when it arrived as a pair. As was usual with Mio, any traditional dish is usually elevated in quality, but this Torta might have been the exception. It was good, but there was nothing extra special about it. It tastes very much like other eggplant tortas we have had in other places, including here at home.

My main dish (which I can't seem to take a decent photo of) is the Hito in Coconut Milk (P225). Hito or Catfish is a favorite fish of mine. Ilyn hates it though. I usually have it grilled or fried, but rarely cooked in coconut milk. I had it once like that here at home and it was so fatty. I wanted to try and see how Mio prepares it.

And Mio surprised me again by how good it was. No, it was excellent. The flavor is very subtle, which is a quality that I like in any dish. It's not fatty at all, which is good. I finished all of it and ended up looking for more.

If you are looking for a nice place to have a date with your special someone and you're in the area, I wholeheartedly recommend Mio Cucina. They have this little cove inside their little restaurant that's perfect for couples. It's intimate and the food is really good. I recommend that you call for reservations though, because it does tend to become full at certain times. You can call them at (049)5363311. They're located behind Community Cable, 10395 Lopez Ave, on the left side going to UPLB.

Recipe: Simple Grilled Tuna

It's been a while since I posted a recipe of something I cooked. This time around it's nothing so complicated. I saw a bag of frozen cubed tuna at our local grocery and I thought I'd just grill it. You will just need:

Tuna steak or cubed tuna.
1/2 cup Kikkoman soy sauce
juice from 4 pcs. kalamansi
1 teaspoon sugar
I just had some fresh thyme lying around so I used some.

Thaw the tuna completely. Combine the soy sauce, kalamansi juice, sugar and thyme and let the tuna marinate in it for an hour or so.

Fire up your grill. I used a stove top grill. Make sure your grill is smoking hot. Reduce temp slightly. Grill your tuna, turning often until there are no more pink tuna flesh showing (you might need to break one cube up or slice your steak to see). Cooking time depends on how thick your tuna is. Slicing up the steak slightly would be actually OK so you can baste it with the remaining marinade as you grill. Since the marinade has sugar in it, be careful not to burn the outside too much.

Once done, place on a serving plate. Heat up the remaining marinade and pour over the tuna. You can top that with some fresh thyme for you know.... effect. And taking pictures.

Satori Japanese Restaurant, San Benito, Alaminos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

[Video Recipe] Baked Blue Marlin Steak

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

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

These are the things you would need:

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

Check out the video for the procedure.



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