Awesome Korean Meals at Cook-Eat, San Pablo City

I first learned about Cook-Eat as me and Ilyn were passing the place aboard a tricycle. I said to Ilyn, look, the old liquor place is now a restaurant. And it's true. This new resto is located where we used to buy wine. If you're at the San Pablo City Fire Station, just start walking up the road towards the Iglesia ni Kristo and you can't miss this place, located on the left side of the road, across Human Heart Nature.

We first tried this a few days ago and had their Bulgogi set, which includes beef, vegetables and a slew of side dishes including soup, dilis, peanuts, kimchi, pickled cucumber, spicy sayote, bean sprouts, potatoes, vegetable lumpia and a desert of mango jello. Being new at this, we asked one of the wait staff to do the grilling for us and he did.

To be completely honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by the Bulgogi. I thought there was something lacking in the taste. The beef was chewy. I didn't like the soup. Mango jello seemed to be made of instant mango than actual real mangoes. But the kimchi was really, really good, as well as the pickled cucumbers. That being said for a meal that fed both Ilyn and me rather well, I thought P399 for everything was rather cheap.

I was a bit more happy when we visited the second time. Actually, we were more than happy. I thought our meals the second time around were amazing. Ilyn ordered the Bibimbap with an extra side order of pickled cucumber:

Ilyn really liked it. To me it looked like Tapsilog with 5 different types of atsara. Which is exactly what Bibimbap is, I think. I mean, it's true! There's the beef, which is both salty and sweet. I asked to taste the beef and it was really really soft. I really liked it. There's the rice and sunny side up egg. Then there's an assortment of side dishes including bean sprouts, carrot and a few leafy things I can't tell what they were but Ilyn says tasted really good.

Meanwhile, I had the Ramyun, with an extra side dish of kimchi, which I didn't know already came with a small side dish of kimchi:

The broth was just AMAZING. It tasted really thick, beefy, with a slight hint of anise and just the right amount of spiciness. The beef itself is really soft with a slightly more anise taste. The noodles were cooked perfectly right and complemented the soup really well. There were a couple types of mushroom in there as well a couple of slices of tofu. One of the best ramen noodles I've tasted in a while.

By the way, I don't know what they use for rice here, but it's really really good. One of the best tasting rice I've had as in literally anywhere. What is this magical rice? They must tell me!

I see myself coming back to this place and try their hotpot! Next time soon, Cook-Eat!

Here's Cook-Eat's Facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/CookEatSPC/

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.

Cabbage Roll

Inspired once again from a recipe I found at Chef John's Food Wishes, I tried out this technique of wrapping some filling with cabbage and  simmering it in stock and tomatoes. I would often do a lot of these cooking experiments but not all of them makes it to this blog or onto video, specially those that turned out to suck.

This however, this turned out fantastic!

We had some left over lumpiang shanghai filling from lunch earlier today and I thought I could use that filling for this dish. Now you can come up with a filling of your own and use whatever you like. You can use chicken or pork or fish... it's really up to you.  This recipe is more of the technique of doing the cabbage roll itself.

These were the ingredients I used:

1/4 kilo filling. (I used lumpiang shanghai filling which included chicken, carrots, onion and spring onions)
3/4 cup washed uncooked rice
1/2 can Capri Whole Peeled Tomatoes (I like this brand because the tomatoes are really nice and red)
1 medium sized cabbage
1 medium sized onion, chopped
2-1/2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper
2 bay leaves
kinchay

First you need to prepare your ingredients. First up is the tomato. Take half of the canned whole peeled tomatoes, put them in a bowl and crush them until they form kind of a rough sauce. Now you can always buy canned tomatoes that are already crushed of course, and you can choose any brand you like, and of course, you can just get regular tomatoes for this, it doesn't really matter. Well, it matters to me actually because as I said, I really love these canned tomatoes. Buy one and see for yourself. It's amazing.

Second, take out the core of the cabbage and place the cabbage in a deep pan of boiling water. Within a few seconds, those cabbage leaves are going to peel off. Using tongs, carefully remove each one as they detach. Do this until the entire cabbage is deconstructed.

Third, take your meat filling and add the rice and around 2 tablespoons chopped kinchay. Mix that all together very well.

In a medium sized casserole dish (with a lid!), line the bottom with the smallest cabbage leaves.

You are now going to build your cabbage rolls. Take one of the biggest leaves, remove bits of hard stem towards the bottom with a knife. Take around 2 tablespoons of meat/rice mixture and place it horizontally near the bottom of the leaf. Now carefully wrap the leaf around the meat, folding the sides and then folding the whole thing. Do as many as would fit in your casserole dish.

Carefully place the rolls inside the dish. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over the rolls. Now pour your tomato sauce over this, add the bay leaves and pour as much stock as would cover the rolls completely.

With regards to stock. You can always boil some chicken with a few vegetables like carrots and celery and use the liquid for stock. I didn't have that so I simply used a chicken cube dissolved in 2-1/2 cups of water. Now if you're using a cube, be careful not to add to much salt in the previous step. Not too much would just be right.  The cube comes with quite a bit of sodium already.

Place your chopped onion over the rolls and then cover everything with a layer of the remaining cabbage leaves.

Close the lid, place the dish inside an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees C. You will bake this for at least one and a half hours.

After one and a half hours, leave the casserole dish inside the cooling oven for 30 minutes more before serving.

And there you go!

Hainanese Chicken at Hainanese Delights

I'm a big fan of Hainanese Chicken, ever since I tasted the real deal at a hawker's center in Sinagpore. (Read  that blog entry here.)

Ever since then, I've been on the lookout for a local version here in the Philippines that would be as good. I've tried several dishes from many other restaurants, including a couple of high end Chinese/Singapore style places, but their chicken always come up lacking.

So far the best local Hainanese Chicken I've tasted I found in Hainanese Delights, which is surprisingly kind of a fast food type place that's slowly spreading across malls in Metro Manila. The two branches I visited was in Robinson's Galleria in Ortigas, and the one in SM Megamall Building A.

Of all the Hainanese chicken I've tasted so far, theirs is the best one I've tasted. The chicken is soft and perfectly seasoned. Their spice combo of ginger, hot sauce and soy sauce is unlimited. (In other restaruants they either had limited amounts of it or didn't have them all together). Not only did they serve the chicken with that special Hainan rice (Rice cooked in chicken stock), it was also unlimited. Other restaurants just serve plain rice which is like WTF. You don't serve Hainanese chicken without serving Hainan rice. That's just wrong. (I'm talking to you, Sentosa, Shangrila Mall.)

Highly recommended, if you want to get an idea of authentic Hainanese Chicken from Singapore!

Check out their website here:
http://www.hainanesedelights.ph/

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.