Shanghai Palace, San Benito, Alaminos

This is a restaurant that suddenly popped up on the Alaminos side of the boundary with San Pablo City, next to Honda San Pablo. It always looked nice from the outside every time I pass by and because this is me and I'm always first in line to try anything new, the other day I decided to pay the place a visit.

There aren't that many places in San Pablo that offers really good Chinese food. Used to be South Plaza was the best, but that place unfortunately went belly up, which is a shame. Hap Chan at Ultimart is just OK, but there have been  a couple of occasions when I've been unhappy with the food there. Then there's Chowking, but ever since they phased out Chicken Mami, which is kind of ridiculous, I've been visiting there less.

So yeah, I was pretty excited to try this new Chinese restaurant out. It's not strictly in San Pablo, but it's close enough.

Browsing the menu I was kind of disappointed that I didn't find any duck. Or anything that jumped out at me as something other than the usual fare. They didn't have congee, which kind of as ridiculous as Chowking not having Chicken Mami.  What kind of Chinese restaurant does not have congee?  The only thing that's a bit different was the "White Chicken". White chicken usually means Hainanese Chicken, so I ordered that, hoping that my guess was right.

Looking over the dimsum menu I saw that they had "Shrimp Dumplings" which the waitress said was actually Hakaw. Hakaw fan that I am, I ordered that.

The other people with me ordered Fried Chicken, and Beef with Ampalaya. We ordered Yang Chow Fried Rice and my wife had bottomless ice tea for drinks.

It took around 30 minutes for our orders to start arriving and first up was the Hakaw. I asked for chopsticks and immediately dug in, dipping it in soy sauce with chili garlic.

Easily, this is one of the best Hakaw I've tasted. It far surpasses any that I ate before. The skin is incredibly soft and the insides very tasty. I loved it. I'm so glad I sent for 2 orders of it. My wife isn't a fan of hakaw, but she really liked this as well.

I didn't get the chance to taste the Fried Chicken, but the kids that were with us really liked it. I did get the chance to taste the Beef with Amapalaya and THAT was really nice. I was saving my appetite for the White Chicken though.

The weird thing about ordering White Chicken is that you can order only 1/4 chicken servings. If you wish to order 1/2 chicken, they will give you two 1/4 chicken serving plates. I suppose if you wish to order a whole chicken, they'll give you 4 plates. I think it would be nice if they could adapt and have half chicken and whole chicken servings in just one plate.

But anyway, the White Chicken came in a bed of cucumber, red bell pepper and cabbage salad, which is really nice. It came with ginger sauce, which is pretty standard for this kind of dish.

Although I really liked it, it didn't rock my tastebuds as I hoped it would. I mean, come on, I've tasted White Chicken/Hainanese Chicken from lots of different places, and I've had some that were just absolutely fantastic. My standards in this area are bound to be high. Although it was good, really good in fact, I guess I just have to say I've tasted better. For one thing it seemed rather bony. Compare that with the Hainanese Chicken I had here, and you'll see what I mean.

My wife was bowled over by the bottom less ice tea though, as one serving came in glass and a pitcher, which is a lot.

For desert, my wife just loved the Mango Sago. I wasn't able to take a picture of it or even taste it, but I promise you. My wife normally doesn't rave about food unless it was just absolutely bloody fantastic. In fact, she wants to come back if only to have this desert again.

As for me, yeah, I'd love to come back as well. The fantastic Hakaw really sold me. I now want to try other things on their menu. In fact, we're already planning it. I'm already thinking of trying out their noodle dishes to see how they handle mami.


Shanghai Palace as an official Facebook Page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shanghai-Palace-Restaurant/371874976255936

Hey Jollibee! Bring Back the Amazing Aloha Burger!

Graphics aside, The Amazing Aloha is not really back... at least NOT YET! Quite a few blogs are popping up clamoring for the return of this Jollibee burger that I thought I'd throw my own two centavos in.

A few people know that Anthony Bourdain recently ate this burger on his TV show after he visited a Jollibee branch in the US.

Now that freaked out a few Filipinos like me collectively going, "It's available in Jollibee US?! Why isn't it available in Jollibee's hometown?!" COME ON!

Even before that Anthony Bourdain's bit on TV, I was already sending emails to Jollibee asking for the return of The Amazing Aloha. This has been their reply:

************
Sir Gerry,

Thank you for your patronage of Jollibee. Your feedback is highly appreciated and Jollibee will definitely be looking into this so we can further improve our service for our customers. Store support teams will be looking into the overall effect of the suggestion to the business.

Again thank you very much and we hope that you’ll visit Jollibee again soon.Sincerely yours,

Lerma Icapin-AquinoCustomer Care

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

Looks like we could have a say in it! So if you want to do your part to bring The Amazing Aloha back, send Jollibee an email:  feedback at jollibee dot com dot ph

My wife doesn't really like burgers, but this is the only she really likes eating. So that's really saying something.

And while Jollibee is at it, why not bring back Double Yum with Cheese as well? Sometimes I want  a middle ground between the small Yum w/Cheese and the huge Champ. Double Yum w/Cheese usually fit the bill. I don't know why they phased that out as well.

Simple White Pasta Sauce

This is probably one of the first recipes I've ever learned. I got the idea from the editor of my first comics job, JR. Mercado, around 1992.

It is really very simple. These are the basic ingredients:

Cooked Pasta
1 can Campbell Mushroom Soup
2 tablespoons Cheez Whiz

Cook the pasta (spaghetti or macaroni or whatever you like). Cook the Campbell soup according to package directions, which would require you 1 can full of either milk or water. I prefer water because I'm lactose intolerant. Add the 2 tablespoons of Cheez Whiz.

And that's basically it.

However, you can consider this simply a base on which you can add more stuff in. You can chop and fry (or boil) some cold cuts, whichever you prefer. I would recommend bacon and ham. Tonight, so it would be more healthy, I used chicken ham and fish sausage. I chopped some asparagus lying around and threw that in the sauce. I boiled it for a couple of minutes to cook the asparagus.

Upon serving, I topped it with some Parmigiano-Reggiano (you can use parmesan cheese) and some chili flakes.

It's a pretty flexible dish. You can add whatever cold cuts you like, although I would advice NOT using those red hotdogs because the red color kind of leaks out and turns your white sauce red.

Or, you can opt not to have cold cuts at all. Totally up to you.

Adobong Puti (White Adobo)

"Adobong Puti" or White Adobo is basically the standard adobo without the soy sauce. However, the original form of this dish as cooked by natives of this country before the Spanish came did not include soy sauce. Natives mostly just stewed their meat in vinegar. Whatever the name of that dish is now lost to time, unfortunately, and when it was adapted later on with the addition of soy sauce, it came to be known as "Adobo".

I don't have access to what the original recipe was, so this is just pretty much a guess. I had some chicken that was meant for Tinola, but I finagled a few pieces to cook for this dish. That's probably why the amount of chicken I use is kind of inexact. But just add ingredients proportionally, and you'll do fine.

3/4 kilo chicken (I used legs and thigh)
8 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped (you can use less if you like)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon salt (or add to taste)
(It is possible to use patis or fish sauce instead of salt, but I chickened out from using it)
1 tsp whole peppercorns (I normally don't like using whole peppercorns because it's nasty if you bite into it, but I used here just because)
1 tsp sugar
2/3 cup vinegar (preferably native coconut vinegar)
Handful of siling labuyo leaves. (This is optional. I just tried it out because well, I wanted to. Turned out OK though.

Put all of that in a stewing pot and add enough water to cover the chicken pieces completely. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low. Do not stir this. Just let it stew by itself. Let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour until the chicken is tender and almost falling off the bone.

Serve on a plate and top with toasted garlic (optional). Of course, serve with rice.

Pizza from Scratch!

I love pizza! Since meatless pizza alternatives here in San Pablo just don't do it for me* (Greenwich's Garden Fresh Pizza comes close), I oftentimes just make my own.

Previously, I would just buy ready made frozen crust and ready made packaged pizza sauce from the grocery to make them, but this time I thought I'd do one from scratch.

Since I'm not smart enough to invent something like this, I did what any sensible person would do, look for recipes on the Internet!

I found these two recipes from Foodwishes.blogspot.com. The first recipe is for the pizza sauce:

Pizza Sauce Recipe
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2012/02/pizza-sauce-lets-play-hide-little-fish.html

I gotta say, this sauce turned out fantastic! In fact, it's amazing. I wasn't able to find any of the specified canned tomato (San Marzano), but I was able to find another brand, also imported from Italy that surprisingly wasn't so expensive.

I'm NEVER buying ready made pizza sauce (or even spaghetti sauce) again!

For the dough:

California Pizza Dough
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfgang-pucks-famous-california-pizza.html

Making the dough was pretty tricky so I had to follow the instructions very carefully.

The dough I made wasn't as good looking as what was in the recipe, but it worked fine anyway.

It is here I started to add my own thing. I added my own favorite toppings (chopped red and green bell peppers and mushrooms) and my favorite cheeses.

I also cooked the pizza longer than what's in the recipe because the bottom wasn't toasting as much as the one in the recipe in the time that was specified. Perhaps it's just my oven. I ended up cooking it twice as long.

It turned out pretty good! I can now make real pizza!

*I am not a vegetarian, but for health reasons I decided to cut down on my meat by 90%.

The Best Buko Pie. PERIOD.

As a life long Laguna resident, I've been eating buko pie for as long as I can remember. I've eaten them all. And in my opinion, the best ever buko pie is Orient, the Original Buko Pie from Los Baños.

I know that hardcore Los Baños residents would insist that Letty's Buko Pie is better and even more original than Original. I think it's just loyalty talking. Or that irrational need to proclaim the lesser known is better simply because they like going against the grain.

My thinking is, quality is what wins out.

Between Letty's and Orient, stores which are located near each other, which one of these always *always* have the long lines of people at any time of the day? And when people buy do they buy just one box? No, they buy 4, 5 or even 10 boxes at a time.

That line is not just habit, or  hype. That is reputation that's been earned for decades.

But I trust my own taste buds. And for me, Letty's Buko Pie is just too sweet for me. Collette's Buko Pie is even sweeter. El Mare hovers somewhere between those two.

The sugar content of Orient Buko Pie is just right. More than that, there's a certain flavor and taste that I just don't get at all from any other buko pie.

Hello Blog! I haven't updated you because well, I really haven't been cooking anything exciting lately, and we really haven't been going out to eat at anywhere new and interesting.

I did cook a mean batch of Chili the other day, well, I helped cook it at least. I'll probably post the ingredients and procedure here later. Maybe I won't. Let's see!