Mother's Day Celebration at Shanghai Palace, Alaminos

Because my wife Ilyn and I really enjoyed the food at Shanghai Palace (San Benito, Alaminos, Laguna), we decided to bring my mom and dad there for lunch on Mother's Day. (See my first review of Shanghai Palace here.)

What Ilyn really loved about her first stay was the Mango Sago dessert. She just absolutely freaked out over it. I really don't recall too many times she similarly freaked out over any kind of food, so she was really eager to come back. She told me that she didn't care what I ordered, as long as she got her Mango Sago.

I wish I could say this second go round at Shanghai Palace was a great one. Unfortunately, it wasn't. If fact, it was kind of bad. It wasn't an absolute disaster by any means as there are plenty of good things to say about it, but there are also some really bad ones.

Anyway, we arrived at the place at 11:45 in the morning. The place was about half full. That was quite a surprise at the time because every time we passed by this place it never really seemed to have that many people. But very soon the place will be filled to capacity, leaving other people standing around waiting to get seats.

I suppose I shouldn't really be that surprised since it is, after all, Mother's Day, and other people were celebrating Mother's Day as well. My mom and my aunt met a lot of people they knew over there so that was great.

I got kind of worried because the first time we were there, it took 30 minutes for our food to arrive, and that was when there was hardly any people there. This time it was full. I wondered how long we were going to wait. I didn't have to wonder too long because the surprise of the day is, all our orders came in within 15 minutes. Which was definitely a surprise. And a very welcome one.

I ordered the Hakaw because I really liked that the first time. This time I added Lumpiang Shanghai, Chop Suey, Miki Bihon and Shrimp Brocolli. The lumpia was really nice, although they forgot to give us the sweet and sour dipping sauce. It took two follow-ups and 10 minutes for them to bring it. By that time we already ate half of it. I had asked for chopsticks, and it never came. Never bothered to follow up because it's becoming obvious to me that the wait staff was starting to get overwhelmed by the amount of people who arrived. I'm told later that they only had 5 people on the wait staff and that made it kind of difficult for them to handle so many people.

After the main meal, we ordered our dessert. I ordered two Mango Sago for me and Ilyn. My mom wanted the Lychee with the Almond Jelly but the almond jelly wasn't available. It wasn't available the first time we were there either. I wonder why. So my mom and aunt ordered simply the Lychee. My dad ordered Buchi.

We had been waiting for some 30 minutes when a waiter came to our table, noticing that we were no longer eating. I thought he was going to tell us of the status of our dessert, but instead, he asked if we wanted our bill. What the hell? Immediately, I felt really hot in the face. Meaning I got really mad. I mean, it was already obvious to me that our desert was now taking much much longer to arrive than our main meal, and I was already starting to get restless. And now THIS?

They were actually trying to hurry us up and go?  Because that certainly how it felt. Our dessert hasn't even arrived yet! They were probably getting really harassed because there were a lot of people arriving and there were no longer any seats. They were probably eager to get people going once they were done.

But guess what? We weren't done. And we weren't going to BE done until they bring us our dessert.

Later, this same waiter came back and said that our order wasn't rung up on the kitchen and was ready to take our order again. What The Hell. Thankfully, the original waitress who took our order passed by and she confirmed that our order was indeed rung up in the kitchen. So ok, we waited some more.

My dad's Buchi was the first to arrive, followed some 10 minutes later by mom and aunt's Lychee. By this time it was already 45 minutes since we first ordered dessert. Surprisingly, they gave my mom an extra Mais Con Yelo, as a kind of a Mother's Day thing, which was nice. We follow-up our Mango Sago. Nothing yet.

It was getting close to an hour and our Mango Sago hasn't arrived yet. Ilyn was getting visibly upset. By upset I mean she was no longer smiling and she's being very quiet. And that is very unusual for her. That means she was very mad.

Close to an hour and more than five followups, Ilyn has had enough. She went to the counter and said that if the Mango Sago still wasn't ready after almost an hour, then they just better cancel it. Apparently, after ALMOST AN HOUR the Mango Sago was unbelievably STILL NOT READY. So they agreed to cancel it. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

I really can't even begin to describe how frustrating that is, and how upsetting it was to Ilyn, who went to Shanghai Palace specifically so she can have that Mango Sago again. That's the only thing she went there for, guys. THAT is the only thing. And for some strange reason you just won't give it to her. That's just screwed up. Really screwed up.

They were sorry, but I'm sorry Shanghai Palace, apologies aren't really enough. Words aren't going to be enough. You owe my wife MORE than that. You really have to make it up to my wife. How? Well, it's really going to have to be up to you, isn't it?  Because until you do something, WE ARE NOT COMING BACK, and we will share this story with ALL our friends. Which is too bad because we do enjoy your food. But based on how many people were eating there today, I'm sure you won't miss us anyway, so we're not really expecting any response. After all, sino ba kami?

In any case, if you want get in touch my wife, you can contact her through her twitter: https://twitter.com/ilynflorese

You know, Shanghai Palace, you really ruined Mother's Day for us. We tried not to show how frustrated we were to my Mom and Dad, who were perfectly happy to eat there, but we're transparent people and they could tell how upset we were. So Mother's Day was tainted for them as well.

Jollibee's Amazing Aloha Burger is BACK!

Not a hoax! Not a dream! Jollibee's Amazing Aloha burger is back! This photo was taken TODAY, May 12, 2013 in front of SM San Pablo City. Looks like it's official guys!

I first heard rumblings about the burger being back from a friend of mine who tweeted last night saying she got stuck in traffic in front of SM on the way home and she saw this tarp. The following day I resolved to find this tarp and take a photo of it, come rain or shine.

And what do you know? My friend wasn't dreaming as she first thought she was. Looks like the burger is officially back!

After taking this photo I went to the Jollibee branch in front of SM and showed one of the employees there this photo, and asked when the burger will be available. The girl actually laughed in surprise (or probably amusement). She said she wasn't sure when exactly the burger will be available except to say it will probably come anytime this coming week.

I read from posts on Twitter that it's actually going to be May 15. That's unverified since I'm not sure of the source, but the important thing is, this is now a reality, and it's going to be soon! (Updated: May 15 confirmed by Jollibee employee with this tweet.)

I'm pretty sure Anthony Bourdain had a lot to do with this, so from me to you, Anthony... Thank you very much! And thanks to Jollibee for bringing it back!

Tuna Kilawin

"Kilawin" is a style of cooking where you actually don't cook the food with heat. You cook the meat by marinating it in vinegar and calamansi juice in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. What is calamansi? Click here.

Sound interesting? It is! Sounds weird? To someone who hasn't tried it, yet it is! Does it taste great? Of course it does! Here is what you're going to need:

1 kilo tuna. Fresh is best, but frozen would be good also. As long as it's sashimi grade. The tuna I used was crazy cut Frabelle frozen tuna that I bought at a local Puregold. Crazy cut is ok because I'm going to cutting the fish anyway into smaller pieces. No please don't use canned tuna. It's just not gonna work.

2 big red onions, chopped. I suppose you can use big white onions, but I like the red ones for this particular dish.

1-1/2 tablespoons of grated ginger. Yes, I like grating ginger. I do that so people don't have to bite into pieces of it. It's never a nice experience.

Vinegar. I didn't even measure the vinegar that I used. I bought the liter bottle and I used around over half of it. I'll write how much you need later.

1/2 cup calamansi juice. Or Lemon juice, if you don't have access to calamansi.

4 long green chili peppers, chopped. Or cut into tiny sections with scissors. I'll explain later.

Salt and Pepper. To taste, as always.

Ok, here's how you do it:

First thing you do is to chop the tuna into smaller pieces, if they aren't already are, and put it into a bowl.

Next is you pour enough vinegar over it to somewhat cover the meat. With a spoon or with your hands, gently wash the tuna over with the vinegar. Leave it there for a couple of minutes and then drain the vinegar completely.

Now place your tuna in your serving bowl and pour about a cup of fresh vinegar on it. Add the chopped red onions, calamansi juice, ginger, salt and pepper (I ended up using around a 3/4 tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of ground black pepper).

Finally, get your green chili peppers and what I like to do is to cut them into small ring sections using scissors. Now I can do this on a cutting board with a knife, but I generally try to avoid as much contact with the insides of the pepper with my fingers (I'll probably tell the story one day as to why) and scissoring the pepper directly over the food works well with me.

With a spoon gently stir all the ingredients around until the vinegar, calamansi, ginger, salt and pepper permeate the entire thing. Cover and put into the refrigerator for at least two hours. Once or twice take the bowl out and stir, just to make sure the vinegar does its job on all parts of the tuna. After all, it is the vinegar and calamansi juice that will cook this dish.

After two hours, the dish is ready to serve. Make sure to serve this dish cold!

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.