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!

Oven Roasted Tomato and Bell Pepper in Asparagus Cream Soup

This is something I came up with after eating this really nice soup at a Tagaytay restaurant. I really didn't try to copy it exactly, but I just used the idea of it to come up with something of my own.

The ingredients are simple:

10 medium sized tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 can Campbell's cream of asparagus soup
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic chopped
salt and pepper
chopped coriander for garnishing

Those ingredients are the ones I used to cook the soup pictured above. After tasting it, I think it would be much better to add more bell peppers. Add one red bell pepper to the list above.

OK, so roast the tomatoes and bell peppers (red and green) in an oven. If you don't have an oven, you can just pan roast them until they're soft. In the oven, it took around 25 minutes at 150 C. Take the tomatoes and peppers out of the oven and let them cool.

Once they're cool enough to be handled, peel the tomatoes and remove the seeds. Remove the stems from the bell peppers and chop into small pieces.

In a deep soup pan, sautee the onion and garlic in olive oil. Add the butter. Allow the onion to cook for a bit, then add the tomatoes and bell peppers. Stir and beat the tomatoes occasionally for 10 minutes so that the juices come out as the mixture gently boils.

Add the cream of asparagous soup and then add water equivalent to one can of the Campell's soup. Bring to a boil and keep stirring and boiling for 5 minutes.

In 2-3 batches, pour the mixture into a blender and set on liquefy until the soup becomes a consistent cream without any chunky bits.

Serve with coriander (or parsley or kinchay) garnishing.

Roast Peking Duck at Wai-Ying, Binondo

I lived in San Miguel, Manila for15 years, and lived an additional year in P. Noval, near UST. Both places are in striking distance to Chinatown in Binondo and for the life of me, I don't understand why I never went there to eat in all that time.

I guess I never really became a "foodie" until around 10 or so years ago. Before that, I just pretty much ate wherever was convenient. Nowadays, I've become more discriminating. I no longer just want to "eat", but I want to "taste". And knowing there's so much to taste out there just drives me out of my mind, because one can really only eat so much.

Now that I live in San Pablo City, some 85 kilometers away from Manila do I suddenly get the urge to go Binondo food hopping. I've heard for many years how nice the food was there but I really didn't pay it any mind. Now I'm making up for lost time.

One of the first places I wanted to visit was Wai Ying Restaurant along Benavides St. It's the kind of place where their chickens and ducks and other food items are out on display on their front windows. It's almost like a hole in the wall. Frontage is very narrow, but the restaurant goes pretty deep, and it has a second floor.

At 11am the ground floor was already full so we went up and we were lucky to find available seats. I hear this place fills up pretty quickly. I ordered the Peking Duck Rice and Hakaw. Ilyn ordered the steamed bokchoy.

And man, this duck is the softest and tastiest roast duck I've ever had. It was maddening. I've had plenty of duck in other places, but this is probably the first time I'm tasting duck at its best. Both the hakaw and bokchoy were also pretty good, but I was just so bowled over by the duck it was pretty hard to get over.

I have no complaints at all about the food, but if there is one bad thing I didn't like was that their service started to suffer during their peak hours. At 11am it was still OK, but when we were trying to get our bill at around 12 or so, the servers seem let go of the ball a little bit. They tend to forget things. It's harder to catch their attention. It's clear to me that they can solve their problems if they had a bit more manpower. The bill took 15-20 minutes to get to us after we asked for it. And we had to remind them several times. It was a needle in an otherwise very pleasant experience.

I would recommend that you go because the food is just terrific, but visit during off peak hours to prevent any hassle.

Dynamite!

Dynamite is "street food" that I just discovered today here in San Pablo City. It looks like I'm late to the parade as it seems this has been around for a while not only in San Pablo, but in many other places. It's very popular in town with people crowding around vendors who start selling them near the public market at around 4 in the afternoon.

Dynamite is a large green chilli pepper that's stuffed with pork and cheese (sometimes with beef), wrapped in lumpia wrapper, breaded and deep fried. The little stem of the chili sticks out of one of the ends making it look like a fuse. I'm pretty sure that's how it got its name.

And I tell you guys, this is pretty awesome. You can eat it as it is, or have it with sauce. Whether the dish will be much awesome or not depends on the kind of sauce you get. The one I had earlier today at a different place came with different sauce and it tasted much better because of it.

It's dynamite in more ways than one because because this is a green chilli pepper and it's pretty hot. They keep it in control and keep the heat managable by removing the seeds first. But it seems in a particular batch, not all seeds are removed (most likely unintentional), and one in a bunch may pack a really mean wallop.

I guess that's part of the thrill. Somewhat like eating a blowfish, but to a lesser extreme.

Each dynamite costs P10, and I think it's more than worth it!

Middle Eats, San Pablo City

There's a newly opened restaurant near the corner of T. Azucena and P. Zulueta, beside Simple Treats, here in San Pablo City. A Mediterranean cuisine restaurant? Here in San Pablo City? I knew I wanted to try it as soon as it opened. The name of the restaurant is pretty clever too, don't you think?

As for appetizers we tried something we had before at other Mediterranean restaurants, the "Baba Ganoush".

I thought it was nice that the flat bread came wrapped in cloth. As for the taste, well, it tasted like what I would expect Baba Ganoush to taste. I didn't see much difference compared to how others like it tasted, which is pretty good. This appetizer went for P108.

For the main dish, Ilyn ordered the "Chicken Cacciatore", which is chicken braised in tomato based sauce, olives,  mushrooms and white wine.

It's probably not apparent in the photo, but it was a lot of food on that plate. Lots of pasta and almost half of a small chicken. Ilyn is pretty picky when it comes to pasta, and she seemed to really like it. It was a little too much as she was unable to finish it and we brought home the leftovers later on. This dish went for P248.

I ordered the Grilled Chicken Souvlaki, which is actually a kebab of grilled chicken and vegetables marinated in a "Tunisian Spice Mix".

I don't know what Tunisian spice mix is, but it tasted pretty good. It's not as flavorful as I would like, but it's still very nice nevertheless. It came with this white sauce that tasted quite unique. I kind of wished that you could order that sauce as a sidedish because it went really well with the grilled chicken and the sauce just wasn't enough. Well, I never did find out if you could order it as I never asked. This dish went for P198.

As for drinks we had "Maltese Ice Tea by the Carafe", which is simply a large pitcher of really nice tasting ice tea. It was enough for two servings for the both of us. This went for P158.

These prices are probably on the higher end of what regular San Pablo residents are probably used to but for the quality of this food, plus the quantity of it per serving, plus the quality of the "little things" like napkins, utensils, furniture, cleanliness and ambiance of the surroundings and attentive and friendly servers, I think it was worth it.

Even their toilets are extremely clean and nice smelling. It's obvious this place is very well maintained.

I really like restaurants that invest in seemingly unnecessary things. But if you put them all together, you come up with the impression that this is a place that wishes to make your stay as comfortable and as pleasant as possible.  I hate it when restaurants use cheap napkins and utensils, ketchup, sauce, and napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers, cheap decor, cheap furniture, cheap furnishings. To me it seems those restaurants want to have as little overhead as possible. It's all about making money, nothing more. Isn't it a wonder those kinds of restaurants don't really last?

While I have no illusions that places like Middle Eats are also in it for the money, the fact that they invest in the little things only goes to show that they are also interested in quality of service, along with quality of food. And that's important in the success of any restaurant.

This customer is definitely very satisfied and I will definitely be coming back.

Middle Eats is open 7 days a week from 11am to 11pm.

Breakfast at KFC, Shell Mamplasan

We went to Manila yesterday and along the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) we stopped by Shell at Mamplasan to have some breakfast. This was around 8 in the morning. We were glad to see that Kentucky Fried Chicken was not only open 24 hours, but they were also serving breakfast. This is new to me. I've never seen KFC's breakfast menu before.

Good thing they had a lot of chicken on the menu (well, obviously I guess). I had the Chicken Tocino, coffee and orange juice (above) while Ilyn had the Chicken Sausage.

The girl at the counter was kind of puzzled that we ordered a second drink (the orange juice) when we already had the coffee. Well, hello? If I start to get hiccupy from the food, do I glug down the scalding hot coffee? Of course I won't. In fairness, I get this puzzlement from many other food joints like this. I don't get it.

Anyway, the chicken tocino was good. It wasn't too salty and it was just sweet enough. I really have no complaints about that. I tasted Ilyn's chicken sausage, and I kind of liked the taste of that better. It had a very nice smoky flavor.

The coffee was revelation. I never really expect to get good coffee from fast food places like this, so this coffee took me completely by surprise. It was not only good, but it was pretty good! It had a really unique taste to it too. Since I always take my coffee black, sugar is really the only additive to it. I don't know it must be the combination of the coffee itself, the sugar and even the paper cup that brought about this unique taste that I found addicting. I don't usually finish a cup of coffee. Most of the time I really only finish half. But this time I finished it all. Next time I'll go to another KFC to see if all their coffee is like this or that one time was just a fluke.

Ok, here comes the bad.

I don't really have any complaints about the food or service... the restaurant itself had a big issue for me. It was hot inside, and it smelled kind of bad. I don't know if we just came in too early and they hadn't opened the AC yet, but it was hotter inside than it was outside. And the place had an almost overpowering bad smell that I  just can't describe. It smelled like various smells that have been left cooped up in an enclosed place for a little too long. It's actually enough for me not to want to go inside again, in spite of the nice coffee.

Chili Prawn and Chili Kangkong

My trip to Singapore definitely influenced my recent cooking experiments. One of the dishes I came up with is this Chili Prawn, inspired by the famous Singapore Chili Crab. I tried cooking Chili Crab earlier using Belacan (solid shrimp paste) I bought in Singapore, but my I didn't like the results too much. I decided to try again, this time with prawn, and using a local shrimp paste called Bagoong Alamang.

Chili Prawn Recipe:

1 kilo prawns, peeled and deveined
1 big white onion coarsely chopped
5 birds eye chillies coarsely chopped
1 medium sized green bell pepper chopped
1 medium sized red bell pepper chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons Bagoong Alamang
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
chopped green onions or kinchay for garnishing
Cooking oil

Procedure:

In a blender, blitz the onion and bird's eye chillies together for 30 seconds or until the mixture becomes a somewhat chunky paste. Saute this in oil, add the bagoong alamang and cook for a couple of minutes or so.

Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, sugar, and vinegar. Stir and allow to boil for a couple of minutes.

Add the bell peppers, then add the shrimp. Cover and allow to boil until the shrimp is cooked.

Garnish with chopped green onions or kinchay when serving.

The amount of bird's eye chilli is really up to you. In my original recpie I used 7 chillies, which was a mistake because the dish became a little too hot. The next time I would go for around just 5.  But I think I got a good balance of ingredients which made for a really nice tasting sauce.

At the same time I did this, I also did some Chili Kangkong.

Chili Kangkong Recipe:

5 bunches Kangkong (this measure is based on the bunch that's available for purchase at the local market).
1 bulb onion finely chopped
5 pcs Bird's Eye Chillies finely chopped
2 tablespoons Bagoong Alamang
1 tablespoon toasted garlic for garnishing

Procedure:

This is my approximation of the Kailan Sambal recipe I tasted in Singapore. I tried to make it less spicy, with simpler ingredients, and using a local equivalent of kailan.

In a wok or large deep pan, saute chopped garlic in oil and let cook for a bit (do not brown). Add the bagoong alamang and chillies and mix well. Add the kangkong. Lower the heat and cover for 5 minutes to allow the kangkong to cook and settle in the steam.

After 5 minutes, take off the lid and mix thoroughly until the garlic and chillies are well distributed throughout the kangkong.  This is pretty much done.

Garnish with toasted garlic upon serving. I usually get my toasted garlic from the local market where they sell siomai. I can do it myself, but it's time consuming, and sometimes I don't really get the best results.