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!

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.