Tomoe Japanese Restaurant, San Pablo City

A new Japanese restaurant has just opened here in San Pablo within the last couple of months, the Tomoe Japanese Restaurant, Tepanyaki, Sushi, Ramen House. It's on the second floor of the Shell gas station almost across Shakey's restaurant along Maharlika Highway.

Since it's new, of course me and Ilyn just had to check it out. Well, me mostly. I'm the one most excited about Japanese restaurants anyway. This place is far easier for me to access than the other new Japanese place at San Benito near the San Pablo City/Alaminos boundary. It's far easier to commute to and from the place because it's nearer the city proper.

And of course, this may well be the first Teppanyaki restaurant in San Pablo. I had to look up what that means. It means the chef cooks your food in front of you using a large steel plate. The last time I ate at this kind of joint was in Greenhills back in 1995.

There is an inside section with two huge tables which include the cooking plates and an outside section for non-Teppanyaki fare. We prefer to sit outside because it was cooler, specially with the Christmas cool air already coming in. It was a bit hot inside with all the cooking going on. Outside I had a full view of the Teppanyaki chef doing his thing. He's the only one with the full chef get up and he's the only one in red. He's so fascinating to watch. He's quite a showman. Very entertaining. He's sort of a cross between a samurai, a chef and a juggler.

Well, what about the food? Whenever I try a new Japanese restaurant, my order is always pretty standard: The Miso Soup (pictured above) and some kind of Sushi or Sashimi Platter. There wasn't a Sashimi Platter so I ordered the Nigiri Sushi Platter.

It's a nice selection of standard Sushi stuff: Salmon, Tamago, Tuna, Crab, Shrimp, some kind of roe, which I haven't seen on any Sushi platter before.

The Miso Soup was better than most I've tried. It captured the perfect balance of flavors that I prefer in Miso soups. The serving was also quite ample. It was actually enough for two people.

All in all I enjoyed the meal. The waiters were very attentive. I've really got nothing to complain about.

However, I did eat my sushi the way I wanted it, and not the way some Sushi etiquette police may want me to eat it. Yeah, so I made a thick soup of my soy sauce and wasabe dib. Yeah, so I dipped my sushi RICE SIDE DOWN. I dipped the sushi in there so long the rice was DRENCHED in it. I then ate it whole, pulled my head back and enjoyed the amazing wasabe jolt that streaks through my nostrils. An amazingly intense experience! Do I offend your delicate culinary sensibilities? Well, what do YOU care? Why does ANYONE care? This is my private space, my private time. Stop getting in my face please! I'll eat my sushi the way I want to!

So there!

So yeah! Tomoe Japanese Restaurant! I'm definitely coming back and try the Teppanyaki!

I Have Stopped Using Tomatoes In Cans

Thanks to all those who have inquired whether I'll be posting new stuff here. I will soon! But for now, let me just make an apology to all those who have tried my recipes which includes Tomatoes in Cans. I have recently come upon the information that they pose health risks. As to what those health risks are, I suggest you Google them and make your own judgment.

My personal judgment is that I have now stopped them because I'm now firmly in the camp who believe there are considerable health risks involved. I will be making adjustments to my published recipes after I try out certain alternatives (like using market bought tomatoes).

And yeah, don't even think of using that fake tomato shit from NamNam. What? can't afford REAL tomatoes? They're cheap enough as it is. Don't be freakin' lazy. When it comes to health, don't be freakin' lazy.

Satori Japanese Restaurant, San Benito, Alaminos

SATORI, a new Japanese restaurant just opened in San Benito, just a few steps from the San Pablo boundary next to Honda San Pablo. I'm always excited when a new restaurant opens. I'm even more excited when it's a Japanese restaurant because I just love Japanese food! Yes, there have been a few Japanese type restaurants in (or near) San Pablo before, but although they were just OK, to be honest, they're just not worth writing about. But Satori is, so here we are.

The first thing I ordered was their Miso Soup, and then their Sashimi platter, which they call "Sashimi Moriawase" (Mixed Sashimi). Based on their menu, this platter should contain Norweigan pink salmon, tamago, sea urchin, crab stick and tiger prawns. The menu didn't say, but there's tuna in there as well. Price was P360 for the platter. As sashimi platters go, this was on the less expensive side (compared to other Japanese restaurants in Manila).  The salmon and tuna were just excellent. They're of course, my favorite sashimi cut. The sea urchin was rather curious. I've had sea urchin before at Haru Sushi Bar in Kapitolyo, and it looked nothing like the sea urchin in this platter. I remember it being really disgustingly slimy like brain matter. But it tasted delicious. I assume the sea urchin in this platter is the one on the far right, which is kind of a dried, preserved version I think. Not as delicious. But just OK. Could it have been eel instead? I don't know. That's what I get for the price I guess, so that's just all right. All in all, I was very satisfied with it.

I also loved their Miso Soup. Not too salty. Not as subtle as I would like, but it's better than most I've had.

Ilyn was with me and she ordered the Beef Curry toppings. She has an issue with the presentation of it, insisting that when a dish is called "toppings" it should be in a rice bowl with the toppings on top. This was on a plate with the toppings on the side. It's cosmetic, of course, but sometimes, presentation does affect your enjoyment of it. Personally, I didn't like the look of this. It should have been better if it had been in a bowl as toppings, or maybe the rice and curry be served in separate bowls. Taste wise, she said it was just OK.

Me, I don't go to Japanese restaurants for curry. It's the raw fish that makes or breaks it for me. I wouldn't mind going back here for another round. If you're looking for the best Japanese restaurant in the San Pablo area, this is definitely it.

Looking around online for other reviews of this restaurant, I came upon this blog. They said when they went there, they were given free soup while they waited for their order. What? Really? We didn't get any. Was it kind of an opening promo? I really don't know. It's just interesting to note. Reading through their blog entry, they got OTHER free stuff. WTF. We're definitely missing out.

An Epiphany

Some people have asked me to update this blog. I will today. I've been thinking about why I haven't updated this site in a while. I guess I just got somewhat disillusioned about certain aspects of food and I realized one important thing:

A lot of so called "high class" restaurants provide what are supposedly delicious "versions" of classic dishes with their "twists" and "fusions" created by "chefs".

I realized it's all just BULLSHIT.

I've TRIED a lot of these supposedly high class restaurants and came away disappointed. Last month I ate some grilled squid from a sidewalk tuto-turo here in San Pablo and the thing was far far more delicious than a grilled squid I ate at a high end restaurant in Makati. I'm like WTF.

I've stopped trying to convince myself that these so called high end places serve delicious food. Because quite honestly, they don't. They really just should stop making stupid fusions and stupid chef versions and stop obsessing over "presentation" and  just cook the damn food as they should be cooked.

Chicken/Pork adobo tastes so much better from Amboy's at our local palengke than a nicely plated expensive adobo at some restaurant in Greenbelt.

That's just the truth.

Feijoada

Feijoada is a dish I've learned of only recently through a long time online pal of mine from Brazil, Bira Dantas. I finally met Bira in person early in October during a comics festival in Algeria. Like many cartoonists I met at the festival, Bira was extremely proud of his culture and he wasted no time sharing all the great things he loved about Brazil. Food was of course, one of those things.

He invited me to visit him in Brazil and if ever I found myself there, he would cook Feijoada for me. He described it to me and the bean and meat lover in me immediately stood at attention. I love beans and I love meat, although they really don't love me back. These things are full of uric acid you see, and uric acid is something I'm trying avoid. It's the cause of gout and other arthritis-related ailments. And I've had a problem with gout for quite a while.

Nevertheless I wanted to try this out. Feijoada is composed mostly of beans and assortment of meats from bacon, to smoked ham, to sausages, etc. So yeah, in this house this is alternately called "Uric Acid Surprise".

I don't have access to a few authentic ingredients so I decided to just replace them with what's available here in the Philippines. These is is the set of ingredients I decided upon:

150 grams black beans
1/4 kilo bacon
300 grams kielbasa sausage
5 pieces San Pablo longganisa
1/4 kilo smoked ham
1 piece chopped T-bone
1 big white onion chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
chopped parsley for garnishing

I had difficulty finding black beans locally. What's available mostly are red kidney beans and pinto beans. I've had to go to Healthy Options to find a bag of black beans which were organic (which is I suppose, a good thing) and kind of expensive (oh well). Of course I could have just as easily replaced the black beans with some other kind of bean, but if I can get black beans then I would rather go with that since that is what is specified traditionally.

To add a Filipino touch, I used locally available sausages like the native longganisa. I also had a frozen T-bone steak lying around so I thought I'd just throw that in.

OK, here's how I did it (with some tips from Chef John of Food Wishes):

I first submerged the black beans in water overnight. The following day, I drained the beans, placed them on a deep pot with 4 cups of water. I chopped up the T-bone and threw that in (including the bones) and boiled it for 2 hours. I brought the pot to a boil in high heat then brought down the heat to low as soon as it started boiling. In the first few minutes of boiling, scum rose to the top so I removed all of that.

Around 15 minutes before the 2 hours are up, I chopped the garlic and onion. I sauteed that in some oil (you can fry up some bacon and sautee the garlic and onion in that if you like). I chopped the meat into bite size pieces. I cooked the longganiza in oil until it was browned and chopped that. If you are using uncooked meat at this point, you better cook it first before throwing it in.

At the 2 hour mark, I placed the sauteed onion and garlic into the pot of boiling water and beans, threw in all the meat, added one and a half cups of water. I turned the heat to high once again, and once it starts boiling, I brought the heat back to low. I continued simmering for another hour, with occasional stirring.

Before the hour is up, I mashed up some of the beans in the pot with a potato masher. This will help make the liquid a bit thicker.

I served my Feijoada topped with chopped parsley with rice. (Traditionally topped with orange peels so you can go with that if you like.)

Chawarma at Algiers, Algeria

Ilyn and I recently had an opportunity to travel abroad. We visited two countries, Algeria and France. Being food nuts we were excited at the opportunity to try authentic dishes from both countries.

In Algeria we stayed at the Hotel Safir, which is known as an "International" hotel, As such, they normally serve international cuisine. We were in Algeria for a comics festival and our meals there were "set" meals. Meaning, what they give you, that's what you eat. For the most part, they served attempts at international cuisine. Steaks, pasta, all all that kind of stuff. And honestly, they weren't really that good.

Ilyn and I decided that if we ever want to taste authentic Algerian food, we have to go out of the hotel and eat where the locals eat.

So during our last day in Algiers we went for a walk and found this place that had this familiar vertical meat spit. Here in the Philippines that meant "shawarma".

I thought, hey, I have to see what shawarma in Algeria tastes like! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch the name of the restaurant, but I did see a big sign inside the store that said "CHAWARMA", so I guess that's what they call that there.

Algerian people speak French and a local native language, none of which I know. So it was pretty difficult to communicate. But all I did was point to the spit, and the dude (pictured above) immediately knew we wanted to eat. We proceeded to sit at one of the tables. The dude approached us and asked us what we wanted and we said well, "Chawama".... and he was making all these kinds of gesticulations with his hand and saying stuff we don't understand. Apparently, he's asking us something specific about what we wanted. He was drawing circles in the air and my best solution is to just say yes to everything.

He then asked us to move and transfer to another table. I didn't understand at first why. Then we moved to another table. And then he asked us to move again. I was scratching my head at this point because he was pointing us towards the wall. He wanted us to go to the wall? What?

And then I saw that next to the wall was a very small stairway going downstairs. They wanted us to go downstairs? But why? I hesitated for a moment, and then I went ahead downstairs... and then I understood. The downstairs area was airconditioned. Ah OK.

We were all alone downstairs in this basement dining area for a while before the dude brought us our food. And it was on a plate. Apparently, they serve chawarma two ways. On a bread or on a plate. That was what he was tying to ask us earlier. When he drew circles in the air, he was drawing a plate. So when I said yes, he understood that to mean we wanted our chawarma on a plate.

That was just fine. We loved all the little side dishes that came with it! There were beets, olives, carrots, cucumber, pickles, chopped cabbage, fries, and well, mayonnaise. They don't use that creamy and spicy garlic sauce that we use over here.

And man, the meat was just incredibly nice and flavorful. Ilyn and I both loved it. And the side dishes complimented the meat perfectly. It was one of the best meals I've had in Algeria. We took our time eating it because it was quite a lot! I was already full halfway through. Computing it to our money here in the Philippines, one set of the plated Chawarma  and Fanta drink amounted to something like P250 pesos, but it's definitely worth it! Specially since it came with a complimentary plate or bread.

More food adventures in Algeria and France coming soon!

SOI at New Glorietta, Makati

We weren't planning on eating at Soi when we went to Glorietta earlier today. In fact, I had decided Ilyn and I would eat at MU Noodle Bar, but that plan went to bust when inattentive waiters made us feel unwanted so we left. Sorry guys. Seminar for your waiters, I guess.

Ok so we wandered around and settled on Soi. I guess we were up for some Thai food. We remember eating at this awesome Thai restaurant in Malate some years ago and that was fantastic.

Anyway I ordered Grilled Squid that had a one pepper rating in terms of spiciness. They call that "Mild". A two pepper rating is considered "Hot". I think I can take mild, no problem. For drinks, I had Pandan Soda.  Ilyn had Thai Kangkong and for drinks Thai Ice Tea.

Our lunch started off pretty nice with a nice complimentary plate of nuts and chips, and a steady stream of cold water. At least here the waiters are far FAR more attentive.

Things started to turn sideways when the drinks arrived. Granted they had some really interesting drinks on the menu. When they arrived, they still looked interesting. After we tasted them well.... Ilyn didn't like the Thai Ice Tea. She said it was a little too heavy and there's something like chocolate in it. Well, that's fine... it's probably really like that and she just doesn't prefer it.

My drink, Pandan Soda, however.... when you order "soda" you have a certain set of expectations. You expect it to be fizzy and bubbly, and you expect it to be cold. When I tasted it however, it was actually kind of warm. Sure there was ice floating on top, but the liquid at the bottom of the glass where the straw reaches... it was WARM. Well OK, maybe that's the way the Thais like it I don't know. But the part about it being "soda", well, that wasn't true. Look, I know soda. I know the texture of soda. This wasn't soda. It wasn't fizzy, and there were no bubbles. Nothing about this drink was soda. It was just pandan tea that was warm with ice on top.

Things got worse when the squid arrived. You know, when you order something "grilled" you have a certain set of expectations. Well one, you expect it to be hot, being fresh from the grill. You might even expect to see it smoke. When it arrived, it didn't look hot to me. I actually touched it and you know what? It wasn't hot at all. In fact, it wasn't even warm. It was room temperature. Like it had been grilled an hour ago and was just served to me. I know that might not be the case, but how else can you explain this squid not being HOT?

Also, the spicy rating was a lie. There was nothing spicy about it. No, my tolerance for spiciness is very low so just a little amount of pepper in dishes I will notice. There was practically no hot pepper in this. It wasn't spicy at all. NOT AT ALL

Thankfully enough, it actually tasted nice. The sauce that came with it was very nice. It's just disappointing that it was neither hot nor spicy.

Ilyn didn't like her Thai Kangkong as well. She said it was too oily. I tasted it and although it also has a "Mild" spiciness rating, there was also nothing spicy about it.

As much as we felt bad about it, we never finished our food or our drinks. I usually gobble up squid because it's a favorite of mine, but this one... I just couldn't. I was just too disappointed.

I didn't finish the drinks too. I was so frustrated that after lunch I went out and got myself a can of Sprite just so I can get that soda fix I didn't get from this so called pandan soda.

No, not returning. Sorry guys. Your waiters are nice though.