After a night of drinking, I joined the chefs and some of our students to a short side trip to Kabayan again. This time things were very different.

things were different today

First of all, the lady who was serving was the owner, not the young girl who served us the last time. Secondly, they had isaw or intestine…thirdly, there is such a thing as half order, which only costs Php 30 with lots and lots of intestine.

The soup this time wasn’t thick, which made everything so much lighter and it was more flavorful for some reason. I didn’t even put condiments in mine.\]

my half order of isaw lugaw being made

The intestines were nice, clean and not funky…I liked the fact that after my half order I didn’t feel like vomiting after the meal and I actually finished my bowl.

some of our students

Still, I got some odd palpitations the next day but so what. I enjoyed it the 2nd time around…most likely everything is better when you come in late.

I recently did a beverage styling shoot for Uno Magazine Guam. It was an interesting shoot. Layout was spot on with their V-day issue. We kept everything simple, but updated with modern drinks. Of course, I used my lovely ice cubes and did some minimal garnishing. It’s too bad that there were no alcoholic beverages consumed during this shoot haha!

UnoGuam-2

I just had to do it. There was this one night I stayed over at Cafe drinking with our chefs as Mark, our restaurant chef, shared with me, his passion for bacon. And who doesn’t like bacon?

love the little brownie bits

I’ve been itching to do this for a few months now, and since someone already sparked that idea to finally do it, I went into the grocery one day, bought myself a box of Betty Cocker’s and a roll of bacon. I didn’t want to do things from scratch anymore…I simply just wanted to do it!

bacon brownies

Bacon Brownies

Bacon, 250g

A box of your fave Brownie Mix

vegetable oil, eggs and water according to the brownie mix instructions

render the bacon fat

1) Render the bacon fat by shallow boiling the bacon in a bit of water until all the water evaporates, add a bit of oil and let the bacon crisp up.

2) Strain the oil from the bacon, and set aside the bits and the oil.

3) Prepare the ingredients according to the package instructions…EXCEPT, instead of using 100% vegetable oil, use about 3/4 or half, and fill the remaining with your rendered bacon fat (the oil from the bacon!)

mix brownie mix

4) Prepare the brownies according to the instructions, then when the mix is uniform, fold in the bacon bits and bake till done!

before baking

5) Let the brownies cool and enjoy!

after baking

This recipe is super easy and seems to really be a big hit with the guys…or any bacon fanatic out there. I love sweet and savory and this is the perfect exercise to have just that!

My bro decided to head to Hoseña’s Bulalo near Kalentong to have some Bulalo of course! It was tucked on the 2nd floor of a building, on top of a bakery. Hmmmm…

place was packed

The place was warm, small but seemed to have a brightly lit menu with about 30 items…don’t let this fool you folks, most of the items aren’t avaiable anymore…the only things they have are rice, bulalo and the litid (still bulalo). Crazy huh? And yet if you come at the wrong time (like we did!) we were left with just one giant bone to share among ourselves, because they had run out. And people were still coming in after we’ve ordered and eaten, mind you.

hungry men

Yes, the bulalo was good. The soup was beefy and buttery (from the fat I guess) at the same time. To be honest, I still like the good old fashioned, take-it-off-the-bone myself in terms of the beef, but it came in a small bowl in little slices.

soup

The litid, came as a giant bone with tendons stuck to it. The tendons were really soft and gelatinous. This was definitely a man’s meal…no veggies, just rice, soup, lots of beef and tendons, but I enjoyed it.

after the meal

After that quick trip, we were all stuffed! I think my brother paid a little less than 140 per person for all the stuff that we ordered (8 rice, 4 regular sized bowls of beef bulalo and 1 litid). It wasn’t bad, though I still enjoy the variety at R&J…if you don’t mind the singing.

After Kombini closed, we took a few steps to Angel’s kitchen for dessert. The girls and I just wanted to talk more and hang out, and what better way to do that than with sweets and a cup of tea. Angel’s kitchen is a pretty place, nice, brightly lit but it was cozy at the same time.  Everything looks like it was made with love. They have a lovely “on-the-table” pate with toast that is really yummy. The staff were friendly and accommodating.

There were lots of corporate people in there, most likely because the price range is within their budget, I wasn’t able to see the main menu, just the desserts:

apple pie

Apple Pie – the apple pie was good. Not sure if the price was fair for the slice. But I loved the butterscotch. The pie had the right level of sweetness for me, I loved the flavor of the brown sugar, liquor and the soaked raisins. Loved the “butter-rum” taste.

oreo cheesecake

Oreo Cheesecake – didn’t taste like cheese at all. It tasted like gelatinized pastry whipping cream and the center of the oreo, plus oreo bits…wasn’t too happy with this one, but my friends liked it.

tea

Tea – it was placed in this lovely clear pot and it bloomed like a flower. I love chamomile tea, and this made us even more engrossed in the conversation. Lovely tea, really.

Cake slices were a little too pricey for me, for the size, but I did enjoy the apple pie just the same. My dessert costed almost as much as my dinner at Kombini but we enjoyed anyway. It’s a nice place to hang out and talk, it’s no wonder it was pretty packed even after dinner.

When I got my iPad, I tried to use it for blogging…major fail…the pictures sucked..today, I am pleasantly surprised with the wonderful quality of the photos on the 4S as well as my lovely dinner with the girls at the Kombini Store in Annapolis, Greenhills.

inside kombini

I’ve heard about Kombini from my brother, and since I invited some of my friends to dinner, I wanted to try something new (yeah we always end up in Cafe Ysabel)…but anyway, today was Kombini day, and I haven’t seen them in a while, I was up for some great catching up. Kombini store is a tiny Japanese grocery that also has a small restaurant that serves a few types of food like 2 types of sushi, lots of little fried stuff, some yakitori and ramen. It’s a bit pricier compares to moshi koshi but I think their ramen must be different since they do have different types. So I went for the Tonkotsu since Ange was talking about that for a long time and I got really curious.

calpis vodka

Calpis Sour – vodka and charcoal filtered water.Love the grape flavor on this, I didn’t even get tipsy. It was like a lite fragrant yogurt-like drink. This is probably one of the best alcoholic drinks I’ve had in a can that didn’t require the alcoholic “acquired” taste, you can probably make a kid drink this and they would not know the difference between alcoholic and non-alcoholic (of course that is hypothetically!)

tonkotsu

Tonkotsu – deep flavor of pork, love the ramen was okay not as chewy as I would want. The broth is creamy and white, and I just loved scooping it up with everything else. The sesame seed added a hint of flavor and texture to each bite. The pork wasn’t super tender, but it was tender enough.

beef pita pan

Beef Pita Pan – I was really curious about this, it looked like a ciabatta sliced in two and stuffed with some marinated, roasted beef. I loved the beef. It was smokey and just had a delicate soy flavor with some mirin probably. It also had a layer of nice and yellowish Japanese mayo…ah, it was just wonderful! Even my friends enjoyed it!

peppered chicken

Chicken – my friend, Justin ordered this, it was a peppered chicken had a strong taste of black pepper and spices. Slightly smokey,the skin had a wonderful crust, a spicy crust! But it was a little dry for me since it didn’t have sauce and because I probably took the white meat part.

gyoza

Gyoza – The filling and sauce were pretty good. Wrapper was delicate with okay crusting, filling was generous and moist. Still, this was not the best gyoza I guess, but it was pretty good.

with the girls

For dessert we moved next door. But I loved the way Kombini was nice and intimate, we spent dinner there until they closed at 9 and moved next door for some dessert. As for my iPhone blogging, it looks like I’m going to do this a lot. I think I can finally stop lugging my camera around and awkwardly take pictures of the food in front of everyone. Good bye, giant bag!  Super excited!

My recent trip acquisition of fresh carabao meat led me to experiment on a dish that I grew up on and enjoy: pindang damulag. Without a specific recipe and hand and relying on hearsay, I decided to do some internet research and found that Thailand has several recipes using the same method: fermentation using rice. I learned that this kind of meat is prolific in Pampanga and Tarlac. My cousin’s wife used to tell me about the “good old days” when her lola would make pindang and let it ferment in plastic bags…I love sour stuff and I love tapa so it drove me to trying to make my own.

start with good, fresh, meat...rinsed in cold water

Although in my recipe, I chickened out of doing it the super traditional way (using just rice) to including some curing powder to ensure that I don’t get other unwanted bacteria growing on the meat. I have yet to make a recipe without the curing salt..I found this “tusino” curing salt in the grocery that says that the meat does not require refrigeration after it is used.

looks a little creepy

Though I didn’t want to make my pindang into this blood red tocino like thing, curing salt helps keep bad bacteria from going wild. I have yet to do the traditional way when I get totally comfortable with this one. Again, my recipe uses approximations, so you guys may want to adjust it to your specific taste profile:

My Homemade Pindang Damulag

1 kilo fresh carabao meat sirloin, washed & sliced, keep cool until ready to use

3 Tbsp crushed garlic

1/2 tsp pepper, ground

3 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp patis

1/2 cup glutinous rice flour

1/2 pack of “Tusino” curing powder

1 giant ziplock freezer pack

masking tape

1 large plastic container (to keep your pindang from stinking up the place)

1) Make sure all your bowls, utensils, are clean and dry.You may want to use some gloves.

about to mix the marinade

2) In a bowl, mix the curing powder, pepper, salt, sugar, garlic and glutinous rice flour together. Add the carabao meat and massage all the ingredients together for about 5 minutes or until it is fully incorporated.

you need a good ziplock for this

3) Keep all the contents in the ziplock bag and seal. Seal the top with masking tape. And put it in the plastic container.

my plastic container

4) Leave the plastic in room temp for 3 days. You will see that the contents will start to bubble inside. The smell must be of vinegar and not rotting! The plastic bag will start to accumulate lots of air by the 3rd day.

fermented meat inside

5) On the 3rd day, wash the marinade off the meat and keep in another ziplock in the freezer for storage.

washed raw pindang

Cooking your pindang:

1) Thaw out your frozen pindang.

2) Boil a bit of water in a pan and add the meats (like 1/4 cup or less depending on how many pieces you’ll be cooking), boil the meats until all the water evaporates. Let the water evaporate completely. If you use too much water, you might lose some of the flavor so keep the water minimal enough to just boil the meat for about 5 minutes.

3) Then add some oil in the pan and fry the meat pieces until it caramelizes and turns brown.

my homemade pindang damulag

The flavor of the pindang does not require any sauce at all because it tastes slightly sweet, salty and of course sour. The complex flavor from the fermenting rice and sugar gives it a kind of “tuba” taste in the meat. I was surprised by the outcome. Again, with caution, the meat should not turn green and the bag of meat should smell fermented and not rotten. Hope you guys have the guts to try this out…it’s really good when done correctly! Let me know if you’ve tried it! Check out my pictures to see how mine was made.

Finally I am back to keeping tabs on the places I go to, to eat. We recently had a family gathering for my late lolo and lola’s birthday at Yang Chow in Eton Centris. The restaurant was packed even before dinner and people seem to be in line. The smell of the place is pleasant it’s not like those “kulob” Chinese holes in the walls I’m used to. Seats in a lot of the tables are nice and big, cushioned. Here’s what we had:

hakaw

Hakaw  – the shrimp was crunchy and tasted good. Pretty standard, but the wrapper was firm and yet delicate. Didn’t really need sauce in my opinion.

seafood fried noodles

Seafood Fried Noodles – this is a mix of crisp and soft it’s like fried gravy noodles with seafood. Flavors are relatively clean and the vegetables were really crisp and refreshing.

fried chicken

Fried Chicken – this was tasty and the skin was nice and crisp. It was like a soy fried chicken with a deep sweet sour sauce. This is what the kids ate in our table. It also came with some kropek.

rice in lotus leaf with meats

Lotus Leaf with Preserved Meat and Sausage – the smell was amazing! I could almost taste the sausage in the smell thoough the lotus isn’t that obvious (since real lotus rice is steamed in lotus for a long time, which should make the rice turn slightly beige). The sweet Chinese sausage was delightful and the preserved meat was salty in a just right way. I love the mix of flavors and fat hehe.

fish lip soup

white chicken

White Chicken – it had an amazing slick velvety feeling in the tongue. Great chicken flavor that tasted slightly of wine.

beans with xo

Baguio beans w XO sauce – a bit salty, but beans were refreshing.

pollunchay with garlic

Pollunchay with Garlic – The pollunchay was nice and crisp with garlic that makes the perfect yet simple marriage of flavors. This is pretty standard, but done well.

I’ve eaten in their branch before in Shopwise and I could say that the food was pretty good for the unbelievably low price. This place is really a bang for your buck especially when eating in a group. Everything is good only because you know that they have pretty good standards on how it should be especially for the price that they sell their dishes.

For the carabao striploin I bought, I decided to make a stew along with some tripe from the grocery. When I make stews, my seasonings and additions become very flexible, I didn’t really have a recipe, but I just seasoned it to how I wanted it to taste. The flavor of this stew is basically a lot like callos except that it contains demiglace which gives it a deeper, richer and heavier flavor. Basically this is a rough estimate of what went down in my stock pot the other day:

long simmered till tender

Carabao Meat and Trip Stew

1 kilo carabao striploin, cut into medium cubes

700g tripe

250g bacon or salami, chopped

2 cans of stewed tomatoes (i ran out of tomato sauce/paste, I would have done 1 can of tomato sauce and 1 of the stewed)

1 cup demiglace (or something like Braaten sauce or Brown Sauce)

1/4 cup butter

4 tbsp olive oil

Rosemary

Thyme

Cumin

Paprika Bilbao/Picante

Cayenne Pepper

Red Wine

Brandy

1 large onion or 2 medium onions

3-4 Bell peppers

1/4 cup black olives

1/2 cup chickpeas, peeled

my carabao meat

1)Marinate the carabao meat in red wine, rosemary, pepper and thyme, preferably overnight.

marinating in red wine and herbs

2)Using a pressure cooker, cook the tripe in water for about 15 minutes. Set aside stock and cut tripe into small pieces when it is cool. Then, using the pressure cooker, cook the carabao meat in the water for about 20 minutes. Set aside.

roasting peppers

3) Char the outside of the bell peppers over direct fire (either on a wire on the stove or using a torch). Cover and let cool. Peel.

browning the meat

4) In a large stockpot, brown the carabao meat in butter and olive oil, set aside. Then add the onions, bacon, paprika, some cayenne, skinned bell peppers to the stockpot and saute until the onions are transparent. Add lots of red wine and the carabao meat and allow to simmer for a 20 minutes or until the red wine is reduced to half.

starting the stew

5) Add the stewed tomatoes, some tripe/meat stock, demiglace, some cumin olives, chickpeas and brandy. Allow to simmer over medium heat for about 2 hours and add the tripe. Let simmer for another few minutes to an hour. Add salt and pepper to taste. Adjust the spices prior to completely turning off the fire. This is best cooked DAYS before you actually serve it. It gives the meat and tripe time to take in all the flavors of the sauce.

it's munching time

What I did with this stew was that I cooked it days ahead prior to having my cousins over so that the flavors can sit and mix in with the meats over time. Stews like this tastes better over time and can be served with either rice or toasted bread. Enjoy my other pics!

After our dinner at Moshi Koshi, Ange and I decided to grab some dessert somewhere nearby. We decided to go all “Japanese” by heading to Tokyo Bubble Tea in Wilson Street. This place is always packed…every night, every day, 7x a week. I know because I pass by this restaurant on a daily basis, going to and from work!

showcase

This is another example of a modern and yet cozy place that seems to invite people to sit down and talk. To my surprise there were a lot of children despite the hour, maybe summer was here and kids can afford to stay up late because there’s no school the next day. Bubble Tea has a cute patisserie in it. The owner of Bubble Tea was my classmate at this short course in Ateneo, and he says that the cakes and pastries were his wife’s side of the business.

The cakes all looked great and festive, I decided to go for the sliced ones…Ange and I decided to get one each. To our surprise the slices were pretty huge!

strawberry with matcha

Macha Strawberry Cake – this was a green tea sponge cake with lots and lots of cream and a sort of strawberry jam all over. This cake was pretty heavy. I think it was because of the cream. But kids loooove cakes like these!

roasted cocoa

Roasted Cocoa Cake – this was a chocoholic’s dream. There was a thick chocolate sponge cake, with a chocolate cream on top, and a delicious caramel or egg like custard in the center.

this is as far as i got

Though sliced cakes have a reputation of getting quite dry easily because of storage, the cakes were pretty good, it sort of reminded me of the stuff I used to eat and enjoy when I was a kid. I guess I really am not much of a sweet tooth, still Tokyo Bubble Tea is a great place to sit, eat and have a little chat.