Craving: Something Sweet

Last week, I was really jonesing for something sweet. I guess you can say I was in a chocolate frenzy, a mood some women get at least once a month.

First I had some of those lovely chokkies from The Peninsula.

Then I had lunch out with some girlfriends and we shared this luscious Valrhona chocolate souffle beauty, but more on it and the lunch later.

I had some chocolate cake for dessert at work. This one came with the chokkies, don't you love the fondant icing and the iced roses? It looks like a wedding dress.

Then I went out and bought this little treat from around the corner:

There seems to be a trend in Japan where they fill cream puffs, eclairs and other choux pastries with freshly made cream, such as Beard Papa and this place, Happy Cream Puff.

At the counter, you choose from a variety of pastries then once you've made the ultimate decision, the staff pipe in the fluffy cream. There is even a disclaimer on the sticker the closes the bag shut that the little black specks you see in the cream come from the vanilla bean. 

Do they have to specify this to countries that think vanilla comes from a bottle? In the store, they even have a sample of real vanilla beans to show you what they look like. Unless the black specks have feels and legs... Maybe they should have called it the Happy Vanilla Bean instead....

I prefer Dulcinea's eclairs much better. I feel the Happy Cream Puff pastry is too crunchy, I prefer mine chewy.

And the cream is too light, I prefer it a little more dense. It was more like unhappy cream that was de-puffed...

Spacey birthday number 5

photo courtesy of The Picture Company

We celebrated my son Enzo's 5th birthday on January 4. He shares a birthday with my late grandfather, Amadeo Valenzuela, and ironically has the same initials as his nickname, VAL. My lolo's birthday party always used to be the first big event of the year.

Last year, we celebrated at Activefun at Tiendesitas but first had a simple cupcake-blowing on his actual birthday with some Sonja's Cupcakes, two vanilla ones and two chocolate, one for each year.

Sonja Ocampo's cupcakes have been the most consistent since the cupcake explosion in Manila. Actually--she's the one responsible for that cupcake trend. She learned her craft from Magnolia Bakery in NYC then brought her mad skills here (thank you Sonja!). I like to call this event the "Vanilla in Manila." 

As expected, the vanilla ones were more in-demand amongst the 10 and younger set...

 

four cupcakes with his cousins and lolas

This year, we decided not to have a big celebration because we are going to bring him to Hong Kong Disneyland this summer. So we had lots of little celebrations. 

The first Sunday of the year I bought a chocolate cake from Red Ribbon, it was exceptionally good: the cake was moist and it even had caramel filling. True value for money!

Birthday boy with cousin Chloe

Ninang Margie treated us to Disney on Ice for his gift. Lola and I had nachos from here

Guess where we are?

His school only allows simple birthday celebrations such candle blowing on the cake and giving of individually packaged cupcakes. Enzo has been quite into Star Wars (especially the pod race in Episode 1 and the cruiser chase scene in Episode 2) so I wanted a Star Wars themed cake and cupcakes with toppers. So I asked Sonja if she was up to the task, and she thankfully was! Bet you didn't know Sonja did regular cakes too, huh? Though I forgot to shoot the cute cupcakes, here he is with his classmates and the lovely cake decorated with the Millennium Falcon :

looks like the real deal!

"I'm the king of the world!"

Learning in school. Enzo's birthday means Earth has rotated 5 times around the sun

The last of the cake celebrations with the cousins, and mucho, mucho saliva later...

Guess who ended up finishing all that cake. So yummy and its always a load of fun to turn your mouth blue!

Cupcakes by Sonja
Serendra, Bonifacio High Street
Bonifacio Global City
+632.856.0308
cupcakesbysonja@gmail.com

Monday rush hour traffic blues

I absolutely HATE driving home during rush hour traffic from Makati. Last night, on the Makati Bridge turning right at the end of it, two big cement mixers tried to run me off the road.

I HATE TRUCKS.

Then weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring all possible traffic rules without a police officer stopping them in sight are the road's version of rats...motorcycle drivers.

I HATE MOTORCYCLE DRIVERS.

I have to pass a public market where half the pedestrians need to walk on the street because the sidewalks are all full of vendors. This area is infested with tricycle drivers who make U-turns wherever they damn please. Most likely in front of you as you are about to zoom ahead.

I HATE TRICYCLE DRIVERS.

Somewhere in this same spot are taxis that try to cut you off, go slow when they do, then pull over at a weird angle to pick up passengers.

I HATE TAXI DRIVERS.

Finally at home, i'm exhausted.

If there is any saving grace to all of this madness, it is that sometimes, on a really good day, I get interesting packages such as this:

No, it is not for my new job as a concierge bellman at The Peninsula Manila.

Its a white satin box of sweet nothings to erase all the bad memories of the muck of traffic out there.
They say: "Shh baby child, you're home now, relax."
They say: "What's a little traffic now and then? Slow down and smell the roses!"
And most of all they say, just like in American Pie:

EAT ME, BEAUTIFUL!

How could I stay mad then?

Forget about the traffic and get a box of these instead here.

My Inspiration Part 1

I have a barkada (group of very close friends) from grade school/ high school and we have been hanging out regularly together since 1988, our first year of high school.

I met Amanda in the third grade, when I moved from Los Angeles to Manila. I was the new kid in school, started the school year late because school ends in June there and starts in June here, had no uniform and couldn't speak a word of Tagalog. She started school even later than me, and I first noticed her on the bus and later in my class. And she couldn't speak a word of Tagalog either! She became my best friend.

Amanda is usually the type of eater that likes to graze. We would hang out in her kitchen and check out the fridge, otherwise end up eating her super soft and squishy pan de sal, a type of local roll. I say usually because when she was training for the Philippine Team in badminton later on she would eat like a horse instead of a cow and I distinctly remember her eating a cowboy porkchop...Amanda? Was dat chu? Today, she continues to burn calories with her triathlons and training for them.

I met Pia the next year because she was my classmate. Pia likes eating soup with her meal and couldn't cook to save her life. You know those funny squiggly fibrous things in banana bread? When she made banana bread, it came out like the big lump that it was when we put it in the oven. I couldn't understand it. She recently got married and for her shower, we all gave her things like tupperware, ready to heat soup and cookbooks. 

I met Racky in sixth grade. Racky is an adventurous eater and loves steak as well. Her hubby Joel is our human doggy-bag be-gone guy...he eats all our leftovers.

Then we all met Anjeanette (whew, that was long, I call her Jing) in our first year of high school. She comes from a big family of foodies. Culinary speaking, I learned a lot from her and her family. We were in Hong Kong together for a graduation trip the summer after high school and her dad treated us to dinner once. He gave me my first taste of caviar. You can't go back after that can you? She and I end up splitting meals in restos and finishing all the wine too. Hi Jing!

The five of us have been through a lot (of restaurants and stories), and they are my first inspiration for this blog. As adults, we have made it a point to have dinner together a least once a month to catch up with each other's lives. No matter where we are in our lives, we can feel like high school girls again and chat about all sorts of things. Sometimes, a whole evening isn't enough.(Which is why my hubby doesn't hang out with us. He says he gets bored because all we talk about is ourselves--haha!)

I decided one of the things I have to do before I die is write a book, and thus, this blog was born to spark some sort of creativity within me. Maybe just to even see if I have the writing chops, enough for a book. As Confucius once said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

We decided to celebrate Jing's new condo by inaugurating it with a meal.
Since that night we decided our new challenge for 2010 is that instead of eating dinner out, we will each host a dinner in our own homes.

Jing decided to host a Filipino dinner.

The menu was corn and clam soup, ginataang manok (chicken in coconut milk) ukoy (shrimp patties), inihaw na bangus (grilled milkfish) with onions and tomatoes and for dessert, mazapan na pili (pili nut marzipan). She served Montes Alpha Chardonnay with the meal. The type of meal where you run out of rice for the meat, then meat for the rice and so on...resulting in major carbo loading.

Then Jing brought out these yummy golden bars of pili marzipan (no we did not eat a stick of butter as it may seem in the photo above).

I said it would have been good to dip in chocolate, so then she took out this:

She melted it in the micro and brought out some yummy biscuits from Japan to go with it.
SO GOOOD.


As it approached, um 1030PM, one by one, they all went home. Racky and her little toddler Tadeo; Pia and her new hubby, Miguel. Amanda tried to stay with us but she was nodding off already since was up early that morning to train. Nobody left but two winos, the hostess with the mostess and the newbie food blogger.

Our conversation went like this:
Jing: So should we open this wine Peebee gave us?
Me: Up to you.
Jing: I'll only open it if we finish it.
Me: Um, ok!

Our conversation centered mostly on our kids, being married (she 11 years, me 8.5) and how it is when spouses have to live apart most of the year due to work reasons. There's always that balance of missing the person/ liking the freedom/ still missing the person. We had a really good time, wishing our early bird counterparts still had time to hang out instead of having to go.

Next is Racky's new flat. Can't wait!

Roshan makes a strawberry pie...there goes the diet

It was quite an emergency. 

Right after I got the call I had to rush right over to my sister's house.

My sister Margie and I are very similar especially, when it comes to ordering food in restaurants. We end up wanting to order the same thing and this works out especially when we have lunch together. The only time it doesn't work out is when we are trying a new restaurant. We always say we will order what we like and the other will order something new and just share them.

What happens is one gets to try a bit of the other but in the end, we ultimately polish off our own dish, especially if its yummy! So the other one gets stuck with the new, sometimes-weird dish.

So when she called me, I knew it couldn't wait and that I would have to go to her right away.

In her house, sitting in a box

Was a fresh strawberry pie.

Now, we got so excited about it I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing, and if you see here, we already polished off half of it by ourselves (with her 10-year-old daughter Sophie just eating the glazed crusts).

Let me start at the beginning of our love affair with strawberry pie.

We used to live in a little suburb of Los Angeles and our Tita Carmen still lives there. After college, she moved to San Francisco in the early 90s and I moved to West Los Angeles in the late 90s. Around California is a little home-style restaurant/bakery named Marie Callenders, and it sells all sorts of pies that you can imagine.

Living there, I found out it would sell its pies for half-off at certain times of the year. My dad's favorite there was the blueberry cheesecake (he always tells the stories of loving the fresh blueberries but would forget the name of the bakery). They had lemon meringue, banana cream pie, chocolate cream pie, cheesecakes, you name it.

But my ultimate favorite was a seasonal pie: the fresh strawberry pie with just a little strawberry glaze. I would buy a pie and eat it for breakfast, straight out of the box.

It would last me three days.

So when Margie made that fateful call, I had to come right over.

The last time I had any was while we were on our family reunion in Hawaii for my mom and dad's advanced golden wedding anniversary. Margie took me to a place called Ann Miller, and here they had strawberry pies in mini versions with chocolate at the bottom of the crust. OMG!!!

She found out recently her friend from Pilates, Arlene, had a cousin who grew hydroponic strawberries and she bought some--and they were absolutely HUGE. She says her favorite way to enjoy strawberries is in a pie, and so she tasked her other friend from Pilates, Roshan Samtani, (who is super nice, a fabulously creative baker and ironically super skinny!) to make her a pie as fast as she can.

To roll it
And pat it
and mark it with cream
Put it in the oven for my sister and me!

It took Roshan 3 days to get the pastry right and research on the glaze. But voila....

This was so fantastic. The glaze was a little jelly-like in consistency but had good flavor. The strawberries themselves were juicy and sweet, and I love whipped cream on anything. The crust was flaky enough, not Marie Callender's flaky, but still good.

My favorite way to enjoy strawberries is by mashing it and adding milk and sugar (how mom used to make it,) fresh ones dipped in strawberries (preferably with champagne) and just like this one.

So like I said, there goes my diet this summer...

Roshan also makes cakes, cookies, homemade ice cream and a really special food for the gods that I haven't tried because I'm allergic to walnuts. Dessert lovers, call her but don't kill me if you gain weight.

Roshan
+632.631.7786
homemade.roshan@gmail.com

Oh Joy, Its Choi!

Brudder Jack turned 40 and to celebrate this momentous number, he treated us family to a feast fit for kings at Choi's Garden. Now, he and my sister Margie introduced Choi's to us a couple years ago at the culmination of Chinese New Year. Not being Chinese, we were unaware of the date, but noticed most of the diners were clad all in red. The great thing about eating in a place you've never eaten before is not knowing what to expect. The interiors were interesting. When you enter, you go through a walkway that made me feel like I was in the belly of a whale or some sci-fi movie. The second floor was decorated with 70s style chandeliers...it reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, for some reason...

And that fateful day, just as for Jack's birthday, we were all blown away by the quality of the food.

Choi's was started by an ex-owner of Gloria Maris and some other investors, and word on the street was that it imported its Peking duck straight from Hong Kong. Now that's a promise we wanted to see delivered. Strong words...

For Jacks big 4-oh, Margie asked her Chinese friend for recommendations, and this is what we got. We began with an assortment of appetizers. This one had, from left top: barbecued pork, tofu, roast chicken, seaweed and the last but not the least, suckling pig in the middle. It came with sauces of hoisin, spring-onion ginger and a sweet sour sauce. My favorite was the suckling pig with skin so crunchy you could cause the floor to shake by a single bite.

The next course were these deep fried crab claws in angel hair served with kani salad. The crab claws were full of meat and very succulent, but the whole thing got a little messy once I really began to eat it in earnest. The kani salad was refreshing to eat after the claw. 

For long life, they ordered birthday noodles with lobster. Oh em gee. 

For some reason, there was enough to go around and then some. Don't let this picture fool you, those lobsters were HUGE and the noodles never seemed to empty...so while some were working on this I opted to move on to the next dish:

This cute little present contained chopped broccoli and scallop and was just so darn cute to eat...for like 10 seconds. I don't what this alluded to when I was talking to Joe and how his eating habits of changed due to a certain er, procedure. Now, here comes the hot mess prawn salad in mayo. Oh, those prawns were so succulent, but damn, I was getting full...

As you know and have read, I am a new blogger and the reason why I haven't started earlier is because I always eat all the food before I can take a picture (but I'm getting better, I swear!). So I'm sorry but all the Peking duck was gobbled up and so was its second cousin, the fried duck bones. Alas, the huge hotpot of lapu-lapu and other ingredients I could see when I could finally peer over the edge of the bowl was not photographed either. Perhaps I was too satiated to photograph it...but all of those dishes were winners. Really.

You can imagine, after eating all this food, the words "A little grease never hurt anyone" were swirling in my distended belly and I was feeling a little overindulged. But came dessert, buchi and this simple concotion:

It was an almond flavored milk served with crushed ice, almond jelly and lychee. All of those greasy feelings: gone! How do they do that?

We family member tried to guess how much that whole meal was. Lobster, prawn, Peking duck, steamed lapu-lapu, crab claw, scallops...

Well, we were 15 people so I though it was about Php25,000.

Surprise surprise, Margie said it was only Php900 per head, making this grand meal only the bargain price of Php13,500!! Now that's what I call a sulit meal...

Choi's Garden

Anapolis Street, Greenhills

+632.727.7489

Bunch for Lunch

What to eat, what to eat?

Today Carissa (on the leftmost side) decided to take us girls out to lunch to Apartment 1B in Salcedo Village, the cozy little brainchild of Marivic Diaz-Lim (formerly of Tribeca in Shangri-La Mall) that has now spawned many imitators in the gourmet comfort food category but none truly compares. It has comfy couches and arm chairs, just like you're sitting in someone else's living room, hence the name. And, its got communal bathrooms, for those who always wondered how it was on Ally McBeal.

Like its moniker implies, its menu boasts of improved good old favorites that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. I especially like having its brunch until 3 in the afternoon (like smoked salmon and spinach eggs Benedict, absolutely fantastic) along with its other goodies until it closes at night. Some of my faves are its crabcakes, chicken quesadillas, Caesar salad, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, spaghetti carbonara, Reuben sandwich...at Apartment 1B, its difficult to make just one choice so you must come back for more.

To take the words of a Mandarin hotel ad, I'm obviously a fan. I love love love Apartment 1B!

(The waiter who took this picture styled it for us, heh heh.) So knowing I was going to eat here, I had already thought of what I wanted to eat. Two things came to mind: one was a burger and the other was the smoked salmon eggs Benedict. Since I had the eggs Benedict the week before, I decided to go for the burger.

Carissa ordered these samosas with mushrooms, spinach and cream cheese, which looked fantastic. Now, I've had them before, and they are very tasty, but I didn't not want to detract from my main course. We did not touch them due to our lengthy er, discussion.

First off, they served me my fresh dalandan soda that came with its own little container of sugar syrup. I almost forgot to take a photo before I finished it...sorry for the mess folks! This, for me, is the best damn dalandan juice in the world. I've upped the ante with dalandan soda, a fresh little fizzy fix to freshen up any meal. I normally don't like dalandan juice in other places, but I think Marivic must own a dalandan farm or have a really fantastic suki for such sweet freshness. 

Now, us coosome foursome decided to get the same thing but different variations of it. They all came with the same amount of veggies and those fantastic-can't-stop-eating-them country cut fries, mm mm good! One of these things is not like the other...Someone decided to order a plain beef burger, well done, with no cheese (but later added the sauteed mushrooms).

Another of the lot decided to order the beef burger, well done, with all the trimmings...

Then one of us ordered the turkey burger with Gruyere, cranberry relish and alfalfa sprouts...

And last but not the least, one of us ordered the beef burger, medium but without the sauteed onions. Who do  you think matched what?

Who was the girl who ordered the plain Jane burger? How bout the lady with the healthy turkey option? And who was trying to avoid the bad breath? And what about the one the bad-ass one with all the works? And to top if off, who halved hers? And surprisingly who finished theirs?

Joan on left, ordered the bad-ass one with the works. Our generous hostess opted for no onions. Shaz, on the right, has been having tummy trouble acid attacks and ordered hers sans-cheese, extra shrooms please. And yours truly, who has been waxing nostalgic on her Los Angeles years where she had foregone pork and meat and turkey'ed everything (think burgers, hotdogs, bacon...)got the surprise! healthy option.

Carissa from NYC took her time eating her burger slowly but surely while, the little lady who usually drinks Starbucks for lunch, finished that big ol' burger in one sitting! And me, who belongs to the BG (Bulate Girls) Club, had the healthy one. No wonder i'm hungry now...should have ordered the white toblerone cheesecake...

Thank you Carissa (and Ms Loida) for a lovely lunch and thank you ladies for lovely company (except the zoning out at the end...)

P.S. So proud, I actually blogged the day of the eating! Getting there :)

Apartment 1B
Sendeno cor Tordesillas Sts
Salcedo Village, Makati City

+632.843.4075

Divine Ducasse

I met the celebrated modern French chef Alain Ducasse and all I could say was, "Bonsoir Miseur Ducasse!" There was never a time in my life where I wished I could speak a little more French.

In town for some events at Enderun Colleges at the Fort, the culinary school that could give Hogwarts a run for its money, Alain Ducasse came to Manila, ate, spoke and conquered. Ducasse and Enderun have had a special relationship for some time now, since Enderun partnered up with the Alain Ducasse Formation (ADF) in 2007 so that its culinary students could learn some of the practices of one of the best in the industry.

He arrived on the morning of the 23rd (I had lunch at the Makati Shang and saw its GM Reto Klauser standing outside the hotel in the blazing heat awaiting something...only after cocktails did I understand why). There was a press con that afternoon and I had attended cocktails and dinner that evening.

Enderun was all lit up like a birthday cake for the evening's festivities and when the master finally came out, I was surprised to see him dressed simply. I had imagined the Alain Ducasse of Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, London and Monaco and 20 restaurants bearing his name and stamp of approval on it to be a suave sophisticate wearing a cravat and smoking a pipe.

He spoke in his native French, which had to be translated, and this is what he said prior to the unveiling of the Enderun Culinary Center:

Dear friends, welcome, thank you all for being here. I’d like to thank especially Ambassador Philippe Lhuillier, Jack Tuason, Javy Infante and all his great team at Enderun, the team at the Shangri-La Hotel, especially Reto Klauser for his great welcome earlier today.

The dinner tonight is the climax of a very intense day, a day full of rich encounters of Javy Infante and his great team at Enderun Colleges. A day full of sharing with college students and finally a day full of questions from journalists who are closely following our moves.  

Infante’s work has inspired me at least three times I’d like to share tonight. Firstly, the relationship between ADF and Enderun is a success. It was obvious when I met the teaching team, they are passionate, talented and achieving great work. I also felt that success when I met with the students. They are following the hands-on program which is already being recognised in this school. It will be a major asset to them in their career.

My second thought is about the success which is mainly based on trust and mutual respect. Our two institutions bring their knowledge, skills and sweat and both then take advantage of the outcomes. Trust and respect are the two most precious ingredients of a collaboration. With them we build and everything is possible.

My third thought is a little more personal. As a chef, I look at this partnership as a French chef: the partnership is indeed a sign of the dynamism of the French cuisine. Not an arrogant or outdated French cuisine, but one open to the world adapting to influences. A cuisine that shares its knowledge and gets enriched through cultural openness.

Special thanks to the chefs of the night that are in the kitchen right now. Chef Sy, Chef Mark, our Formation’s collaborator, Tim and Nicolas, the chefs from ADF who have flown in for the dinner, thank you all for being here and have a wonderful night.

Then after a brief picture taking, we all filed into the room to meet the man behind the legend and enjoy a meal like no other. This meal was inspired by all of Ducasse's Michelin-starred restaurants, and you could feel the anticipation of all the foodies there to try it.

The first course was a Wild Salmon A la Nage with Green Olive Oil Dressing served with Scramsberg Blanc de Blanc 2005 from Napa Valley. 

This dish was my favorite of the evening. The wild salmon was perfectly marinated and tasted super fresh. The green dressing that accompanied it had everyone guessing its ingredients. Hint of chive? Hint of parsley? Then was that potato with the half olive. It had a taste of something salty/ something briny. I was lucky to be sitting next to Chef Sau del Rosario of M Cafe and Bistro Vert on my left. He guessed it was anchovy. I thought it was shallot. Turned out to be herring, and they called it herring potato.

The next dish was Spiny Lobster in Coco Bean Puree and Chutney.

Now this was simple but stunning. I can still remember that lovely lobster tail; cutting into its firm, fat texture and dredging it into the mystery that was chutney! It turned out to be that this chutney was a process, and not the dish that accompanies curries. Chef Sau and I and the rest of the table were amazed at all the little nuances of flavor that was in that sauce. Some citrus was detected...little soy (for me). Our server said it was just the lobster broth which was reduced. Later, we found out from Bel Castro, Enderun professor who has an MA in Gastronomy, there was orange in it. 

The next dish was the main course of Rack of Lamb Served with Simmered Vegetables and Black Truffles served with a Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 Knight's Valley.  

Just look at those beautiful slivers of truffle. So perfectly round, they reminded me of the Chinese Haw flakes I used to eat in grade school. To top it off, they encrusted the lamb with black truffle as well. Heaven! Chef Sau, who used to live in France, told me that the French really like their veggies soft and palatable, not crunchy and almost raw like other cuisines (such as Chinese veggies). Wonderful, wonderful!

  

The wine was perfectly medium bodied and set off the truffle and lamb perfectly. The sweet temptation to end the meal was a Crusty Praline Bar Covered with Ganache and Gold Leaf paired with Echeverria Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc 2005, so sweet it was almost like a port.

Look at it glisten at you. Doesn't it look like a little Moulin Rouge dancer doing the can-can? This too, was gobbled up and every bite was savored.

Fully satiated, I went home happy after a day of rich encounters, with food prepared simply yet full of soul, trying to think of how a man compares to his food...how such simple food from a simply dressed man could speak volumes....

Thank you Enderun for this once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Egg-citing

Now after lunch last week, while dad was buying the little boy's bribe, er present at Toy Kingdom, Tita O snuck off to Lord Stow's Bakery "to buy something." What happened next was I saw Hubs carrying a bag that contained a box of these egg tarts.
Now when I first heard of Lord Stow's Bakery was when it moved into the Madison Square neighborhood in Greenhills. Everyone knows that little piece of land is, um, malas or bad luck. Greenhills is supposed to be lucky for the Chinese because it is the "Dragon's head or tail," vely, vely auspicious location. Perhaps Madison Square is on the dragon's Adam's apple or tonsil or something. There was the vegetarian joint, Bodhi, before it closed down and became Panciteria Lido, and that also closed down. Then there was Bambi Sy-Gobio's Kooky & Luscious, which became a barbecue joint, but standing there now is a California Berry. The only thing that stayed in business there has been Teriyaki Boy, one of its first branches, I believe. Even the Kodak there closed down.

I do not like egg tart here or there

I do not like it anywhere!

So when Lord Stow's opened, I figured, it too, would close. So when it didn't, I decided to come in and taste one...I mean, egg tart? Chocolate tart, yes. Pecan tart, oh yes. But egg?

Say! I do like egg tart here or there

I will eat them anywhere!

I do like egg tart Lord Stow

Thank you, thank you now I know!

It says you must eat them within 6 hours of purchase or put them in the ref for up to 3 days...sounds a little fishy to me...they hardly last that long in my house...

Lunch with Joe and O

We went to family lunch on Sunday at Casa Armas at the Podium. Now for some die-hard aficionados, some say that Casa Armas is not as good as it used to be, especially after its owner Jesus Armas, (who was good friend of my auntie's) died a couple of years ago.

Segueway story: Jesus Armas flew to Spain to visit his brother who was sick and unfortunately got into a car accident while he was there, pity.

We used to go all the time. When we would go to the Malate branch my dad would always give a little extra to the serenaders so they could play his favorite Spanish songs by tableside. The Podium branch is closest to home so its the most frequented although I did try the Jupiter branch and it was God-awful.

We would pre-order the Iberian chicken, the crabs and sometimes, on a special occasion, like a birthday, the cuchinillo they would cut up with a plate.

Now we just enjoy the tapas and the sangria which is absolutely the best in Manila (I believe because it packs a punch, no pun intended). The gambas is hands down the best I've ever had, with its plump, juicy prawns, perfectly browned garlic and little slivers of spicy green chili- its great to dip the bread into this! Other faves are the bouquerones (fresh anchovy) and the angulas (baby eels), but now the former is bad for my hubby's gout and the latter seems like a sin to eat.

Segueway story: Hubs and I went to Spain for our honeymoon in 2001 and Dad's only bilin was angulas from El Corte Ingles. We went to the supermarket section and couldn't find the angulas anywhere. We had to ask where it was and it turned out to be each can of angulas was kept in a special plastic case that had to be unlocked before purchasing. It was about 25 euros for one. When we told dad, he said not to buy anymore. I think we got him a couple.

Casa Armas Podium is newly renovated, giving it an airy, family-friendly feel. The little boy enjoyed running around in there! On Sunday, we only ordered tapas: jamon Serrano, 3 orders of gambas, salpicao and garlic rice and chicken croquettas. I had some pieces of the salpicao cooked well-done for the little boy who didn't want to eat at all and was sans nanny. Reluctantly he did eat it and with the garlic rice (which he never tried before; he calls all veggies "decorations").

The gambas was as good as ever as was the salpicao. I let Hubs have all the chicken croquettas since I believe he was feeling deprived (no boquerones, no Spanish sardines, no chorizo...all his favorite...) I realized this day that most Spanish food is not good for gout...nor for picky little boys who only like beef and not "decorations"...

Casa Armas Podium

+632.687.3370