Mad about FOOD

Sundays are always reserved for our little family get-togethers. Without fail, we all flock to my parents-in-law’s house, which is, luckily for us, less than 2 kilometers away from ours, and in the same village. At 75, Mom still personally cooks for her brood of five sons and one daughter plus their spouses and children every Sunday. After cooking lunch for about 20 hungry people, she proceeds to prepare merienda. She’s a superwoman, Mom.

Sometimes, though, when a family member is celebrating a birthday, anniversary, promotion or whatever special occasion, that person/family takes care of merienda. Last March 11, it was my turn.

One of our househelp makes the best beefy, cheesy lasagna that’s really a hit with our family. It’s a very special secret recipe and I bet if she decides to make it into a full-blown business, she’ll be a rich woman in no time. I also ordered garlic sticks from Greenwich, which go perfectly well with the lasagna. For my vegetarian in-laws (Claro and family), I had a family size garden fresh pizza delivered, also from Greenwich.

Claro and his family know how much I love food, so they gave me a whole chocolate hazelnut cake from Chocolat (SM Mall of Asia) as a birthday present, upon my request. It’s everything that one looks for in a chocolate cake–perfectly moist and subtly sweet. This one claims to be of "the deep, dark kind" and has blocks of velvety smooth hazelnut chocolate on top. It’s remarkably good, but I wish it had more of the chocolate fudge icing.

Foodies in the know are no stranger to the chocolate cake of Polly’s Specialty Cakes and Desserts. It is a very popular cake for office parties and events, and also a regular in our family gatherings since Ms. Polly Garilao lives only a few streets away from our house. For my birthday treat, I ordered something different–the torta de cebu cupcakes. It’s actually quite good, but it’s nothing extra-ordinary. For me, it tastes just like Red Ribbon’s taisan loaf. It’s a nice cake to go with my morning tea, but not special enough for our family.

I also served bite-size pieces of food for the gods and carrot walnut squares, both from Mary Grace (available in most malls). Then there was brazo de mercedes in individual servings. This really yummy dessert was made by our neighbor Dollie, who is a fantastic homebaker. I ordered 2 dozens of the brazo and everyone liked it very much. I’m not fond of commercially-made brazo de mercedez myself, but Dollie’s is just wonderful–not too airy, and with a rich custard filling. Finally, I had wanted a really nice Hello Kitty birthday cake but I was on a budget, so I just bought a colorful ready-made cake from Art Cakes (vanilla, mocha, chocolate chiffon) and decorated it with a tiny Hello Kitty keychain from my collection.  And with that, my 33rd birthday week celebration is officially over.          

My in-laws–parents, brothers, sisters–are co-conspirators in what is now known as Project Joy. Since I am the only one among them who is not overweight–at least not yet–they are bent on fattening me up. And I must say, their efforts are paying off. I’ve already added 10 pounds to my original skinny frame since I joined the family 3 years ago.

The day after my last birthday, my parents-in-law wanted to take me out to lunch. But when my brother-in-law, Gani, learned about it, he offered to treat us to what could very well be Makati’s best-kept secret: Filling Station. It was my first time to visit the place even though Gani has been raving about the food there for years.As the legal counsel of the company, he has tried almost everything on the menu.

Filling Station is an American diner with a 1950’s theme, the interiors of which are great conversation pieces.  On the ground floor is a soda fountain/bar that has on display some vintage radios and movie posters.  The walls on the stairway are filled with framed photographs of icons like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. On the second floor, there’s an eclectic collection of memorabilia–a jukebox (remember that?), an old ice shaver, a life-size statue of The King, an ancient telephone, license plates, a portion of a car(!) and what-have-yous. Vinyl records and electric guitars decorate the ceiling. It’s like a curiosity shop but better–because there’s great food, and that’s what we came for.

We started with the seafood chowder and caesar salad (prices withheld because we didn’t pay for this meal). Then we had cheese pizza in a thin crust. It’s greasy but delicious. We also had chicken quesadilla, which was tasty, albeit a little too dry. The tomato salsa was really good.

Caloy and I shared an order of Mustang–grilled king prawn with lemon butter sauce, tenderloin steak with a side of steamed vegetables and a baked potato. This was really superb! The steak was perfectly seasoned that it tasted good even without any condiment. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

My mom-in-law had a shrimp curry, which is her favorite in the restaurant. I sampled it and ooh-la-la, it was good. The coconut milk taste wasn’t overpowering–it struck a perfect balance with the curry flavor, making it a wonderful, desirable main dish.  We were all satisfied with the food which were all great-tasting. I even thought that if this restaurant were located in a mall, it will definitely give TGI Friday’s a run for its money. Anyway, it’s time for desserts…

Filling Station has a dazzling display of cakes and a wide selection of ice cream concoctions. Gani urged me to order one each, so I let my little Bea choose what she liked. She pointed to the chocolate caramel cake, a slice of which was a towering piece of deliriously delicious moist chocolate cake embraced by chewy, gooey caramel that was not too sweet, and decorated with chocolate chips, chopped nuts and a cherry. It’s one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve tasted in quite a while. Hallelujah, it’s amazingly good!

Oh, yeah, before I forget, the iced tea smoothie is another must-try in this diner. It’s very refreshing and it’s hard not to finish the entire thing in just one sip. Gani says the diner also serves milkshakes the old-fashioned way and is prepared right at your own table. I made a mental note to try that next time. But going back to our orders, Bea was adamant in choosing the rainbow clown–a scoop of strawberry ice cream (her favorite) laced with colorful marshmallows, an ice cream cone resembling a hat, and a cherry perched on a tiny squirt of whipped cream. It was a fabulous treat for me and my little foodie, who dug into the concoction all by herself. At last, she was silent as she enjoyed  spoonful after spoonful of the pretty little ensemble. Another day like this and I can kiss my waist goodbye. But certainly, Filling Station is worth coming back to. Never mind that it’s located right in the heart of a sleazy part of Makati (on P. Burgos Street, near Makati Avenue), and that some of the customers are engaged in indecent… uhm.."transactions", this diner definitely offers very decent meals that are lip-smacking good.

More than a week before my special day, my husband asked me where I want to have my birthday lunch. I immediately ran through my "Eat List"–restaurants that I wish to try this year. However, I had to consider that my husband is not as adventurous as I am when it comes to food, so I decided to choose from my/our list of favorite restaurants instead. Emperor Court easily came to mind. When I thought of the scallops wrapped in bacon with creamy sauce, my mouth started to water already. So I called up the place to make reservations. Unfortunately, there was a function in the restaurant that day so I was faced with a mighty big problem: where shall we dine?

My husband Caloy suggested Duo but we just had lunch there fairly recently. So we ended up having  a very late lunch at Serendra’s Portico 1771. It’s the newest one operated by the Chateau 1771 group that has been making a buzz in the restaurants scene. I chose it because Chateau is well-known for its desserts. Yeah, happy birthday to me!

For starters, Caloy had a cucumber and watercress soup (P90), a creamy puree that he slurped with great gusto. My Bea and I had a clear soup with scallops (P90), which was a good enough hunger-buster. Cara had a crabstick salad (P280), which was also quite good but, for its price, I would have expected a much bigger serving. I also ordered the spring tofu (P180), which is one of the house specialties. It’s a very simple and light omelet with a beancurd filling and a special sauce. At first bite, it was delectable–the sauce lending a burst of flavors to the otherwise tasteless omelet. But as I ate more, it reminded me of taho and I soon felt a bit turned off. It’s not so bad, I tell you, it’s just hard not to imagine eating taho minus the tapioca (sago).

The shrimp cracker salad (P280) is a very interesting mix of greens, shrimps, shallots, lemongrass, chopped heart of palm (known locally as ubod) with a citrusy mayo dressing. The curious twist to this appetizer is the prawn crackers or kropek, which we used to scoop up the salad. It was a lot of fun to eat, and the taste caused a deja vu of sorts–I remembered a similar dish that my Indonesian classmates in Germany used to prepare for our class parties. Yes, that’s it!

For our main dishes, we had pan-fried lapu-lapu (P240), chicken extravaganza (P280), and tic tac prawns (P450). The first was delicious–tender lapu-lapu fillets topped with onions in a flavorful sauce. The second was also good–deboned chunks of chicken with sliced button mushrooms and asparagus spears in heavy cream with a hint of oyster sauce. The last looked absolutely enticing: six pieces of prawns cooked in olive oil, seasoned with herbs and spices, and garnished with caramelized chopped pistachio nuts. The presentation was superb and the concept was promising, but strangely, they just didn’t do it for me. The prawns were kind of tough, too.

We were so stuffed already, and it was half past three (we started eating at 2:30), but I still got to have my desserts. I’ve been longing to try the fruit pavlova, so I ordered the meringue set (P220) from among the several "Blissful Endings" choices. It had a floating island (similar to canonigo), some marshmallows prepared by the restaurant, and the pavlova. The first two were just so-so, maybe they’re not even worth mentioning, but the pavlova was great! It had a meringue base, some heavy cream in the middle and chopped fruits (strawberry, kiwi, mango) on top. I loved it.

And because it’s my birthday, the restaurant gave me a complimentary slice of its famous coffee pie. It’s perfect for coffee lovers as it has a very strong coffee flavor, but I wouldn’t say no to free dessert so I devoured it. Oh, burp. Overall, the food at Portico was good, not excellent, just good. I guess I’m really not a fan of fusion cuisine. But I had a wonderful birthday because I was with my family and so many people remembered my birthday. Am truly blessed.

Apart from its remarkable sights, a city is also memorable for its food. When one visits a particular city for the first time, it’s almost customary to sample the food for which that place is famous. In Berlin, where I stayed for 5 wonderful months during my professional training, currywurst is the signature street food. Although wurst (or sausage; pronounced as voorst) is popular all over Germany, Berlin prides itself as the city from where this curry version originated.

Imagine my glee when I found this German Sausage Factory stall in Glorietta (where else?) last week. It’s impossible to miss those German and Philippine flags proudly displayed on both sides of the kiosk. I was even more surprised when I saw that the staff was wearing costumes–the Dirndl and Lederhosen–if only to show how authentic their sausages are. Funny. It’s only in the southern state of Bavaria that I’ve seen those outfits.

Anyway, I just had to have the currywurst mit pommes (P89/order) and it’s basically prepared the same way as in the imbisses of Germany–you take a sausage, deep-fry it, slice into bite-size pieces, pour a tomato-based sauce and dust with curry powder. Pommes is, of course, the fries, which is the perfect accompaniment to this street food. Some people prefer to eat it with Brot (bread), though, but I loved dipping the fries in the special sauce.

Mmmm…das schmeckt sehr gut! There’s nothing like the familiar taste of a certain specialty food to conjure up fond memories. I remember walking alone, as I always did, along Ku’damm, stopping by a stall by the side of big department stores like Karstadt or KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens), and enjoying my currywurst while standing like the rest of the customers, oblivious of the shivering cold.

A word of caution: it’s an acquired taste, so it’s not for everyone. Discovery Travel & Living host Samantha Brown tried the currywurst in her Passport to Europe feature on Berlin and said she didn’t like it–"like sausage with ketchup." I believe that was my first reaction, too. But then I kind of grew to like it very much that it became one of my favorite street foods in Berlin (the other one being the Turkish döner kebab, a best-seller). And besides, Berlin is my most favorite city in the world, so I’m partial to its superstar fast-food.

Ever noticed how our country is fast becoming an
extended province of Korea? It’s like, everywhere you go in the
Philippines, there’s a small community of Koreans settling in that
place–here in Metro Manila, in Baguio City, in Subic. And because of
them, it’s not hard to find Korean grocery shops and restaurants
anymore. Heck, even local primetime television has a slew of Koreanovelas that, at one time, were all the rage in this forsaken land. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’ve not watched a single Koreanovela that Korean food ranks at the bottom of my list of favorite Asian cuisines.

For one thing, I could never eat the quintessential kimchi. I tried, I really did, but it was not a pleasant  taste. We ate at this unpretentious place in the Subic Freeport simply named Korean Restaurant, a busy, bustling, almost chaotic eating house that serves honest-to-goodness Korean food. We were given 4 kinds of appetizers, free of charge (because that’s the mark of authentic Korean restaurants), but all of them were spicy in slightly different degrees. So we ordered kimbab for starters–Korean sushi with carrots, radish, cucumber and ham, in lieu of raw fish. It was okay and had my little Bea asking for more.

Then came the doegigogi barbecue or barbecued pork rib cutlets served on a sizzling plate. Boy, it was hot! And I mean it both ways. The pieces of pork are very tender and tasty, they must’ve been soaked in a special marinade overnight. After a few bites, though, I was already perspiring–my tongue in a fiery furnace. I was told that the dish was only mildly spicy. My brother-in-law, Jomar, had this tofu soup awashed with chili powder and I just knew I would’ve choked to death if I tried that. I was thinking, are all Korean dishes really this spicy?

Fortunately, there was galbi jjim (or kalbi chim, depends probably on the dialect), which is beef rib stew with carrot and radish. Now this was our saving grace. The meat was so tender, it was almost falling off the bones. The stew was full-flavored–sweet and salty, but just right. I tried this dish before at the Subic International Hotel but it was too sweet for me. I tried it also at the Chocolate Kiss Cafe in U.P. Diliman but it was way too salty (and to think I like salty food). This one was delicious. But it may take a long time before I eat Korean food again. Maybe I should check out Jewel in the Palace first. Or not.