RISE UP TO YOUR ABILITY!

TURN THE TRASH IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR TO SOMETHING EDIBLE (AND PROBABLY EVEN HEALTHY)!!!

RECIPE FOR MY CHIKANGTO (Chicken Breast + Kangkong + Tomatoes)

INGREDIENTS: 2 cloves of garlic (minced), a handful of kangkong (wahaha yes I will use my own system of measurement) , chicken breast fillet (sliced according to your fine motor skills), 1 tomato (cubed), Nestle all purpose cream (25 mL only), grated cheese

WHAT TO DO (as shown in pictures, 1-5 = top-left clockwise):

1. Saute garlic and kangkong in a frying pan until you get the feeling they’re cooked. =)) 

2-3. Fry the slices of breast fillet until they look golden brown.

4. Take out the chicken. Put in the all-purpose cream and add the grated cheese on top of it. Wait until the all the cheese melts. Put the chicken back and wait for those little pieces to “soak it in.” :)

5. Add tomatoes!!!

:)

OKAY I DON’T ACTUALLY BELIEVE ANYONE WILL TRY THIS. HAHAHA. BUT WRITING A RECIPE IS KINDA FUN, I FEEL LIKE I’M ONE OF THOSE CHEFS WHO TALK TOO MUCH ON TV. =))

What’s for tonight

(Click on pics to enlarge and see captions)

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you. :(

I’ve been planning to go have a Korean feast with my friends for weeks now, then suddenly, some doctors step in and say I can’t have spicy food?! MADNESS!

Right now, we don’t even have kimchi in the fridge. But hey, that would be tolerable if I was having my weekly staple, jjamppong. But no, the gods have come to punish me and strip away all the things I love… You’d think this situation can’t get any more harsh but you’re wrong, since coffee and soda are not allowed too.

So I’m just gonna post pictures of the food I miss. I hope they know I’m doing everything I can to meet them again.

Kimchi + Samgyeopsal + Gochujang, see you in my dreams! :(

Pat’s 20th birthday!

TOP: Pat eating the cake I used to surprise her when the clock struck 12mn. I was at the gym until 11, and I kept wondering if I should get her something or not. I finally decided to get her Guiltless Chocolate Cake (made with Splenda, ‘cause I am such a fitness buff LOL) but I couldn’t find any candles. Haha! When I gave her the cake, she was laughing like crazy ‘cause the surprise was so cheesy. Hahaha. Can’t believe myself, as well.

2nd ROW PICTURE, LEFT: The birthday girl with her Dawn Zulueta birthday dress at Tender Bob’s for dinner :)

2nd ROW, RIGHT: Our shared favorite, clam chowder. Yayyy! :)

BOTTOM: I had ribeye steak with the BOMB. If you guys ever go to Tender Bob’s, make sure to order the BOMB because it does live up to its name. :)

Pat and I had some sort of cook-off last night, and our kitchen was oozing red from tomatoes! She decided to make eggplant pomodoro while I opted for puttanesca. The three picture-set on the upper right corner of the above picture was taken from my side of the kitchen, while the one on the lower bottom was from Pat’s. I’d say both recipes were successful, although I don’t really know if I can call mine a puttanesca because I didn’t use one of the basic ingredients: anchovy fillets! But hey, I cook for myself and when I don’t want something, it’s not going in my pan! =) 

I can’t really tell who won this cook-off because I don’t wanna hurt Pat’s feelings both products were amazing. Maybe next time we’ll get some of our friends to judge our recipes! :)

Restaurant Review: Don Day

My sister Pat and I are huge fans of Korean food. And when I say huge fans, I’m pretty sure that means huger than you are (Well that, of course, is if you are an average Filipino. We can’t beat actual Koreans, obviously). We always have a jar of kimchi in our fridge, which we eat with nearly every meal we have. We also frequently use Korean seasoning on our daily food, and our consumption of Korean food is more of a need, than a mere craving or random musing. 

I say this not to imply superiority or be competitive, but to stress a point: you can rely on us when we talk about Korean food!!! :) So it gives me joy to have a Korean buffet for my second restaurant review. Yay! :)

Don Day Korean Restaurant at Malingap St., Teacher’s Village is by far the ultimate Korean buffet in terms of giving the average person a taste of Korea at a very affordable price.

There are two options for the buffet: (1) Don Day Buffet at PhP199, which gives you access to all the dishes for the day, including egg rolls, different types of jeon (pancake), japchae (sweet potato noodles), kimbap (maki), and traditional Korean meals; and (2) Samgyupsal buffet, at PhP299, which basically is the Don Day Buffet plus unlimited samgyupsal.

Common sense dictates that you have to go for the samgyupsal buffet, for the simple reason that samgyupsal is samgyupsal - the staple of every Korean barbecue. No matter how good the appetizers and all the dishes in the buffet table are, they would simply make no sense if you’re not grilling those hot pieces of Korean Jesus-sent pork belly meat.

Now, you probably find it hard to believe that you’re getting unlimited samgyupsal with all these dishes for the very low price of 299pesos. Most Korean restaurants in the metro serve just one set for 250-400 pesos already. Well, I’m guessing they don’t have the greatest quality meat, but I doubt the other more expensive Korean grills in the Philippines do. You have to be at a really high-class restaurant to be assured of premium grade meat. Also, sampgyupsal is unseasoned pork belly strips, so unlike beef, you don’t really need the best kind of meat. They all (almost) taste the same. :)

Aside from being affordable, the great thing about Don Day is its wide array of dishes. I was surprised there were lots of food in the spread, since I wasn’t expecting much from the PhP299 I was paying. Soup, noodles, potato-based meals, braised chicken, a variety of pork dishes, and many others were present. Whether you love spicy food or not, you’re going to enjoy what they’re serving in the buffet table.

In addition, the crew are very friendly. We saw there was no kimbap on the spread, and when we asked them about it, they served one whole plate to our table specifically! :) They also effectively accommodated all our needs (WATER PLEASE!) despite their haggardness from the huge number of people they were catering to on that busy Sunday evening.

One of the few downsides, I guess, is that the place needs more exhaust fans, since it gets incredibly and abnormally smokey when everybody’s grilling. Your eyes can get teary, and your hair will smell -there’s not even a thing you can do about it. I also noticed that they are understaffed, which leads to chaos when the place gets crowded. Due to this possibility of chaos, it’s important that you tell one of the staff immediately if you’re waiting in line for a table. Don’t just stand there and wait, because chances are, some huge family will overtake you in the line and a mess might be made. Haha. Just always keep in mind: STAND YOUR GROUND. :)

But in general, dining at Don Day Buffet was an awesome experience - Korean food overload at a very low price! What else can I ask for?! :D

STARS: 4 out of 5

Don Day Korean Restaurant

Restaurant Review: Nomnomnom

(Yes, having headings set in bold is my lousy attempt at getting this blog more organized)

Nomnomnom Happy Food is a small restaurant that’s easy to miss if you’re just passing by to get to E. Rodriguez or Tomas Morato, but once you taste the food, you’re sure to never forget the place. Trust me, it was only my second time to visit last night, but it felt like there was something whispering to my gustatory system, leading me to find the place instantly.

It combines Italian and Filipino cuisine, and though some people may deem this a little unusual, they’ll find the results to be very satisfying once they leave their taste buds alone to judge. 

This hole-in-the-wall is famous for its pizza logs. I believe one known bestseller is the Malinomnom (shown in the 1st picture), which contains tinapa, kesong puti, red egg and onions. But I must add that I also enjoyed the Smoked Salmon Pizza immensely.

For appetizers, I would recommend V.S.T. - Very Succulent Tomatoes (2nd picture) and Fried Ravioli (3rd picture). The combination of different kinds of cheese with vegetables like kangkong and spinach in these two dishes was very interesting.

For pasta, the enchilada is a must-try. Unfortunately, it was unavailable last night. We therefore tried the other pasta plates in their menu, and I ended up finding the Seafood Cartoccio to have the most lasting impression.

Sadly, the desserts, which I was very much looking forward to tasting, were also unavailable. So if you guys ever try Nomnomnom, please do tell how good the Lava Cake is! :)

In conclusion, Nomnomnom Happy Food is a great place for hanging out, especially when you’re looking for good, healthy food and warm ambiance. My friends and I certainly had a great time catching up while munching on really delicious pizza and pasta plates. The staff and crew were also very friendly. Probably only downside was that not all items on their menu were available. Overall, a great dining experience! 

STARS: 4.2 out of 5 :)

Nomnomnom Happy Food

G/F GYY Bldg, 1 Tomas Morato Ave

Kristong Hari, Quezon City

(02) 502-2919

CHEAP THRILLS.

Maginhawa is famous for being an ideal “food trip” area, so we had dinner there a while ago after we heard mass. We decided to have a low-budget dinner for the simple reason that the weekdays are coming, therefore, money must be saved. We had empanada at Empanada Ave first. I must say it’s a good find for the very low price of 14 pesos. Then, we had rice meals at Ate Fe’s. They serve typical Filipino ulam. I ordered Lechon Broccoli Rice, and yet again, I got my money’s worth, since I got a surprisingly big serving at only 60pesos. :)

This marks the end of my posts about the weekend. It’s Monday tomorrow! Hope you guys had a weekend as awesome as mine. :)

BRUNCH.

Tom hung out with my sisters and I today. We had a massive brunch at Gravy Fix, where we ordered clam chowder and Southern Fried Chicken. Whenever we go eat there, we make it a point to get different kinds of gravy so we could try them all. My personal favorite is Cajun, though. For dessert, my sisters and I had Wicked Oreos (we finished 2 plates!!!) while Tom ordered banana split. YUM!!!

P.S. We just woke up and haven’t taken a bath yet when we had brunch, hence, the “bagong-gising” looks. :p

Treated my sisters and my friend Myra last Friday after work. We had dinner at Banapple, where we helped ourselves to amazing food (goodness, the cakes!), then we went to Ace Hardware @ North Edsa to buy some stuff for our unit. We’d like to believe we’re becoming more independent and mature each day! :)

The rainy days just won’t seem to come to an end here in the Philippines, but it’s all sunshine and rainbows in my finances right now because…

I got my first paycheck today!!! WEEEEEEE!!! 

Okay but truthfully, 75% of it is gone because I owe so many people for concert and flight tickets. But at least they’re all paid now and I’m just free as the wind!!! :)

Anyway, on my way home, I was abnormally enthusiastic for dinner because I saw this Kenny Rogers billboard while I was on the train.

The moment I stepped foot in our unit, I told my sisters we should go try it…and try it, we did. :)

Read More

My own Bacon Mixed Rice - reminiscent of college days when I could eat Rice In a Box for days on end.

Very easy to make, and also very satisfying! I suggest adding spices or seasoning to make it tastier. My personal favorite is chili garlic paste (see last picture). :D

Release the Kraken!!!

Okay so I made this up myself so please give me the freedom to name it after the legendary Kraken. =))  I added all sorts of spices to it, but essentially it’s just crazy good spicy squid!!!  :)

From canned goods to Hella Good.

My tuna carbonara. :)

We gon’ light it up like Dynamite. :)

My take on famous Filipino street food chili cheese rolls/dynamite sticks.