Featured Archives - Page 3 of 9

Microwave Mango Buttercream Cake Recipe

After two grueling move-ins, we were finally successful in bringing my baking equipment and ingredients to Makati. Sadly, my beloved oven was left behind in Malabon since gas ovens and ranges are not allowed in the building that we’re staying at. Most baking addicts will lose their minds over not having an oven and go into baking withdrawal. Luckily for me, I found this unfortunate circumstance more of a challenge to be resourceful than anything else. Who says I need a gas oven to bake a decent cake? It’s time you meet the underrated baking power ofÂ the Microwave Oven! 😀

Now that it’s settled that we’ll be baking using the microwave oven, another dilemma has presented itself — I have no idea what to bake! So I scoured our pantry and realized I have all the basic ingredients to make a plain vanilla cake. But who wants that, right? Then I remembered we still have a kilo of mangoes, slowly rotting in the refrigerator, that my Nanay has brought us when she visited last week. Now we’re all ready to make my favorite Microwave Mango Buttercream Cake.

The first thing we need to do is the cake. We’ll be using the microwave, so our cake ingredients require some adjustment. To be honest, it’s not the best cake, texture-wise, but it can do the job if you want a quick, no-sweat dessert for lunch or dinner.

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VIP Experience at Chef’s Table in Finestra of Solaire

One might wonder why Italian food thrives in the Philippines when most of our cuisine’s influences resulted from years of colonization or inter-country trades, neither of which the Italians were ever involved. However, there’s one possible answer: Filipinos and Italians are both innately family-oriented. Cooking and eating are always a family affair, and the servings are, more often than not, geared to accommodating big families. And that was exactly what the Chef’s Table of Finestra Italian Restaurant in Solaire Resort and Casino aimed to do â€“ to submerge an intimate group into a one-of-a-kind culinary experience.

Finestra Italian Restaurant

Solaire Resort and Casino brings the authentic colors and flavors of Italy closer to home at Finestra Restaurant. Among the four world-class food establishments that are housed in Solaire, only Finestra has a breathtaking panoramic view of Manila Bay â€“ the best place to enjoy a sumptuous meal while watching the sunset.

Aside from the big smiles and courteous greetings, the bar welcomes you like an old friend, egging you on to try their imported wines and special drinks that are not available anywhere else in Manila.

But the real center of attraction in Finestra is their show kitchen, where you can see your chefs hard at work in preparing exquisite Italian dishes.

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Kimukatsu: Japan’s Favorite 25-Layered Tonkatsu

Just when we thought the katsu craze is over, Japan’s favorite 25-layered mille-feuille style tonkatsu finally arrives in Manila, giving Yabu: House of Katsu a run for their money! Kimukatsu opens their 5th international branch in the Philippines after their great success in Hawaii, California (2 branches), and South Korea.

Imagine our delight when we received an invite from Kimukatsu to try their famous tonkatsu. With our extreme love for Japanese food, how could we say no? 😀 We headed over to their Shangri-La branch for lunch and met with Kenji Komuro, Kimukatsu Philippines Director of Public Relations, who gave us a quick tour and a rundown of their menu.

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Where to Eat in Malabon : A Food Tour

Growing up in Navotas and then moving to Malabon almost a decade ago, my bro and I have always had easy access to really good food. This has shaped our lives, which is why we now have this unconditional loveÂ forÂ food and cooking.

Malabon, in particular, is known for hearty and flavorful dishes, so it’s no wonder that there are many hole-in-the-wall places here that would surprise you with their straightforwardly delicious food.

I’m sure many of you are already familiar with Dolors Kakanin (a staple in parties here), Pancit Malabon and Arny-Dading’s Peachy-Peachy. To be honest, we’ve been busy scouring the Metro for new restaurants that we haven’t finished discovering all the local and must-visit food places here in Malabon (we’ve already started since we were planning on a The Burp Society Malabon food tour).

After the successful Malabon Kulinarya Festival that we attended in 2012, we were more than glad to help out when we were contacted by Cleah (from the Office of the Mayor) about organizing a bloggers food tour in time forÂ the 400th anniversary of San Bartolome Church, one of the oldest churches here in the Philippines.

Early Sunday on Mother’s Day, we met our fellow bloggers at the city hall. Ken and I didn’t have breakfast since we knew we were going to be stuffed by the end of the tour. Well, ‘stuffed’ is an understatement. Let me just say that we all underestimated what Cleah and the participating food places had planned for us. 😀 Read on.

Update:Â We know there are many other places here in Malabon that we weren’t able to cover because we had limited time to go to all of them during the food tour.Â We’ll have a separate post to feature the rest of the ones thatÂ have been around for ages and other scrumptiousÂ dishes you can find here in Malabon. 🙂

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Celebrate the Best of Filipino Cuisine at Corniche of Diamond Hotel

There are but a few world class hotels in the Philippines that celebrate the culinary heritage of their host country. Diamond Hotel is one of those few, and they promote our rich cuisine by launching an annual Filipino Food Festival. This year, they have asked 3 of Manilaâ€™s most celebrated chefs to come aboard and showcase their prowess by reinventing all-time Pinoy favorites at The Best of Filipino Cuisine lunch and dinner buffet in Corniche RestaurantÂ from May 13â€“23, 2014.

FILIPINO CELEBRITY CHEFS + DIAMOND HOTEL EXECUTIVE CHEF

Filipino celebrity chefs Bruce Lim, Sau del Rosario and JP AngloÂ join Diamond Hotel’s Executive Chef Marko Rankel in celebrating the flavors of Filipino cuisine. We loved every twist they added to the dishes they prepared for this food festival. 🙂

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Eat Like a Viking at Vikings SM Megamall

If it’s not obvious yet, Ken and I love eat-all-you-can buffets. We’ve had our fair share of both good and mediocre buffet restaurants. As we eat our way through all of the buffet places here in the metro, our standards continue to heighten. But, really, it was all because of Vikings Luxury Buffet.

We first had dinner at their SM North Edsa branch a year ago on a weekday. We were amazed by the variety of dishes they were offering, and the best part is you can enjoy everything for only Php 688 during lunch time andÂ Php 888 for dinner and weekend/holiday lunch. There are other buffet restaurants that offer less quality selections for a higher price, so we were happy to see we’re getting much more than justÂ our money’s worth at Vikings.

Fast forward to last month, we were invited to dine in at Vikings new branch in SM Megamall, at the Mega Fashion Hall. We already loved their buffet in SM North Edsa, but this new location is pretty special. 🙂

With an abundant selection of dishes – from Filipino, Japanese and Chinese dishes, to generous servings of flavorful meats, and custom pizza and pasta – Vikings Luxury Buffet in SM Megamall will definitely satisfy your every craving. Let me start by telling you about the highlights of our lunches at their new branch at the Mega Fashion Hall – first was with family, and next was a generous invite extended to The Burp Society (post about our meet-up there soon on TBS’ blog!).

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A Luxurious Lunch at Spiral in Sofitel Manila

Our family loves eating at buffets. It all began when our Nanay finally decided that she’s too old to throw grand parties at home. We can’t blame her though. She painstakingly handles everything from planning, shopping, cooking, and even cleaning up. Since then, buffets have become our go-to place when we’re celebrating something special. We’ve tried a number of buffet places like Yakimix, CafÃ© Jeepney, Seoul Garden, 7 Corners of Crowne Plaza, F Restaurant at F1 Hotel and our recent favorite, Viking’s. But one place we’re dying to try is Spiral at Sofitel Manila. We were supposed to celebrate our nanay’s birthday at their restaurant earlier this year, but she had something else in mind.

The New Spiral

After the devastation Typhoon Pedring had caused, Spiral had to close for 13 months as it went under an $11-million renovation. They took inspiration from the Filipinos’ resilience and viewed all that has happened as a blessing in disguise. They were given a clean slate and a chance to start all over again. And as the saying goes â€” “When you’re down, there’s no way to go but up.” Boy, did Spiral soar high! The old Spiral was already great, but the new one definitely blew all competition out of the water!

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We’re Torn Over SPAM Tocino

There is no doubt we love SPAM. We’ve tried almost all of their variants available at the grocery, with the original and the one with bacon topping our list. So when we saw a post on Facebook about SPAM Tocino, we thought it was some kind of April Fools’ day joke. 😀

I didn’t take it seriously UNTIL I decided to check out SPAM’s official Facebook page and saw the post above. I did mention it to Ken and he said he saw some people saying it was based on Mexican Tocino. Still, I was curious. He LOVES tocino, and I do too. And we love SPAM, so we just had to find out how this new variant tastes like.

We learned it was available at Robinsons Supermarket. We first checked the one at Victory Mall in Monumento – nada. We finally found it after a few days at the new Robinsons Supermarket here in Malabon. Though we wanted to know if we’ll like this, it took us a few more days before we decided to give it a taste.

The SPAM itself was a li’l wet compared to the original variant, so it slid smoothly out of the can. You can also smell that the sauce that surrounds it is sweet. When I started slicing the meat, I saw that the color was slightly yellowish (as you can see in the photo below). By this time, I was already excited to fry them up to get the crisp we wanted.

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OZEN Japanese Food Haven in Malabon Serves the Best Takoyaki We’ve Ever Had!

Thereâ€™s this small Japanese hole-in-the-wall food stop near our house that we usually see jam-packed with customers at night. We really had no plans at all of trying the place, since weâ€™ve had authentic Japanese fare from topnotch restaurants and hotels in Manila (Yabang naman! 😀 ) and weâ€™re quite sure that the place will be nothing less than a disappointment. But it was until we met a fellow foodie who raved about how awesome their Takoyaki was that we finally decided to pay OZEN Japanese Food in Malabon a visit.

Our first try was a total disaster, service-wise. They had 3 groups of families that were dining in, so we had to wait over an hour to finally get our food. We ordered three sets of Takoyaki â€” two to-go and one for dining in because we wanted to take a quality photo of their Takoyaki for the blog. I didnâ€™t get my hopes up, since my first encounter with a mall-bought Takoyaki was totally unremarkable.

I picked up a piece and took a small bite. My eyes widened in amazement, and from then I knew that itâ€™s the best Takoyaki Iâ€™ve ever had my whole life! Well, I exaggerated a bit there. 😀 It took us a couple of balls to finally establish how delicious their Takoyaki was. It was so good that we came back the next day â€“ in the afternoon this time – so we didnâ€™t have to battle a crowd of patrons to get our food.

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Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Villa del Conte’s Box of Chocolates

I’m not a big fan of flowers. So, when I think of Valentine’s day, the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about the perfect romantic gift is a box of exquisite chocolates. 😉 And if you’re thinking of sending some AMORE (Italian for “love”) to your special someone this Heart’s day, here’s a sure-fire hit: a box of Villa del Conte’s chocolates.

Villa del Conte is an Italian artisanal chocolate shop well-known for their expertise in the creation of the finest cioccolato (Italian for chocolate) using handpicked cacao beans and premium quality ingredients. You might have heard of them already as they have shops all over Metro Manila. They’ve been in the art of making chocolates for 81 years, and so our expectations were high when we received this gorgeous box of their chocolates.

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