Certified Foodies

Get Your Cookie Butter Fix from Joe and Cherry

2013 is the year when a ton of tasty goodies from abroad, specifically the US, made it to the Philippines and became more accessible to us foodies here. Thanks to the number of online sellers who made it all possible. The thing is, there are just too many of them out there that first time buyers often think twice about who they should order from. Well, we’re here to help – our cookie butter fix will now be coming from Joe & Cherry. 🙂

Joe & Cherry is a partnership between two sisters – one who’s living in the US and another living here in Manila. They started their business just this March when they saw the opportunity to bring the most sought-after food products from the US to us here in the PH. They wanted to keep the prices as affordable as they can so more Pinoys can get a taste of some of the yummiest treats that are sadly not readily available here. And this all happened through their Facebook page.

If you’re wondering who Joe is, I was told they got it from Trader Joe’s. 😛

Since I badly needed to find out why there’s such a high demand for Biscoff and Speculoos cookie butter spreads, back in April, I went online to check the sellers who offer them. I browsed fellow foodies’ social media posts and blogs, including their online reviews of various online sellers here, and most of my close blogger friends were buying from Joe & Cherry.

When I checked their prices and compared with other sellers’, I was immediately convinced I should buy from them. So, before my first bottles of Biscoff cookie butter (bought from somewhere else) were depleted, I sent my order form and, just to make sure, I also sent them a message. The transaction was pretty smooth, though I had to patiently wait, just like the rest of their foodie customers.

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Biscoff vs Speculoos : The Cookie Butter Battle

Being certified foodies ;), my bro and I have always been curious. We LOVE talking about food and how much people enjoy recommending restaurants and food products we simply must try. On our spare time, we check on social media and our favorite food blogs for what other foodies’ are eating or craving for. And early this year, probably the most talked about was the cookie butter, specifically Lotus Biscoff and Trader Joe’s Speculoos.

We’ve always loved peanut butter. We buy from the market here and not the commercial ones you see at the grocery. A spoonful of peanut butter is our usual indulgence after a meal. We thought it couldn’t get better than that when it comes to simple guilty pleasures. Well, we were wrong. A rich spoonful of cookie butter makes a whole lot of difference. 😉

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Dimsum Break : Steamed Rice Craving, Satisfied!

I wrote about how excited I was that Dimsum Break is opening a branch in SM North Edsa last year, and I was desperate to finally have a taste of their Steamed Rice again after years of longing for it since I moved back here in 2009 after my 1-year stay in Cebu. Days after their opening in October 2012 (I know, this post is a year late), I dragged my nanay to their first branch at SM Annex and ordered away.

Cebu may be known for many delicious food, but I’m willing to bet that Steamed Rice is on the list of dishes that Cebuanos, or anyone who has lived or even visited Cebu, are craving for when they go anywhere else.

Dimsum Break is the self-service, fast food restaurant of Harbour City Dimsum House, one of the popular Chinese restaurants in Cebu. I’ve dined in both restaurants there and the quality of the dim sum and Steamed Fried Rice are well-kept, so I know they’d make sure to maintain the quality even here in Manila.

So, Steamed Fried Rice, or simply Steamed Rice, is like your typical rice topping dish – rice topped with a savory mix of their ‘secret’ rich sauce, peas, shrimp and pork. The sauce is what makes this rice bowl so irresistible. We’ve tried making them at home – check out Mai’s Steamed Rice recipe – but we have yet to finally uncover the formula of Dimsum Break or Harbour City’s Steamed Rice.

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Cronut #1: Croughnuts by Dolcelatte

As soon as the cronut craze hit Manila, I got so curious to find out what the hype in New York was all about that I began listing all the places that offer their own version of this popular pastry, and it eventually led to my post on where you can buy cronuts here in the Metro which now has over 10 places listed (I think I’ve updated that post 4 times this week). I planned on how we’ll finally try most of them (we’re skipping a few) and concluded that the easiest local cronuts one can get hold of are Dolcelatte‘s.

So, over 2 weeks ago, I texted Dolcelatte. It was a Wednesday night and no one was answering their hotline. I think I was calling past 7pm. 😀 My friends Badeth and Joanne (my new food trip buddies!) wanted to have a taste too, so I listed all the flavors we all wanted and sent our orders through text. Early morning of Thursday, they called me up to confirm my orders and the time of the pickup – 5pm, Saturday, at their South Triangle branch along Quezon Avenue.

It was hassle-free. No need to wait in line for hours just to be disappointed when the store or restaurant runs out of stock. No need to prepay either. The thing is, if you’re pre-ordering, you have to order a box of 6 of Dolcelatte’s version of cronuts – they call them croughnuts. They do have stock they reserve for walk-in customers at Php 110 each. Pricey, I know. We suggest you split a box with a couple of your friends since you can all pick your own flavors anyway. 😉

Fast forward to Saturday, we hurriedly left our prior meetup to head on over to Dolcelatte. We thought people would be lined up, ready to take our croughnut orders if we’re not there on time. Silly me. 😀

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Fish Ball Sauce Recipe, Just Like Manong’s

There is no doubt we Filipinos love our street food. And if you ask me about my favorite, it’ll have to be fish balls (or fishball). Nothing beats eating fishballs off a stick, piping hot after you just skewered them off a street vendor’s deep-frying pan. But THE best part of it all is dipping them into their famous fishball sauce. YUM!

I’ve always been curious about this well-loved fishball sauce recipe. I studied in UP Diliman and I’m sure many of you have heard that we love eating fishballs there from Manongs who sell them across the campus. It was where I got hooked on the sweet sauce, and I then moved on to the spicy version. I noticed something. It seemed to me that wherever I go, even outside the campus, the taste of the fishball sauce of every Manong fishball vendor (yes, I call all of them manong) I met had the same taste. I wondered, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!? 😀

Over the past decade or so (ugh, I’m old), I’ve asked different vendors about their sauce. Most of them took wild guesses. There were a couple who refused to tell me anything, which, to me, was an indication they really had no idea, and some were so convinced they had the right recipe.

Of course, I tried to make them at home and failed three times (twice, I was adding vinegar). It was only in late 2004 that I learned the right recipe. The manong who sold fishballs at our home in Navotas told me about his fish ball sauce recipe. The thing is, I didn’t get to making it til a year later. It was too late for me to thank him because we already moved to Malabon, but I’m forever thankful. Charot! 😀 Continue reading Fish Ball Sauce Recipe, Just Like Manong’s

Van Gogh is Bipolar : A Must-Visit in Manila

This is part 2 of our blog post on Certified Foodies about Van Gogh is Bipolar, an extraordinary restaurant located at Maginhawa Street in Quezon City. If you’re visiting Manila, or you live here in the Metro and you want to bring your friends to a new restaurant, this is a must-visit.

Since I took a ton of photos at the place and some of them are not GP enough to be posted on our food blog 😀 (you’ll find out later), I decided to post them all here.

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A Mesmerizing Dinner at Van Gogh is Bipolar with The Burp Society

Ever since we started this blog, we’ve had this insatiable thirst for a one-of-a-kind dining experience. I can count with one hand the number of restaurants that left me speechless, but they’re mostly just because of the flavors and the food. None of them had a significant effect on me both gastronomically and emotionally. I’ve never had that experience yet.Â Not until last June during The Burp Society‘s dinner meetup at Van Gogh is Bipolar by Jetro Rafael. I left that night with my heart filled with glee. 🙂

You most probably have heard of this place. The owner, Jetro, is an artist and has long been struggling with bipolar disorder. He discovered that changing his diet may play a big role in his healing. He cooked dishes with ingredients that made him happy, or at least improved his mood. It was his friends who encouraged him to share his mood-altering diet – he calls it the “Cuckoo Diet” – by opening up his own restaurant at Maginhawa Street. Here, he wants to continue celebrating his imperfections and embracing his flaws… something we should all learn to do. 🙂

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Moonleaf Tea Shop and Sweet Studio

Who would’ve thought that Filipinos, young and old, would become as addicted to tea as we are now? Credits to the introduction of milk teas to our Pinoy tastebuds, we started to appreciate the wondrous flavors of various teas. We were no longer limited to tea bags as we began to venture out to other tea variants and blends. And if you’re a fan of milk teas, I’m sure you’ve heard about Moonleaf Tea Shop.

I have to admit, I’ve been loyal to one milk tea shop for the longest time. Ken and I have tried other milk tea shops and we see ourselves returning to that familiar place all the time. So it was definitely about time I found Moonleaf.

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Where to Buy Cronuts in Manila

If there’s one thing we love about the widespread use of social media in the country today, it’s got to be how the hottest, latest and yummiest trends from all over the world quickly become all the craze here in the Philippines. The most recent fad has to do with the sweet, flaky goodness of Cronutsâ„¢. And if you’re yearning to know where to buy cronuts here in the Philippines, read on.

Photo from Dominique Ansel Bakery

If you haven’t heard of these delightful pastries yet (have you been living under a rock? :D), Cronuts are made with a special laminated dough closely similar to croissant dough, and fried like donuts (originally in grapeseed oil), filled in with cream, then rolled in sugar and glazed or topped with frosting. The original cronut is a creation of Chef Dominique Ansel who owns a bakery in New York and if you check their website, his cronut recipe requires a more complex method, which is why it took him 2 months and 10 tries to finally perfect the recipe that will enable him to fry the laminated / croissant dough without it breaking apart.

Photo from Crains New York

Since he launched the cronuts in May this year, everyone seemed to be clamoring for a taste and this quickly spread all over the world (with people lining up for hours and some even paying as much as $100 for one cronut), and has finally reached the Philippines last month through Wildflour Cafe + Bakery. Thankfully, I haven’t seen anyone who’s too obsessed with these pastries yet here in Manila.

I first heard about the cronuts when I saw all the tweets about it on my work Twitter account (I have social media clients based in NYC). I asked Ken if he can make them at home. He said it’s not an easy task to make such an intricate pastry. But, he said he’ll try to make his own version at home. We’ll see. 😉

Anyway, between the two of us, Ken’s the only one who has tried Wildflour’s cronut. He loved it, but he’s not as enamored as everyone seems to be. Still, he said, there’s no doubt it’s a beautiful creation, which is why I cannot wait to have a taste. We’re now on a quest to find out which cronuts are the best, so I listed down all the restaurants and pastry shops here in the Philippines that are serving these croissant-doughnut hybrids. If you know of other places we haven’t added yet, let us know. 🙂

Where to Buy Cronuts in Metro Manila

Note: The photos in this post are not ours. See the photo credit links at the bottom of each photo. Those without labels were taken from the resto/store’s Facebook pages.

UPDATE: So far, we’ve tried the cronut versions of Dolcelatte and Le Coeur de France. We’ll post our reviews of them soon.

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Red Sinigang with Del Monte Tomato Sauce

If there’s one Filipino dish I can bear to eat daily, it’ll have to be Sinigang. Our nanay has tried a variety of Sinigang – with seafood, pork or even chicken and beef (yes, she has tried all sorts of proteins with this dish). She has always cooked it the traditional way, but she was excited and welcomed the idea of adding a tasty twist to a classic dish – Sinigang with Del Monte Tomato Sauce.

Sinigang is a savory sour soup that we Filipinos love. The acidity may come from green mangoes, guava and, more widely used, tamarind (sampaloc). Pork, bangus or shrimps are the usual main ingredients, along with vegetables like kangkong (water spinach), okra, chili (siling haba/pang-sinigang), and onions. Our nanay also add slices of tomatoes to it, but we both haven’t encountered or tasted this dish with actual tomato sauce.

That’s until we found out about Del Monte’s Red Movement where they take classic Filipino dishes and add their famous, Filipino favorite tomato sauce into the mix. Some combinations may sound weird, but knowing the brand and the recipes they share through Del Monte Kitchenomics, we know they wouldn’t just come up with concoctions like the Red Bulalo or Red Pesang Bangus without actually testing and proving that adding tomato sauce to these dishes actually works. If you want the recipes for these other dishes, visit www.delmonte.ph.

If you’re aching to know how our nanay made her Del Monte Red Sinigang, read on.

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